Auda Abu Tayeh
Auda Abu Tayeh (d. 1924). Bedouin tribal leader and warrior.
Many consider Auda Abu Tayeh the real hero of the Arab revolt of World War I. T. E. Lawrence (“Lawrence of Arabia”) described him as the “greatest fighting man in northern Arabia.”
Auda could trace his roots back through many generations of great desert Howeitat warriors of the Arabian peninsula. He epitomized everything noble, powerful and proud about the Bedouin.
Lawrence wrote of Auda, “he saw life as a saga, all the events in it were significant: all personages in contact with him heroic, his mind was stored with poems of old raids and epic tales of fights.”
As was customary in the desert, Auda was known for his sweeping hospitality and generosity that “kept him always poor, despite the profits of a hundred raids.”
He married 28 times and was wounded more than a dozen times in action. Legend had it that he had killed 75 Arabs by his own hand. Auda did not even bother to keep count of the Turks.
In battle, Auda became a wild beast assuaged only after he had killed. He was hot headed but always kept a smile on his face. Despite his fierce reputation, he was described as modest, direct, honest, kind-hearted and warmly-loved.
Auda lived in the desert near the Hejaz Railway. He preferred the isolation – and isolation came when he killed one too many debt collectors from Constantinople and the Turks put a price on his head. These desert landscapes were the precise areas Faisal and Lawrence needed to operate in order to avoid close attention from the Turks.
“Only by means of Auda abu Tayi” wrote Lawrence, “could we swing the tribes from Maan to Aqaba so violently in our favour that they would help us take Aqaba and its hills from their Turkish garrisons.”
Auda’s tribesmen were reputedly the finest fighters in the desert which is why his support and assistance was vital to the Arab Revolt. With the incentives of kicking the Turks out of Arabia – and the lure of gold and booty – Auda joined the Revolt.
He was repeatedly approached by the Turks with further financial inducements if he would switch to their side, but he refused to go back on his word. He was an Arab patriot and he rode with Lawrence, proving instrumental in the capture of Aqaba.
The great warrior was by Lawrence’s side when they entered Damascus. The crowds, yelling, dancing and firing volleys into the air, cheered Auda and Lawrence, covering them in flowers and kisses.
After the war, Auda returned to his home town of el-Jefer to build himself a great kasr (palace) of mud-brick using Turkish prisoner-labor.
His golden years were short, years of hard riding and fighting finally caught up with Auda, who died in 1924.
Tayeh, Auda Abu see Auda Abu Tayeh
“greatest fighting man in northern Arabia” see Auda Abu Tayeh
Auda abu Tayi see Auda Abu Tayeh
Tayi, Auda abu see Auda Abu Tayeh
Auda Abu Tayeh (d. 1924). Bedouin tribal leader and warrior.
Many consider Auda Abu Tayeh the real hero of the Arab revolt of World War I. T. E. Lawrence (“Lawrence of Arabia”) described him as the “greatest fighting man in northern Arabia.”
Auda could trace his roots back through many generations of great desert Howeitat warriors of the Arabian peninsula. He epitomized everything noble, powerful and proud about the Bedouin.
Lawrence wrote of Auda, “he saw life as a saga, all the events in it were significant: all personages in contact with him heroic, his mind was stored with poems of old raids and epic tales of fights.”
As was customary in the desert, Auda was known for his sweeping hospitality and generosity that “kept him always poor, despite the profits of a hundred raids.”
He married 28 times and was wounded more than a dozen times in action. Legend had it that he had killed 75 Arabs by his own hand. Auda did not even bother to keep count of the Turks.
In battle, Auda became a wild beast assuaged only after he had killed. He was hot headed but always kept a smile on his face. Despite his fierce reputation, he was described as modest, direct, honest, kind-hearted and warmly-loved.
Auda lived in the desert near the Hejaz Railway. He preferred the isolation – and isolation came when he killed one too many debt collectors from Constantinople and the Turks put a price on his head. These desert landscapes were the precise areas Faisal and Lawrence needed to operate in order to avoid close attention from the Turks.
“Only by means of Auda abu Tayi” wrote Lawrence, “could we swing the tribes from Maan to Aqaba so violently in our favour that they would help us take Aqaba and its hills from their Turkish garrisons.”
Auda’s tribesmen were reputedly the finest fighters in the desert which is why his support and assistance was vital to the Arab Revolt. With the incentives of kicking the Turks out of Arabia – and the lure of gold and booty – Auda joined the Revolt.
He was repeatedly approached by the Turks with further financial inducements if he would switch to their side, but he refused to go back on his word. He was an Arab patriot and he rode with Lawrence, proving instrumental in the capture of Aqaba.
The great warrior was by Lawrence’s side when they entered Damascus. The crowds, yelling, dancing and firing volleys into the air, cheered Auda and Lawrence, covering them in flowers and kisses.
After the war, Auda returned to his home town of el-Jefer to build himself a great kasr (palace) of mud-brick using Turkish prisoner-labor.
His golden years were short, years of hard riding and fighting finally caught up with Auda, who died in 1924.
Tayeh, Auda Abu see Auda Abu Tayeh
“greatest fighting man in northern Arabia” see Auda Abu Tayeh
Auda abu Tayi see Auda Abu Tayeh
Tayi, Auda abu see Auda Abu Tayeh
Aurangzeb
Aurangzeb. See Aurangzib.
Aurangzeb. See Aurangzib.
Aurangzib (Aurangzeb) (Muhi ud-din Muhammad Aurangzeb Bahadur Alamgir I) (Al-Sultan al-Azam wal Khaqan al-Mukarram Abul Muzaffar Muhi ud-din Muhammad Aurangzeb Bahadur Alamgir I, Padshah Ghazi) (b. November 3, 1618, Dahod, Mughal Empire [present day Gujarat, India] – d. March 3, 1707, Ahmednagar, Mughal Empire [present day Maharashtra, India]). The last of the great Mughal emperors of India (r. 1658-1707). During his reign, the Mughal Empire reached its widest extent but also began its descent. Towards the end, the Empire was in shambles, ruined by a series of wars (many of which were of Aurangzib’s own making).
Aurangzib, also known by his chosen imperial title Alamgir I (Conqueror of the Universe), was the 6th Mughal Emperor whose reign lasted from 1658 until his death in 1707. Aurangzib's reign as the Mughal monarch was marked by years of wars of expansion and a series of rebellions by his non-Muslim subjects.
Aurangzib (Aurangzeb) was the third son of Shah Jahan. His mother was Shah Jahan’s principal wife, Mumtaz Mahal. He was originally named Muhi-ud-Din Muhammad, but was given the name Aurangzib (“Ornament of the Throne”) while still a prince.
His first responsible assignment under his father as emperor came with his appointment to the viceroyalty of the Deccan (1636-1644). He was subsequently governor of Gujarat (1645-1647) and of Multan (1648-1652). He led two expeditions against Kandahar (1649 and 1652), but was unsuccessful. In 1652, he was reappointed viceroy of the Deccan. He reorganized the revenue administration of the Deccan with the assistance of Murshid Quli Khan and led successful expeditions against Golconda (in 1656) and Bijapur (in 1657).
When his father was incapacitated by illness in 1657, Aurangzib and his brothers began a deadly struggle for the succession. First, Aurangzib seized the opportunity offered by the sudden illness of Shah Jahan to unite with his younger brother Murad Bakhsh and overthrow the imperial forces at Dharmatpur (in April 1658). The civil war continued for some time, but the ultimate result was that Shah Jahan (d. 1666) became his prisoner; Dara Shikoh was captured and executed (in August 1659); his other elder brother Shuja driven to exile and death in Araccan (1660-1661); and Murad Bakhsh imprisoned (in 1658) and executed (in 1661).
Aurangzib prevailed and ascended to the throne in June 1659, adopting the title Alamgir (“Conqueror of the World”). He began his reign by organizing a vigorous campaign in the Deccan against Bijapur and the Marathas under Shaista Khan (1660-1661) and against Cooch Bihar and Assam under Mir Jumla (1661-1663). These campaigns were not as successful as expected; and in the Deccan the Mughals received a great setback when Shivaji overran Shaista Khan’s camp at Pune in 1663 and plundered Surat in 1664. A large army under Jai Singh forced Shivaji to accept the treaty of Purandhar (1665), but the subsequent campaign against Bijapur proved a failure (1665-1666). This lack of success was compounded by Shivaji’s flight from Agra (1666) and his renewal of war with a second sack of Surat (1670). This period was also one of considerable agrarian distress, marked by scarcities and high prices, which continued until 1670. Aurangzib issued two important firmans (farmans) containing detailed regulations to protect peasants against excessive revenue demand and to encourage them to extend cultivation. Whether these had any practical effect is debatable. The agrarian “crisis” might have been one factor behind uprisings such as those of the Jats in 1669 and the Satnamis in 1672. The Afghan tribes revolted from 1672 to 1675, necessitating Aurangzib’s own stay at Hasan Abdal from 1674 to 1675.
These difficulties probably explain Aurangzib’s recourse to a more orthodox religious policy than his predecessors as a possible means of gathering firmer Muslim support. He doubled customs duties on non-Muslims (1665), sanctioned temple destruction (1669), and imposed the poll tax (jizya) on non-Muslims (1679). These measures were not without qualifications. Many great ancient temples were allowed to stand; many areas, and the Rajputs and Hindu officers, were exempted from the jizya. The Rajput and Maratha component in the nobility was not directly affected by the new policy. The Rajput revolt of 1679 to 1681 involved the Marwar and Mewar principalities, and the latter returned to its allegiance in 1681. But the revolt was complicated when Aurangzib’s son Akbar joined it (in 1681). As the revolt died out, Akbar fled to Shambhuji in Maharasta, and this compelled Aurangzib in 1682 to march to the Deccan, never to return to the North.
Aurangzib initiated vigorous campaigns against the Deccan powers. Bijapur was annexed in 1686, and Golconda in 1687. Shambhuji was captured and executed in 1689. He also extracted a tribute from Tanjore (now Thanjavur) and Trichinopoly (now Tiruchchirappalli) in 1691.
A four year campaign (1691-1695) by Asad Khan and Zulfiqar Khan resulted in the occupation of all of South India, with the exception of Kerala. But Maratha power was revived in its homeland, and Aurangzib’s armies proved unable to contain the Maratha sardars (chiefs). Aurangzib himself besieged and took fort after fort while large parts of the Deccan were sacked by the Marathas. During a great famine in the Deccan from 1702 to 1704, more than two million people perished, according to a contemporary estimate. Aurangzib was compelled to open the ranks of the Mughal nobility so as to win over opponents, and this brought about a crisis in jagirs, which was also a reflection of the financial strains caused by war on the Mughal administration. In spite of revolts such as those of the Jats and Sikhs, North India by and large remained peaceful.
Aurangzib died in February 1707, and lies buried in a simple grave at Khuldabad, near Aurangabad. Unlike his three predecessors, Aurangzib was not a great builder nor a great patron of the arts. His interests lay elsewhere. He patronized the compilation of a great collection of rules of Muslim law, the Fatawa-i Alamgiri, and liberalized awards of land grants to theologians. He was not, however, a blind fanatic, and tried to maintain the administrative machinery of the empire in as efficient a shape as he had found it. He had few personal vices, and remained dedicated to his work until his death. His death was followed by a war of succession among his sons Mu’azzam (Bahadur Shah), Azam, and Kam Bakhsh; and although Mu’azzam was successful (1709), the empire was badly shaken by the war. Aurangzib’s failure to resolve the Maratha question also left alive a threat to the empire that would only grow with time.
From a contemporary perspective, Aurangzib is perceived to have been a shrewd military leader and a brilliant ruler, with an administrative talent matched by cunning statesmanship. A devote Muslim, Aurangzib unwisely abandoned the religious tolerance of his Mughal predecessors and ruled the Hindu majority by ruthless force that earned him their universal hatred. Aurangzib also won the enmity of the Sikhs when he executed their ninth guru, Tegh Bahadur (1621-1675). Nevertheless, when Aurangzib died, on an expedition against the Marathas, he left a vast empire, albeit an internally weakened one that would not long endure.
Today, Aurangzib is usually perceived as being the complete opposite in temperament to his great grandfather, Akbar. If Akbar’s reign was characterized by the word “tolerance”, then Aurangzib’s was summed up by the word “persecution.”
Aurangzib observed the precepts of Islam faithfully. He lived in the palace almost as if he were an ascetic and, like his great grandfather, turned to a largely vegetarian diet. A strict legalist, Aurangzib could not condone the “idolatry” of his Hindu subjects. Ironically, his fanatical dedication to Islam did more to hamper the spread of Islam than did Akbar’s alleged apostasy.
Under Aurangzib, Hindu Indians once again resisted their foreign rulers. Within Aurangzib’s Islam, bitterness developed between those who were doggedly determined to follow the militaristic rules of the Qur’an and those inclined to the spreading of faith in Allah by example and preaching. Aurangzib’s reign marked the beginning of the end for the Mughal empire. His narrow vision of justice and his grim determination to unite his subjects by force finally shattered the fragile foundations of peaceful cooperation which Akbar had sought to establish.
Aurangzeb see Aurangzib
Muhi-ud-Din Muhammad Aurangzeb Bahadur Alamgir I see Aurangzib
Muhammad, Muhi-ud-Din see Aurangzib
“Ornament of the Throne” see Aurangzib
Alamgir see Aurangzib
“Conqueror of the World” see Aurangzib
Aussaresses, Paul
Paul Aussaresses (November 7, 1918 – December 4, 2013) was a French Army general, who fought during World War II, the First Indochina War and Algerian War. His actions during the Algerian War, and later defense of those actions, caused considerable controversy.
Aussaresses was a career Army intelligence officer with an excellent military record when he joined the Free French Forces in North Africa during the Second World War. In 1947, he was given command of the 11th Shock Battalion, a commando unit that was part of France's former external intelligence agency, the External Documentation and Counter-Espionage Service, the SDECE (replaced by the Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure (DGSE)).
Aussaresses provoked controversy in 2000, when in an interview with the French newspaper Le Monde, he admitted and defended the use of torture during the Algerian war. He repeated the defense in an interview with CBS's 60 Minutes, further arguing that torture ought to be used in the fight against Al-Qaeda, and again defended his use of torture during the Algerian War in a 2001 book, The Battle of the Casbah. In the aftermath of the controversy, he was stripped of his rank, the right to wear his army uniform and his Légion d'Honneur. Aussaresses remained defiant, he dismissed the latter act as hypocritical.
Aussaresses, recognizable by his eye patch, lost his left eye due to a botched cataract operation, not combat.
Aussaresses was born on November 7, 1918, just four days before the end of World War I, in Saint-Paul-Cap-de-Joux, Tarn department, in Languedoc. His father, Paul Aussaresses senior, was serving in the French military at the time of his son's birth because of the war.
In 1941, Aussaresses served a year as an officer cadet in Cherchell, Algeria. The next year, in 1942, he volunteered for the special services unit in France. He was a member of a Jedburgh team and a member of Team CHRYSLER which parachuted into France behind the German lines in August 1944. The Jedburghs worked clandestinely behind enemy lines to harness the local resistance and coordinate their activities with the wishes of the Allied Commanders. CHRYSLER deployed from Algeria via an American aircraft to work with the local French Resistance in Ariège. On September 1, 1946 he joined the 11th Choc Battalion and commanded the battalion from 1947 until 1948, when he was replaced by Yves Godard. Later, he served in the First Indochina War with the 1st Parachute Chasseur Regiment.
In 1955, he was transferred to Philippeville, Algeria, to be part of the 41st Parachute Demi-Brigade as an intelligence officer. He restarted his demi-brigade's intelligence unit, which had been disbanded during peacetime but was deemed necessary by the French Army who wanted to quell the insurgency of the 'Algerian rebels'. On August 20, 1955, the FLN (Algerian National Liberation Front) staged an attack against the police of Philippeville. Aussaresses states that he had information about this attack well beforehand and therefore he was able to prevent much of the possible bloodshed. The members of the FLN had also forced many of the men, women and children of the countryside to march in front of them, without weapons, as human shields. Aussaresses reports that his battalion killed 134 of these men, women and children, and that hundreds more had been wounded. He reports that two men from his own side also died, and that around one hundred others had been wounded.
In the spring of 1956, Aussaresses attended a top-secret training camp in Salisbury, England for a one-month training to prepare for the battle at Suez Canal. He returned to Bône, Algeria in May 1956 to continue exercises with paratroopers on their way to the Suez Canal. On June 1, 1956, he received a spinal fracture from a parachuting exercise, which prevented him from participating in the Suez operation.
General Jacques Massu, who had noted Aussaresses' work against the insurrections in Philippeville, ordered Aussaresses to work under him in Algiers as an agent to control the FLN in Algiers. Aussaresses reported for duty in Algiers on January 8, 1957. He was the main executioner and intelligence collector under Jacques Massu during the Battle of Algiers. On January 28, he broke a city-wide strike organized by the FLN using repressive measures. Soldiers forcibly dragged all public utilities workers to their jobs. Store fronts were torn open so that the owners had to open the store for fear of being looted. Later in 1957, he ordered his men to hang Larbi Ben M'Hidi, an important member of the FLN, as if he had committed suicide. In a separate incident he ordered that an officer throw Ali Boumendjel, an influential Algerian attorney, from the 6th floor of the building he was held prisoner in, claiming that Boumendjel had committed suicide. France decreed that both deaths were suicides, but Aussaresses admitted both assassinations in 2000.
Aussaresses contends, in his book, that the French government insisted that the military in Algeria "liquidate the FLN as quickly as possible". Subsequently, historians debated whether or not this repression was government-backed or not. The French government has always claimed that it was not, but Aussaresses argues that the government insisted upon the harsh measures he took against Algerians - measures which included summary executions of thousands of people, hours of torture of prisoners, and violent strike-breaking.
Aussaresses was quite candid in his interview in Le Monde forty years later (May 3, 2001):
In an interview to Marie-Monique Robin, Aussaresses described the methods used, including the creation of death squads (escadrons de la mort), the term being created at this time.
Following Aussaresses' revelations, which suggested that torture had been ordered by the highest levels of the French state hierarchy, Human Rights Watch sent a letter to President Jacques Chirac (RPR) to indict Aussaresses for war crimes, declaring that, despite past amnesties, such crimes, which may also have been crimes against humanity, may not be amnestied. The Ligue des droits de l'homme (LDH, Human Rights League) filed a complaint against him for "apology of war crimes," as Paul Aussaresses justified the use of torture, claiming it had saved lives following the Necessity Defense [AKA: Choice of Evils] and/or the Self-Defense (although he did not explicitly use this expression). He was fined 7,500 Euros by the Tribunal de grande instance court of Paris, while Plon and Perrin, two editing houses who had published his book in which he defended the use of torture, were sentenced each to a 15,000 Euros fine. The judgment was confirmed by the Court of Appeal in April 2003. The Court of Cassation rejected the intercession in December 2004. The Court of Cassation declared in its judgment that "freedom to inform, which is the basis of freedom of expression" does not lead to "accompany the exposure of facts ... with commentaries justifying acts contrary to human dignity and universally reproved," "nor to glorify its author." Aussaresses had written in his book: "torture became necessary when emergency imposed itself."
Aussaresses had a successful military career after the war. Unlike many of his fellow officers, he did not choose to join the OAS militant group to continue the fight in Algeria after the French military began to withdraw their forces. In 1961, he was appointed as a military attaché of the French diplomatic mission in the United States, alongside ten veterans of the Algerian War formerly under his charge. In the United States, he also served at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, alongside the 10th Special Forces Group, a military unit that specialized in tactics of unconventional warfare. There he taught the "lessons" of the Battle of Algiers", which allegedly included counter-insurgency tactics, interrogation, and torture. According to Aussauresses, he specifically taught lessons from Colonel Trinquier's book on "subversive warfare" (Aussaresses had served under Trinquier in Algeria). The Americans' Vietnam era Phoenix Program was inspired by these American students of Aussaresses, after they had sent a copy of Trinquier's book to CIA agent Robert Komer.
Aussaresses relocated to Brazil in 1973 during the military dictatorship, where he maintained very close links with the military. According to General Manuel Contreras, former head of the Chilean DINA, Chilean officers trained in Brazil under Aussaresses' orders and advised the South American juntas on counter-insurrection warfare and the use of torture that was widely used against leftist opponents to the military regimes in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile and Paraguay.
The character of Julien Boisfeuras in the novels The Centurions and The Praetorians by Jean Larteguy was according to Larteguy not based on anyone, but many believe that he was at least partially inspired by Aussaresses and Roger Trinquier.
Paul Aussaresses (November 7, 1918 – December 4, 2013) was a French Army general, who fought during World War II, the First Indochina War and Algerian War. His actions during the Algerian War, and later defense of those actions, caused considerable controversy.
Aussaresses was a career Army intelligence officer with an excellent military record when he joined the Free French Forces in North Africa during the Second World War. In 1947, he was given command of the 11th Shock Battalion, a commando unit that was part of France's former external intelligence agency, the External Documentation and Counter-Espionage Service, the SDECE (replaced by the Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure (DGSE)).
Aussaresses provoked controversy in 2000, when in an interview with the French newspaper Le Monde, he admitted and defended the use of torture during the Algerian war. He repeated the defense in an interview with CBS's 60 Minutes, further arguing that torture ought to be used in the fight against Al-Qaeda, and again defended his use of torture during the Algerian War in a 2001 book, The Battle of the Casbah. In the aftermath of the controversy, he was stripped of his rank, the right to wear his army uniform and his Légion d'Honneur. Aussaresses remained defiant, he dismissed the latter act as hypocritical.
Aussaresses, recognizable by his eye patch, lost his left eye due to a botched cataract operation, not combat.
Aussaresses was born on November 7, 1918, just four days before the end of World War I, in Saint-Paul-Cap-de-Joux, Tarn department, in Languedoc. His father, Paul Aussaresses senior, was serving in the French military at the time of his son's birth because of the war.
In 1941, Aussaresses served a year as an officer cadet in Cherchell, Algeria. The next year, in 1942, he volunteered for the special services unit in France. He was a member of a Jedburgh team and a member of Team CHRYSLER which parachuted into France behind the German lines in August 1944. The Jedburghs worked clandestinely behind enemy lines to harness the local resistance and coordinate their activities with the wishes of the Allied Commanders. CHRYSLER deployed from Algeria via an American aircraft to work with the local French Resistance in Ariège. On September 1, 1946 he joined the 11th Choc Battalion and commanded the battalion from 1947 until 1948, when he was replaced by Yves Godard. Later, he served in the First Indochina War with the 1st Parachute Chasseur Regiment.
In 1955, he was transferred to Philippeville, Algeria, to be part of the 41st Parachute Demi-Brigade as an intelligence officer. He restarted his demi-brigade's intelligence unit, which had been disbanded during peacetime but was deemed necessary by the French Army who wanted to quell the insurgency of the 'Algerian rebels'. On August 20, 1955, the FLN (Algerian National Liberation Front) staged an attack against the police of Philippeville. Aussaresses states that he had information about this attack well beforehand and therefore he was able to prevent much of the possible bloodshed. The members of the FLN had also forced many of the men, women and children of the countryside to march in front of them, without weapons, as human shields. Aussaresses reports that his battalion killed 134 of these men, women and children, and that hundreds more had been wounded. He reports that two men from his own side also died, and that around one hundred others had been wounded.
In the spring of 1956, Aussaresses attended a top-secret training camp in Salisbury, England for a one-month training to prepare for the battle at Suez Canal. He returned to Bône, Algeria in May 1956 to continue exercises with paratroopers on their way to the Suez Canal. On June 1, 1956, he received a spinal fracture from a parachuting exercise, which prevented him from participating in the Suez operation.
General Jacques Massu, who had noted Aussaresses' work against the insurrections in Philippeville, ordered Aussaresses to work under him in Algiers as an agent to control the FLN in Algiers. Aussaresses reported for duty in Algiers on January 8, 1957. He was the main executioner and intelligence collector under Jacques Massu during the Battle of Algiers. On January 28, he broke a city-wide strike organized by the FLN using repressive measures. Soldiers forcibly dragged all public utilities workers to their jobs. Store fronts were torn open so that the owners had to open the store for fear of being looted. Later in 1957, he ordered his men to hang Larbi Ben M'Hidi, an important member of the FLN, as if he had committed suicide. In a separate incident he ordered that an officer throw Ali Boumendjel, an influential Algerian attorney, from the 6th floor of the building he was held prisoner in, claiming that Boumendjel had committed suicide. France decreed that both deaths were suicides, but Aussaresses admitted both assassinations in 2000.
Aussaresses contends, in his book, that the French government insisted that the military in Algeria "liquidate the FLN as quickly as possible". Subsequently, historians debated whether or not this repression was government-backed or not. The French government has always claimed that it was not, but Aussaresses argues that the government insisted upon the harsh measures he took against Algerians - measures which included summary executions of thousands of people, hours of torture of prisoners, and violent strike-breaking.
Aussaresses was quite candid in his interview in Le Monde forty years later (May 3, 2001):
"Concerning the use of torture, it was tolerated, if not recommended. François Mitterrand, the Minister for Justice, had, indeed, an emissary with Massu in judge Jean Bérard, who covered for us and who had complete knowledge of what went on in the night."Aussaresses justified the use of torture by saying how shocked he was by the FLN's massacre at the El Halia mine. He suggested that torture was a small but necessary evil that had to be used to defeat a much larger evil of terrorism. Aussaresses also claimed that he used these methods because it was a quick way to obtain information. He also defended its use by saying that the legal system was meant to deal with a peacetime France, not a counter insurgency war that the French army was faced with in Algeria.
In an interview to Marie-Monique Robin, Aussaresses described the methods used, including the creation of death squads (escadrons de la mort), the term being created at this time.
Following Aussaresses' revelations, which suggested that torture had been ordered by the highest levels of the French state hierarchy, Human Rights Watch sent a letter to President Jacques Chirac (RPR) to indict Aussaresses for war crimes, declaring that, despite past amnesties, such crimes, which may also have been crimes against humanity, may not be amnestied. The Ligue des droits de l'homme (LDH, Human Rights League) filed a complaint against him for "apology of war crimes," as Paul Aussaresses justified the use of torture, claiming it had saved lives following the Necessity Defense [AKA: Choice of Evils] and/or the Self-Defense (although he did not explicitly use this expression). He was fined 7,500 Euros by the Tribunal de grande instance court of Paris, while Plon and Perrin, two editing houses who had published his book in which he defended the use of torture, were sentenced each to a 15,000 Euros fine. The judgment was confirmed by the Court of Appeal in April 2003. The Court of Cassation rejected the intercession in December 2004. The Court of Cassation declared in its judgment that "freedom to inform, which is the basis of freedom of expression" does not lead to "accompany the exposure of facts ... with commentaries justifying acts contrary to human dignity and universally reproved," "nor to glorify its author." Aussaresses had written in his book: "torture became necessary when emergency imposed itself."
Aussaresses had a successful military career after the war. Unlike many of his fellow officers, he did not choose to join the OAS militant group to continue the fight in Algeria after the French military began to withdraw their forces. In 1961, he was appointed as a military attaché of the French diplomatic mission in the United States, alongside ten veterans of the Algerian War formerly under his charge. In the United States, he also served at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, alongside the 10th Special Forces Group, a military unit that specialized in tactics of unconventional warfare. There he taught the "lessons" of the Battle of Algiers", which allegedly included counter-insurgency tactics, interrogation, and torture. According to Aussauresses, he specifically taught lessons from Colonel Trinquier's book on "subversive warfare" (Aussaresses had served under Trinquier in Algeria). The Americans' Vietnam era Phoenix Program was inspired by these American students of Aussaresses, after they had sent a copy of Trinquier's book to CIA agent Robert Komer.
Aussaresses relocated to Brazil in 1973 during the military dictatorship, where he maintained very close links with the military. According to General Manuel Contreras, former head of the Chilean DINA, Chilean officers trained in Brazil under Aussaresses' orders and advised the South American juntas on counter-insurrection warfare and the use of torture that was widely used against leftist opponents to the military regimes in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile and Paraguay.
The character of Julien Boisfeuras in the novels The Centurions and The Praetorians by Jean Larteguy was according to Larteguy not based on anyone, but many believe that he was at least partially inspired by Aussaresses and Roger Trinquier.
Avars
Avars. Ibero-Caucasian people inhabiting the mountainous part of Dagestan and the northern part of Azerbaijan.
The Eurasian Avars, sometimes referred to as the European Avars, or Ancient Avars, were a highly organized and powerful confederation of a mixed ethnic background, thought to be closely related to Bulgars, Khazars and other Oghur Turkic peoples of the time. They were ruled by a khagan, who was surrounded by a tight-knit retinue of nomad warriors, an organization characteristic of Turkic groups. They first appeared in the late 4th century as the Rouran on the northern borders of China, where they maintained their power for two centuries. They appeared in Central and Eastern Europe in the 6th century, where Avar rule persisted over much of the Pannonian Plain up to the early 9th century.They are also found in north India as ahirs.
The origin of the European Avars is unclear. Information about origins is derived primarily from the works of Byzantine historians Menander Protector and Theophylact Simocatta. The confusion is compounded by the fact that many clans carried a particular name because they believed it to be prestigious, or it was attributed to them by outsiders describing their common characteristics, believed place of origin or reputation. Such a case has been seen repeatedly for many nomadic confederacies.
The ethnic Avars formed in central Asia in the classical age through a fusion of several tribal elements. Turkic Oghurs migrated to the Kazakh steppe, possibly moving south to inhabit the lands vacated by the Huns. Here they interacted with a body of Indo-European-speaking Iranians, forming the Xionites (Hunas). Sometime during the 460s, they were subordinated by the Mongolic Rouran. The Rouran imposed their own rulers, referred to as Uar, at the head of the confederacy. Being a highly cultured people, the Oghurs rose to prominence within the tribal confederacy.
Early in the sixth century, the confederacy was conquered by the Göktürk empire (the Göktürks were previously yet another vassal tribal element under Rouran supremacy). The Göktürks enslaved the Oghur tribe, which was one of the most powerful, and was accomplished in the art of war. One body of people, perhaps wishing to evade Göktürk rule, escaped and migrated to the northern Caucasus region c. 555 C.C. Their new neighbors believed them to be the true Avars. They established diplomatic contact with the Byzantines, and the other nomadic tribes of the steppes lavished them with gifts. However, the Göktürks later persuaded the Byzantines that these nomads were not the real Avars, but were instead a group of "fugitive Scythians" who had fled from the Göktürks and stolen the prestigious name of Avar. Hence they have subsequently been called pseudo-Avars.
If the Avars were ever a distinct ethnic group, that distinction does not seem to have survived their centuries in Europe. Being an "Avar" seems to have meant being part of the Avar state (in a similar way that being "Roman" ceased to have any ethnic meaning). What is certain, by the time they arrived in Europe, the Avars were a heterogeneous, polyethnic people. Modern research shows that each of the large confederations of steppe warriors (such as the Scythians, Xiongnu, Huns, Bulgars, Avars, Khazars, Cumans, Mongols, etc.) were not ethnically homogeneous, but rather unions of multiple ethnicities.
Whatever the origin of the initial group of nomadic warriors, the Avars rapidly intermixed with the Slavic population on the lower Danube basin and Pannonian Plain Slavic was likely used as a lingua franca within the khaganate amongst the disparate peoples. Anthropological research has revealed few skeletons with Mongoloid-type features, although there was continuing cultural influence from the Eurasian nomadic steppe.
The Avars arrived in the northern region of Caucasia in 557. They sent an embassy to Constantinople, marking their first contact with the Byzantine Empire. In exchange for gold, they agreed to subjugate the "unruly gentes" on behalf of the Byzantines. They defeated and incorporated the various nomadic tribes - Kutrigur Bulgars, Onogur/Utigur Bulgars, Sabir Bulgars, and Antes, and by 562 controlled the vast steppes of Ukraine and the lower Danube basin. By their arrival into the Balkans, the Avars were a heterogeneous group of c. 20,000 horsemen. Having been bought off by the Eastern Emperor Justinian I, they pushed north into Germany (as Attila the Hun had done a century before), eventually reaching as far north as the Baltic. However, further expansion into Germania was halted by Frankish opposition and the harsh conditions of western Europe.
Seeking rich pastoral lands, they initially demanded land south of the Danube River (in present-day Bulgaria), but this was denied them by the Byzantines, who used their contacts with the Göktürks as a threat against Avar aggression. They thus turned their attention to the Carpathian plain and the natural defenses it afforded. However, the Carpathian basin was then occupied by the Gepids. In 567, the Avars signed an alliance with the Lombards, who were the enemies of the Gepids, and together they destroyed much of the Gepid Kingdom. The Avars then persuaded the Lombards to move into northern Italy, an invasion that marked the last Germanic mass movement in the Migration Period.
Continuing their successful policy of turning the various barbarians against each other, the Byzantines convinced the Avars to attack the Sclavenes in Scythia Minor - for their land was rich and had never been conquered before. After devastating much of the Sclavenes' land, the Avars returned to Pannonia, but not before many of the khagan's subjects deserted to the Byzantine Emperor. By 600, the Avars had established a nomadic empire stretching from modern-day Austria in the west to the Pontic steppes in the east, ruling over a multitude of peoples.
Like Attila before him, by about 580 the Avar Khagan, Bayan, established supremacy over practically all Slavic, Hunno-Bulgar, and Germanic tribes. When the Eastern Roman Empire was unable to pay subsidies or hire Avar mercenaries, the Avars raided Rome's Balkan communities. According to Menander, to sack Dalmatia in 568, Bayan commanded 10,000 Kutrigur Bulgar, effectively cutting Byzantium's land link with North Italy and the West. By 582, the Avars had captured Sirmium, an important fort in the former Roman province of Pannonia. When the Byzantines refused to increase the stipend amount requested by Bayans's son and successor Bayan II (from 584), the Avars proceeded to capture Singidunum and Viminacium. However, during Maurice’s Balkan campaigns in the 590s, the Avars experienced setbacks. Being defeated in their homeland, some Avars defected to the Byzantines in 602, but Emperor Maurice decided against returning home as was customary. He maintained his army camp beyond the Danube throughout the winter, which caused the army to revolt (602). This gave the Avars a desperately needed respite. The ensuing civil war prompted a Persian invasion and after 615 gave the Avars a free hand in the undefended Balkans. They attempted an invasion of northern Italy in 610. Payments in gold and goods reached the record sum of 200,000 solidi shortly before 626.
In 626, the joint Avar and Persian siege of Constantinople failed. Following this defeat, the Avars' prestige and power declined. The Byzantines document a battle between the Avars and their Slav clients in 629. Seven Croat tribes were hired as mercenaries to help in war against the Avars. Shortly after this, the Croats and Serbs took over rule in Dalmatia/Illyria. In the 630s, Samo increased his authority over lands to the north and west of the khanate, at the expense of the Avars, becoming King of the Wends. Around 630, the Great Khan Kubrat (Kurt), of the Dulo clan of the Utigur and Onogur Bulgars, led a successful uprising from Patria Onoguria ("the homeland of Onogurs"), to end Avar authority over the Pannonian Plain, establishing what the Byzantines used to call Old Great Bulgaria. In 631-32, there was a civil war, possibly a succession struggle, between the joint Avar/Kutrigur Bulgar parties and Kubrat's Utigur Bulgar forces. The Kutrigur Bulgar party lost, and chroniclers recorded that 9,000 Kutrigur Bulgars sought asylum and fled to Bavaria, only to be slaughtered by King Dagobert. However a significant number of Cozrigurs must have remained in Pannonia (Transylvania in particular), as they were noted in the time of Menumorut.
The Great Khan Kubrat, the ruler of Great Old Bulgaria, died in 665 and was succeeded, in what is present-day Ukraine, by his eldest son Batbayan (Bayan). By 670, the Khazars had shattered the unity of the Onogur Bulgar confederation, causing the Utigur Bulgars to leave Ukraine and migrate west. By 677, the "Hungar"/(Onogur) ethnicon established itself decisively in Pannonia. This new ethnic element (marked by hair clips for pigtails; curved, single-edged sabres; broad, symmetrical bows) marked the middle Avar-Bulgar period (670-720). One group of Onogur Bulgars, led by Khan Kuber, after defeating the Avars in Srem, moved south and settled in the present-day region of Macedonia. Another group of Onogur/Utigur Bulgars, led by Khan Asparuh (the father of Khan Tervel), had already settled permanently in the Balkans (c. 679-681). Although the Avars’ empire had diminished to half its original size, they consolidated rule over the central "Hungar"/(Onogur) lands, mid-Danubian basin, and extended their sphere of influence west to the Viennese Basin. With the death of Samo, some Slavic tribes again fell under Avar rule. New regional centers appeared, such as those near Ozora and Igaz (county Fehér/Hungary). This strengthened the Avars' power base, although most of the Balkans now lay in the hands of Slavic tribes, since neither the Avars nor Byzantines were able to reassert control.
The gradual decline of Avar power was brought to a rapid crash within the space of a decade. A series of Frankish campaigns in the 790s led by Charlemagne ended with their conquest of the Avar realm, taking most of Pannonia up to the Tisza River. The song "De Pippine regis Victoria Avarica" celebrating the defeat of the Avars at the hands of Pepin of Italy in 796 survives. The Franks baptized many Avars and integrated them into the Frankish Empire. In 804, the Bulgarian Empire (Khanate) conquered the southeastern Avar lands- Transylvania and south-eastern Pannonia to the Middle Danube River. Many Avars became subjects of the Bulgar Khanate. The Franks turned the Avar lands under their control into a military march. The eastern half of this March was then granted to the Slavic Prince Pribina, who established the Balaton principality in 840. The western part of Awarenmark continued to exist until 871, when it was integrated into the Carantanian and Eastern marches.
After the fall of the Avar Empire, the name Avar, and the self-identified constructed ethnicity it carried, disappeared within a single generation. An Avar presence in Pannonia was still extant in 871 but thereafter the name was no longer used by chroniclers. The Avars had already been fusing with the more numerous Slavs for generations. In turn, they came under the rule of external polities – that of the Franks, the Bulgar Khanate and Great Moravia. Isolated pockets of Avars in Transylvania and eastern Pannonia escaped assimilation, and might have been the “Huns” encountered by the invading Magyars in the 10th century. The Avars of Tiszántúl and Crisana were still bilingual when the Hungarians arrived in 895. Their hypothetical descendants, the Székely (who apparently preserved the Avar Dragon Totem well into the 15th century), were relocated to Transylvania in the 12th century. In contrast to Transylvania, the descendants of those who had considered themselves "Avars" in the 700s (i.e., part of the Avar polity, even if actually of Slavic or Germanic background) in the central Pannonian Plain were absorbed by the invading Magyars to form the new nation of Hungary.
Avars. Ibero-Caucasian people inhabiting the mountainous part of Dagestan and the northern part of Azerbaijan.
The Eurasian Avars, sometimes referred to as the European Avars, or Ancient Avars, were a highly organized and powerful confederation of a mixed ethnic background, thought to be closely related to Bulgars, Khazars and other Oghur Turkic peoples of the time. They were ruled by a khagan, who was surrounded by a tight-knit retinue of nomad warriors, an organization characteristic of Turkic groups. They first appeared in the late 4th century as the Rouran on the northern borders of China, where they maintained their power for two centuries. They appeared in Central and Eastern Europe in the 6th century, where Avar rule persisted over much of the Pannonian Plain up to the early 9th century.They are also found in north India as ahirs.
The origin of the European Avars is unclear. Information about origins is derived primarily from the works of Byzantine historians Menander Protector and Theophylact Simocatta. The confusion is compounded by the fact that many clans carried a particular name because they believed it to be prestigious, or it was attributed to them by outsiders describing their common characteristics, believed place of origin or reputation. Such a case has been seen repeatedly for many nomadic confederacies.
The ethnic Avars formed in central Asia in the classical age through a fusion of several tribal elements. Turkic Oghurs migrated to the Kazakh steppe, possibly moving south to inhabit the lands vacated by the Huns. Here they interacted with a body of Indo-European-speaking Iranians, forming the Xionites (Hunas). Sometime during the 460s, they were subordinated by the Mongolic Rouran. The Rouran imposed their own rulers, referred to as Uar, at the head of the confederacy. Being a highly cultured people, the Oghurs rose to prominence within the tribal confederacy.
Early in the sixth century, the confederacy was conquered by the Göktürk empire (the Göktürks were previously yet another vassal tribal element under Rouran supremacy). The Göktürks enslaved the Oghur tribe, which was one of the most powerful, and was accomplished in the art of war. One body of people, perhaps wishing to evade Göktürk rule, escaped and migrated to the northern Caucasus region c. 555 C.C. Their new neighbors believed them to be the true Avars. They established diplomatic contact with the Byzantines, and the other nomadic tribes of the steppes lavished them with gifts. However, the Göktürks later persuaded the Byzantines that these nomads were not the real Avars, but were instead a group of "fugitive Scythians" who had fled from the Göktürks and stolen the prestigious name of Avar. Hence they have subsequently been called pseudo-Avars.
If the Avars were ever a distinct ethnic group, that distinction does not seem to have survived their centuries in Europe. Being an "Avar" seems to have meant being part of the Avar state (in a similar way that being "Roman" ceased to have any ethnic meaning). What is certain, by the time they arrived in Europe, the Avars were a heterogeneous, polyethnic people. Modern research shows that each of the large confederations of steppe warriors (such as the Scythians, Xiongnu, Huns, Bulgars, Avars, Khazars, Cumans, Mongols, etc.) were not ethnically homogeneous, but rather unions of multiple ethnicities.
Whatever the origin of the initial group of nomadic warriors, the Avars rapidly intermixed with the Slavic population on the lower Danube basin and Pannonian Plain Slavic was likely used as a lingua franca within the khaganate amongst the disparate peoples. Anthropological research has revealed few skeletons with Mongoloid-type features, although there was continuing cultural influence from the Eurasian nomadic steppe.
The Avars arrived in the northern region of Caucasia in 557. They sent an embassy to Constantinople, marking their first contact with the Byzantine Empire. In exchange for gold, they agreed to subjugate the "unruly gentes" on behalf of the Byzantines. They defeated and incorporated the various nomadic tribes - Kutrigur Bulgars, Onogur/Utigur Bulgars, Sabir Bulgars, and Antes, and by 562 controlled the vast steppes of Ukraine and the lower Danube basin. By their arrival into the Balkans, the Avars were a heterogeneous group of c. 20,000 horsemen. Having been bought off by the Eastern Emperor Justinian I, they pushed north into Germany (as Attila the Hun had done a century before), eventually reaching as far north as the Baltic. However, further expansion into Germania was halted by Frankish opposition and the harsh conditions of western Europe.
Seeking rich pastoral lands, they initially demanded land south of the Danube River (in present-day Bulgaria), but this was denied them by the Byzantines, who used their contacts with the Göktürks as a threat against Avar aggression. They thus turned their attention to the Carpathian plain and the natural defenses it afforded. However, the Carpathian basin was then occupied by the Gepids. In 567, the Avars signed an alliance with the Lombards, who were the enemies of the Gepids, and together they destroyed much of the Gepid Kingdom. The Avars then persuaded the Lombards to move into northern Italy, an invasion that marked the last Germanic mass movement in the Migration Period.
Continuing their successful policy of turning the various barbarians against each other, the Byzantines convinced the Avars to attack the Sclavenes in Scythia Minor - for their land was rich and had never been conquered before. After devastating much of the Sclavenes' land, the Avars returned to Pannonia, but not before many of the khagan's subjects deserted to the Byzantine Emperor. By 600, the Avars had established a nomadic empire stretching from modern-day Austria in the west to the Pontic steppes in the east, ruling over a multitude of peoples.
Like Attila before him, by about 580 the Avar Khagan, Bayan, established supremacy over practically all Slavic, Hunno-Bulgar, and Germanic tribes. When the Eastern Roman Empire was unable to pay subsidies or hire Avar mercenaries, the Avars raided Rome's Balkan communities. According to Menander, to sack Dalmatia in 568, Bayan commanded 10,000 Kutrigur Bulgar, effectively cutting Byzantium's land link with North Italy and the West. By 582, the Avars had captured Sirmium, an important fort in the former Roman province of Pannonia. When the Byzantines refused to increase the stipend amount requested by Bayans's son and successor Bayan II (from 584), the Avars proceeded to capture Singidunum and Viminacium. However, during Maurice’s Balkan campaigns in the 590s, the Avars experienced setbacks. Being defeated in their homeland, some Avars defected to the Byzantines in 602, but Emperor Maurice decided against returning home as was customary. He maintained his army camp beyond the Danube throughout the winter, which caused the army to revolt (602). This gave the Avars a desperately needed respite. The ensuing civil war prompted a Persian invasion and after 615 gave the Avars a free hand in the undefended Balkans. They attempted an invasion of northern Italy in 610. Payments in gold and goods reached the record sum of 200,000 solidi shortly before 626.
In 626, the joint Avar and Persian siege of Constantinople failed. Following this defeat, the Avars' prestige and power declined. The Byzantines document a battle between the Avars and their Slav clients in 629. Seven Croat tribes were hired as mercenaries to help in war against the Avars. Shortly after this, the Croats and Serbs took over rule in Dalmatia/Illyria. In the 630s, Samo increased his authority over lands to the north and west of the khanate, at the expense of the Avars, becoming King of the Wends. Around 630, the Great Khan Kubrat (Kurt), of the Dulo clan of the Utigur and Onogur Bulgars, led a successful uprising from Patria Onoguria ("the homeland of Onogurs"), to end Avar authority over the Pannonian Plain, establishing what the Byzantines used to call Old Great Bulgaria. In 631-32, there was a civil war, possibly a succession struggle, between the joint Avar/Kutrigur Bulgar parties and Kubrat's Utigur Bulgar forces. The Kutrigur Bulgar party lost, and chroniclers recorded that 9,000 Kutrigur Bulgars sought asylum and fled to Bavaria, only to be slaughtered by King Dagobert. However a significant number of Cozrigurs must have remained in Pannonia (Transylvania in particular), as they were noted in the time of Menumorut.
The Great Khan Kubrat, the ruler of Great Old Bulgaria, died in 665 and was succeeded, in what is present-day Ukraine, by his eldest son Batbayan (Bayan). By 670, the Khazars had shattered the unity of the Onogur Bulgar confederation, causing the Utigur Bulgars to leave Ukraine and migrate west. By 677, the "Hungar"/(Onogur) ethnicon established itself decisively in Pannonia. This new ethnic element (marked by hair clips for pigtails; curved, single-edged sabres; broad, symmetrical bows) marked the middle Avar-Bulgar period (670-720). One group of Onogur Bulgars, led by Khan Kuber, after defeating the Avars in Srem, moved south and settled in the present-day region of Macedonia. Another group of Onogur/Utigur Bulgars, led by Khan Asparuh (the father of Khan Tervel), had already settled permanently in the Balkans (c. 679-681). Although the Avars’ empire had diminished to half its original size, they consolidated rule over the central "Hungar"/(Onogur) lands, mid-Danubian basin, and extended their sphere of influence west to the Viennese Basin. With the death of Samo, some Slavic tribes again fell under Avar rule. New regional centers appeared, such as those near Ozora and Igaz (county Fehér/Hungary). This strengthened the Avars' power base, although most of the Balkans now lay in the hands of Slavic tribes, since neither the Avars nor Byzantines were able to reassert control.
The gradual decline of Avar power was brought to a rapid crash within the space of a decade. A series of Frankish campaigns in the 790s led by Charlemagne ended with their conquest of the Avar realm, taking most of Pannonia up to the Tisza River. The song "De Pippine regis Victoria Avarica" celebrating the defeat of the Avars at the hands of Pepin of Italy in 796 survives. The Franks baptized many Avars and integrated them into the Frankish Empire. In 804, the Bulgarian Empire (Khanate) conquered the southeastern Avar lands- Transylvania and south-eastern Pannonia to the Middle Danube River. Many Avars became subjects of the Bulgar Khanate. The Franks turned the Avar lands under their control into a military march. The eastern half of this March was then granted to the Slavic Prince Pribina, who established the Balaton principality in 840. The western part of Awarenmark continued to exist until 871, when it was integrated into the Carantanian and Eastern marches.
After the fall of the Avar Empire, the name Avar, and the self-identified constructed ethnicity it carried, disappeared within a single generation. An Avar presence in Pannonia was still extant in 871 but thereafter the name was no longer used by chroniclers. The Avars had already been fusing with the more numerous Slavs for generations. In turn, they came under the rule of external polities – that of the Franks, the Bulgar Khanate and Great Moravia. Isolated pockets of Avars in Transylvania and eastern Pannonia escaped assimilation, and might have been the “Huns” encountered by the invading Magyars in the 10th century. The Avars of Tiszántúl and Crisana were still bilingual when the Hungarians arrived in 895. Their hypothetical descendants, the Székely (who apparently preserved the Avar Dragon Totem well into the 15th century), were relocated to Transylvania in the 12th century. In contrast to Transylvania, the descendants of those who had considered themselves "Avars" in the 700s (i.e., part of the Avar polity, even if actually of Slavic or Germanic background) in the central Pannonian Plain were absorbed by the invading Magyars to form the new nation of Hungary.
Avempace
Avempace (in Arabic, Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Bajja) (Abū-Bakr Muhammad ibn Yahya ibn al-Sāyigh) (Ibn Bajjah) (c.1095-1138). Spanish-born Muslim philosopher and the first known exponent in Spain of the Neo-platonic tradition of intellectual mysticism. Avempace conceived of the divine as an “Active Intellect,” to which the human soul can be joined. This union is achieved through stages of intellectual ascent. It begins with basic sense impressions of form and matter and ascends, through a hierarchy of increasingly less material forms, ultimately reaching the pure Active Intellect, or God. Avempace propounded these ideas in his book On the Union of the Intellect. Avempace also wrote several commentaries on Aristotle.
Ibn Khaldun ranked Avempace with Averroes (Ibn Rushd) in the West and Alfarabius and Avicenna (Ibn Sina) in the East, as one of the greatest philosophers of Islam. Avempace was also a poet, musician, and composer of popular songs. He also studied mathematics, astronomy, and botany.
Avempace became a vizier under the Almoravids of Saragossa, Spain. His works survive in their original Arabic in a few manuscripts and in Hebrew translations. His most celebrated work, Rule of the Solitary, is of a Neo-platonic character.
Abū-Bakr Muhammad ibn Yahya ibn al-Sāyigh was an Andalusian-Arab Muslim polymath: an astronomer, logician, musician, philosopher, physician, physicist, psychologist, poet and scientist. He was known in the West by his Latinized name, Avempace. He was born in Zaragoza in what is today Spain and died in Fes, Morocco in 1138. Avempace worked as vizir for Abu Bakr ibn Ibrahim Ibn Tîfilwît, the Almoravid governor of Saragossa. Avempace also wrote poems (panegyrics and 'muwasshahat') for him, and they both enjoyed music and wine. Avempace joined in poetic competitions with the poet al-Tutili. He later worked, for some twenty years, as the vizir of Yahyà ibn Yûsuf Ibn Tashufin, another brother of the Almoravid Sultan Yusuf Ibn Tashufin (died 1143) in Morocco.
The philosophic ideas of Avempace (Ibn Bajjah) had a clear effect on Ibn Rushd and Albertus Magnus. Most of his writings and books were not completed (or well organized) because of his relatively early death. Nevertheless, he had a vast knowledge of medicine, mathematics and astronomy. His main contribution to Islamic philosophy is his idea on Soul Phenomenology.
Though many of Ibn Bajjah's works have not survived, his theories on astronomy and physics were preserved by Maimonides and Averroes respectively, which had a subsequent influence on later astronomers and physicists in Islamic civilization and Renaissance Europe, including Galileo Galilei.
Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Bajja see Avempace
Abū-Bakr Muhammad ibn Yahya ibn al-Sāyigh see Avempace
Ibn Bajjah see Avempace
Avempace (in Arabic, Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Bajja) (Abū-Bakr Muhammad ibn Yahya ibn al-Sāyigh) (Ibn Bajjah) (c.1095-1138). Spanish-born Muslim philosopher and the first known exponent in Spain of the Neo-platonic tradition of intellectual mysticism. Avempace conceived of the divine as an “Active Intellect,” to which the human soul can be joined. This union is achieved through stages of intellectual ascent. It begins with basic sense impressions of form and matter and ascends, through a hierarchy of increasingly less material forms, ultimately reaching the pure Active Intellect, or God. Avempace propounded these ideas in his book On the Union of the Intellect. Avempace also wrote several commentaries on Aristotle.
Ibn Khaldun ranked Avempace with Averroes (Ibn Rushd) in the West and Alfarabius and Avicenna (Ibn Sina) in the East, as one of the greatest philosophers of Islam. Avempace was also a poet, musician, and composer of popular songs. He also studied mathematics, astronomy, and botany.
Avempace became a vizier under the Almoravids of Saragossa, Spain. His works survive in their original Arabic in a few manuscripts and in Hebrew translations. His most celebrated work, Rule of the Solitary, is of a Neo-platonic character.
Abū-Bakr Muhammad ibn Yahya ibn al-Sāyigh was an Andalusian-Arab Muslim polymath: an astronomer, logician, musician, philosopher, physician, physicist, psychologist, poet and scientist. He was known in the West by his Latinized name, Avempace. He was born in Zaragoza in what is today Spain and died in Fes, Morocco in 1138. Avempace worked as vizir for Abu Bakr ibn Ibrahim Ibn Tîfilwît, the Almoravid governor of Saragossa. Avempace also wrote poems (panegyrics and 'muwasshahat') for him, and they both enjoyed music and wine. Avempace joined in poetic competitions with the poet al-Tutili. He later worked, for some twenty years, as the vizir of Yahyà ibn Yûsuf Ibn Tashufin, another brother of the Almoravid Sultan Yusuf Ibn Tashufin (died 1143) in Morocco.
The philosophic ideas of Avempace (Ibn Bajjah) had a clear effect on Ibn Rushd and Albertus Magnus. Most of his writings and books were not completed (or well organized) because of his relatively early death. Nevertheless, he had a vast knowledge of medicine, mathematics and astronomy. His main contribution to Islamic philosophy is his idea on Soul Phenomenology.
Though many of Ibn Bajjah's works have not survived, his theories on astronomy and physics were preserved by Maimonides and Averroes respectively, which had a subsequent influence on later astronomers and physicists in Islamic civilization and Renaissance Europe, including Galileo Galilei.
Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Bajja see Avempace
Abū-Bakr Muhammad ibn Yahya ibn al-Sāyigh see Avempace
Ibn Bajjah see Avempace
Avennasar
Avennasar. See Abu Nasr al-Farabi.
Avennasar. See Abu Nasr al-Farabi.
Avennathan
Avennathan. See Abu ‘Ali al-Hasan ibn al-Haytham.
Avennathan. See Abu ‘Ali al-Hasan ibn al-Haytham.
Averroes
Averroes (Abu al-Walid Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Rushd). See Ibn Rushd.
Ibn Rushd see Averroes
Abu al-Walid Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Rushd see Averroes
Averroes (Abu al-Walid Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Rushd). See Ibn Rushd.
Ibn Rushd see Averroes
Abu al-Walid Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Rushd see Averroes
Avicenna
Avicenna. See Ibn Sina.
Avicenna. See Ibn Sina.
Avrupa Milli Gorus Teskilati
Avrupa Milli Gorus Teskilati (AMGT). Turkish name of the Organization of the National Vision in Europe. In the early 1970s, the first branches of the “National Vision” (Milli Gorus) organization were founded by Turkish labor migrants in Europe. These groups had close connections to the National Salvation Party (Milli Selamet Partisi [MSP]). The name “Milli Gorus” stands for a philosophy as well as for the organization and is derived from the programmatic book Milli Gorus (Ankara, 1973) of party leader Necmettin Erbakan. In 1976, the various groups joined together in the Turkish Union in Europe, which changed its name in 1982 to the Islamic Union in Europe and in 1985 to the Organization of the National Vision in Europe (Avrupa Milli Gorus Teskilati [AMGT]). With its headquarters in Cologne, Germany, about twenty-five to thirty centers and 145 mosques in different parts of Germany, 150 to 220 affiliated organizations, about seventy thousand members and the Organization of Islamic Youth in Europe (Avrupa Islamci Genclik Birligi), the AMGT is the largest non-governmental organization of Muslims in Germany.
The AMGT also runs centers in Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Switzerland, and Austria. It cooperates with other Islamist organizations, such as the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, the Afghan Party of God (Hizbullah), the Filipino Moro National Liberation Front, and the Libyan Islamic Call Society. After the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979 and the military takeover in Turkey in 1980, severe ideological and political conflicts erupted within the organization. In 1984, a group of radical fundamentalist and anti-secular Muslims around Cemalettin Kaplan left the AMGT and founded the Iran-oriented Federation of the Islamic Unions and Communities. In 1986, three members of AMGT were accused at the State Security Court in Ankara of attempting to establish a theocratic state in Turkey. They were also suspected of working as a connecting link between AMGT, the Kaplan group, and Iran.
The ideological orientation of AMGT is Islamist. It is based on the Qur’an, the sunnah (traditions of the Prophet), and shari‘a. The Qur’an ranks as the only legitimate constitution. The political developments in Iran are considered to be an important step toward the liberation of Islam and as a model for the re-islamization of Turkish society. AMGT advocates the bipartite division of the world in accordance with Islamic international law (dar al-Islam/dar al-harb). Living in Western societies means living in societies alien and hostile to Islam. Integration into Western societies and adaptation to the Western way of life is strictly rejected and is regarded as a treason to Islam. Consequently, AMGT is also opposed to the integration of Turkey into the European Community. Since the end of the 1980s, however, there have been indications of a new dialogue with trade unions, churches, and the media. But it is too early to tell if this portends a change in policy or if this is mainly a tactical move. Like other Muslim organizations, AMGT has applied for the legal status of “body of public law,” but no Muslim organization in Germany has yet been granted this status.
AMGT see Avrupa Milli Gorus Teskilati
Organization of the National Vision in Europe see Avrupa Milli Gorus Teskilati
“National Vision” see Avrupa Milli Gorus Teskilati
Milli Gorus see Avrupa Milli Gorus Teskilati
Avrupa Milli Gorus Teskilati (AMGT). Turkish name of the Organization of the National Vision in Europe. In the early 1970s, the first branches of the “National Vision” (Milli Gorus) organization were founded by Turkish labor migrants in Europe. These groups had close connections to the National Salvation Party (Milli Selamet Partisi [MSP]). The name “Milli Gorus” stands for a philosophy as well as for the organization and is derived from the programmatic book Milli Gorus (Ankara, 1973) of party leader Necmettin Erbakan. In 1976, the various groups joined together in the Turkish Union in Europe, which changed its name in 1982 to the Islamic Union in Europe and in 1985 to the Organization of the National Vision in Europe (Avrupa Milli Gorus Teskilati [AMGT]). With its headquarters in Cologne, Germany, about twenty-five to thirty centers and 145 mosques in different parts of Germany, 150 to 220 affiliated organizations, about seventy thousand members and the Organization of Islamic Youth in Europe (Avrupa Islamci Genclik Birligi), the AMGT is the largest non-governmental organization of Muslims in Germany.
The AMGT also runs centers in Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Switzerland, and Austria. It cooperates with other Islamist organizations, such as the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, the Afghan Party of God (Hizbullah), the Filipino Moro National Liberation Front, and the Libyan Islamic Call Society. After the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979 and the military takeover in Turkey in 1980, severe ideological and political conflicts erupted within the organization. In 1984, a group of radical fundamentalist and anti-secular Muslims around Cemalettin Kaplan left the AMGT and founded the Iran-oriented Federation of the Islamic Unions and Communities. In 1986, three members of AMGT were accused at the State Security Court in Ankara of attempting to establish a theocratic state in Turkey. They were also suspected of working as a connecting link between AMGT, the Kaplan group, and Iran.
The ideological orientation of AMGT is Islamist. It is based on the Qur’an, the sunnah (traditions of the Prophet), and shari‘a. The Qur’an ranks as the only legitimate constitution. The political developments in Iran are considered to be an important step toward the liberation of Islam and as a model for the re-islamization of Turkish society. AMGT advocates the bipartite division of the world in accordance with Islamic international law (dar al-Islam/dar al-harb). Living in Western societies means living in societies alien and hostile to Islam. Integration into Western societies and adaptation to the Western way of life is strictly rejected and is regarded as a treason to Islam. Consequently, AMGT is also opposed to the integration of Turkey into the European Community. Since the end of the 1980s, however, there have been indications of a new dialogue with trade unions, churches, and the media. But it is too early to tell if this portends a change in policy or if this is mainly a tactical move. Like other Muslim organizations, AMGT has applied for the legal status of “body of public law,” but no Muslim organization in Germany has yet been granted this status.
AMGT see Avrupa Milli Gorus Teskilati
Organization of the National Vision in Europe see Avrupa Milli Gorus Teskilati
“National Vision” see Avrupa Milli Gorus Teskilati
Milli Gorus see Avrupa Milli Gorus Teskilati
Awami League
Awami League (Awami Muslim League) (Bangladesh Awami League) (BAL) (Bangladesh People's League) (All Pakistan Awami Muslim League) (All Pakistan Awami League). Pakistani political party founded in June 1949 by Hussain Shahid Suhrawardy as a vehicle for his political ambitions and as a party that could present an alternative program to the ruling Muslim League. Suhrawardy opposed the exclusiveness of the Muslim League (hence the early dropping of the word “Muslim” from the title of the Awami League). Designed to be a national party, it had its greatest strength in East Pakistan and very little in the west. Key Bengalis associated with Suhrawardy were Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, his de facto successor in 1963, and Maulana 'Abdul Hamid Khan Bhashani, a leftist agrarian leader who left the party in 1957.
The program of the Awami League was moderate in economics but, especially under Mujibur, supported a high level of autonomy for the provinces and parity in administrative, economic, and developmental matters between the eastern and western portions of the country. These ideas were embodied in the six-point program announced by Mujibur in 1966. On this platform, the Awami League won a majority in the Pakistan National Assembly in 1970 but was denied the opportunity to take the reins of government. The party was the spearhead of the civil war of 1971 leading to Bangladeshi independence. The post-independence program emphasized democracy, secularism, socialism, and nationalism, but before the assassination of Mujibur in August 1975, the rule of the Awami League had become authoritarian. The party has not since governed in Bangladesh, but remains politically important. In the 1979 parliamentary election it won about 10 percent of the seats. There have been several changes of leadership culminating in the selection of Mujibur’s daughter, Hasina Wajid, as the current leader. The party favors a parliamentary system with a socialist and secular society and economy.
The Bangladesh Awami League (BAL) (translated from Urdu Bangladesh People's League), commonly known as the Awami League, became the mainstream center-left and secular political party in Bangladesh. It also became the governing party after winning the 2008 Parliamentary elections in Bangladesh.
The Awami League was founded in Dhaka, the erstwhile capital of the Pakistani province of East Bengal, in 1949 by Bengali nationalists Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy, Maulana Abdul Hamid Khan Bhashani and Shamsul Huq. The Awami League was established as the Bengali alternative to the domination of the Muslim League in Pakistan. The party quickly gained massive popular support in East Bengal, later named East Pakistan, and eventually led the forces of Bengali nationalism in the struggle against West Pakistan's military and political establishment. The party under the leadership of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founding father of Bangladesh, would lead the struggle for independence, first through massive populist and civil disobedience movements, such as the Six Point Movement and 1971 Non-Cooperation Movement, and then during the Bangladesh Liberation War. After the emergence of independent Bangladesh, the Awami League would win the first general elections in 1973 but was overthrown in 1975 after the dramatic assassination of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.The party was forced by subsequent military regimes into political wilderness and many of its senior leaders and actvists were executed and jailed. After the restoration of democracy in 1990, the Awami League emerged as one of the principal players of Bangladeshi politcs.
Amongst the leaders of the Awami League, five hav become the President of Bangladesh, four have become the Prime Minister of Bangladesh and one became the Prime Minister of Pakistan. Since the independence of Bangladesh, the party has been under the control of the family of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.
The Bangladesh Awami League (BAL) laid down four key principles as the basis of its ideology and approach to politics, which is to establish "Sonar Bangla" (Golden Bengal), a term that refers to Bangladesh as a modern developed nation. The four key principles are in line with the original constitution of Bangladesh. Those four principles are Bengali nationalism, democracy, secularism and socialism.
The "All Pakistan Awami Muslim League" was formed as a breakaway faction of the "All Pakistan Muslim League" in 1949, within two years of the formation of Pakistan through the partition of India. The word "Muslim" was dropped in 1955. Two parties of the same name were created in Pakistan, one in the then East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) on June 23, 1949 by Maulana Abdul Hameed Khan Bhashani. Its first general secretary was Shamsul Hoq and Treasurer was Nurul Islam Chowdhury . Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Khondokar Mostaq Ahmed and A.K. Rafiqul Hussain were its first three joint secretaries in East Pakistan. The other in the North-West Frontier Province of the then West Pakistan was created by Peer Manki Shareef soon after. In February 1950, the two were merged, creating the "All Pakistan Awami Muslim League", with Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy as its leader. As the years went by the Awami League became associated with the oppressed Bangla speaking majority of East Pakistan. Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was elected party president in 1966, and the BAL gained much popularity through the famous six point movement.
The 6-point demands, proposed by Mujib, were widely accepted by the East Pakistani populace, as they proposed greater autonomy for the provinces of Pakistan. After the so-called Agartala Conspiracy Case, and subsequent end of the Ayub Khan regime in Pakistan, the Awami League and its leader Sheikh Mujib reached the peak of their popularity among the East Pakistani Bengali population. In the elections of 1970, the Awami League won 167 of 169 East Pakistan seats in the National Assembly but none of West Pakistan's 138 seats. It also won 288 of the 300 provincial assembly seats in East Pakistan. This win gave the Awami League a healthy majority in the 313-seat National Assembly and placed it in a position to establish a national government without a coalition partner. This was not acceptable to the political leaders of West Pakistan and led directly to the events of the Bangladesh Liberation War. The AL leaders, taking refuge in India, successfully led the war against the Pakistani Army throughout 1971.
After independence on December 16, 1971, the party formed the national government of Bangladesh. In 1972, under Sheikh Mujib, the party name was changed to "Awami League". The party was plagued by internal corruption and failed to repair the nation's wounds from the independence war. As Bangladesh continued exporting jute to Egypt, violating US economic sanctions, the Nixon government barred grain imports that Bangladesh had already paid for from reaching the country. As a consequence, the famine of 1974 occurred. 28,000 people died, and support for Mujib declined dramatically.
In January 1975, Mujib declared a state of emergency and later assumed the presidency, after the Awami League dominated parliament decided to switch from parliamentary to a presidential form of government. Sheikh Mujib renamed the League the "Bangladesh Farmers and Workers Awami League (Bangladesh Krishok Sramik Awami League, BAKSAL), and banned all other parties. BAKSAL became the strong arm of what had turned into a dictatorship, with Sheikh Mujib becoming the lifetime president. Many opposition political workers, mostly revolutionary communist elements, were jailed after three Members of Parliament were killed by the communist insurgency. The crackdown on opposition was aided by the elite paramilitary force Rakkhi Bahini.
These negative developments led to a widespread dissatisfaction among the people and even inside the Army. On August 15, 1975 some junior members of the armed forces in Dhaka, led by Major Faruk Rahman and Major Rashid, assassinated Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and all his family members. Within months, on November 3, 1975, four more of its top leaders, Syed Nazrul Islam, Tajuddin Ahmed, Captain Muhammad Mansur Ali and A. H. M. Qamaruzzaman were killed inside the Dhaka Central Jail. Only Sheikh Hasina and Sheikh Rehana, two daughters of Mujib, survived the massacre as they were in West Germany as a part of a cultural exchange program. They later claimed political asylum in the United Kingdom. Sheikh Rehana, the younger sister, chose to remain in the United Kingdom permanently, while Sheikh Hasina moved to India and lived in self imposed exile. Her stays abroad helped her gain important political friends in the West and in India that proved to be a valuable asset for the party in the future.
After 1975, the party remained split into several rival factions, and fared poorly in the 1979 parliamentary elections held under a military government. In 1981, Sheikh Hasina returned after the largest party faction, the "Bangladesh Awami League", elected her its president, and she proceeded to take over the party leadership and unite the factions. As she was under age at the time she could not take part in the 1981 presidential elections that followed the assassination of then President Ziaur Rahman. Throughout the following nine years of military rule by General Ershad the Awami League participated in some polls but boycotted most, nearly all of them allegedly rigged.
The Awami League emerged as the largest opposition party in parliament in the elections in 1991, following the uprising against Ershad. It made major electoral gains in 1994 as its candidates won mayoral elections in the two largest cities of the country: the capital Dhaka and the commercial capital Chittagong. Demanding electoral reforms the party resigned from the parliament in 1995, boycotted the February 1996 parliamentary polls, and subsequently won 146 out of 300 seats in the June 1996 parliamentary polls. Supported by a few smaller parties, the Awami League formed a "Government of National Unity," and elected a non-partisan head of state, retired Chief Justice Shahabuddin Ahmed.
The Awami League's second try at governance produced mixed results. Apart from sustaining economic stability during the Asian economic crisis, the government successfully settled Bangladesh's long standing dispute with India over sharing the water of the river Ganga (also known as Padma) in late 1996, and signed a peace treaty with tribal rebels in 1997. In 1998, Bangladesh faced one of the worst floods ever, and the government handled the crisis satisfactorily. It also had significant achievements in containing inflation, and peacefully neutralizing a long-running leftist insurgency in south-western districts dating back to the first Awami League government's time. However, rampant corruption allegations against party office bearers and ministers as well as a deteriorating law and order situation troubled the government. Its pro poor policies achieved wide micro-economic development but that left the country's wealthy business class dissatisfied. The Awami League's last months in office were marred by sporadic bombing by alleged Islamist militants. Hasina herself escaped several attempts on her life, in one of which two anti-tank mines were planted under her helipad in Gopalganj district. In July 2001, the second Awami League government stepped down, becoming the first elected government in Bangladesh to serve a full term in office.
The party won only 62 out of 300 parliamentary seats in the elections held in October 2001, despite garnering forty percent (40%) of the votes, up from thirty-six percent (36%) in 1996 and thirty-three percent (33%) in 1991. The BNP and its allies won a two-thirds majority in parliament with forty-six percent (46%) of the votes cast, with BNP alone winning forty-one percent (41%) up from thirty-three percent (33%) in 1996 and thirty percent (30%) in 1991..
In its second term in opposition since 1991, the party suffered the assassination of several key members. Popular young leader Ahsanullah Master, a Member of Parliament from Gazipur, was killed in 2004. This was followed by a grenade attack on Hasina during a public meeting on August 21, 2004, resulting in the death of 22 party supporters, including party women's secretary Ivy Rahman, though Hasina lived. Finally, the party's electoral secretary, ex finance minister, and veteran diplomat Shah M S Kibria, a Member of Parliament from Habiganj, was killed in a grenade attack in Sylhet later that year.
In June 2005, the Awami League won an important victory when the Awami League nominated incumbent mayor A. B. M. Mohiuddin Chowdhury won the important mayoral election in Chittagong, by a huge margin, against BNP nominee State Minister of Aviation Mir Mohammad Nasiruddin. This election was seen as a showdown between the Awami League and the BNP. However, the killing of party leaders continued. In December 2005, the Awami League supported Mayor of Sylhet narrowly escaped the third attempt on his life as a grenade thrown at him failed to explode .
In September 2006, several of the party's top leaders, including Saber Hossain Choudhury and Asaduzzaman Nur, were hospitalized after being critically injured by police beatings while they demonstrated in support of electoral-law reforms. Starting in late October 2006, the Awami League led alliance carried out a series of nationwide demonstrations and blockades centering around the selection of the leader of the interim caretaker administration to oversee the 2007 elections. Although an election was scheduled to take place on January 22, 2007 that the Awami League decided to boycott, the country's military intervened on January 11, 2007 and installed an interim government composed of retired bureaucrats and military officers.
Throughout 2007 and 2008, the military backed government tried to root out corruption and get rid of the two dynastic leaders of the Awami League and BNP. While these efforts largely failed, they succeeded in producing a credible voter list that was used in the December 29, 2008 national election.
The Awami league participated in the national election on December 29, 2008 as part of a larger electoral alliance that also included the Jatiya Party led by former military ruler General Ershad as well as some leftist parties. The Bangladesh Awami League won 230 out of 299 constituencies, and together with its allies, garnered a total of 262 seats. The Awami League and its allies received fifty-seven percent (57%) of the total votes cast. The Awami League alone got forty-eight percent (48%), compared to thirty-six percent (36%) of the other major alliance led by the BNP which by itself won thirty-three percent (33%) of the votes. Ex-Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, as party head, was the Prime Minister-Elect.
Awami Muslim League see Awami League
Bangladesh Awami League see Awami League
BAL see Awami League
Bangladesh People's League see Awami League
All Pakistan Awami Muslim League see Awami League
All Pakistan Awami League see Awami League
Awami League (Awami Muslim League) (Bangladesh Awami League) (BAL) (Bangladesh People's League) (All Pakistan Awami Muslim League) (All Pakistan Awami League). Pakistani political party founded in June 1949 by Hussain Shahid Suhrawardy as a vehicle for his political ambitions and as a party that could present an alternative program to the ruling Muslim League. Suhrawardy opposed the exclusiveness of the Muslim League (hence the early dropping of the word “Muslim” from the title of the Awami League). Designed to be a national party, it had its greatest strength in East Pakistan and very little in the west. Key Bengalis associated with Suhrawardy were Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, his de facto successor in 1963, and Maulana 'Abdul Hamid Khan Bhashani, a leftist agrarian leader who left the party in 1957.
The program of the Awami League was moderate in economics but, especially under Mujibur, supported a high level of autonomy for the provinces and parity in administrative, economic, and developmental matters between the eastern and western portions of the country. These ideas were embodied in the six-point program announced by Mujibur in 1966. On this platform, the Awami League won a majority in the Pakistan National Assembly in 1970 but was denied the opportunity to take the reins of government. The party was the spearhead of the civil war of 1971 leading to Bangladeshi independence. The post-independence program emphasized democracy, secularism, socialism, and nationalism, but before the assassination of Mujibur in August 1975, the rule of the Awami League had become authoritarian. The party has not since governed in Bangladesh, but remains politically important. In the 1979 parliamentary election it won about 10 percent of the seats. There have been several changes of leadership culminating in the selection of Mujibur’s daughter, Hasina Wajid, as the current leader. The party favors a parliamentary system with a socialist and secular society and economy.
The Bangladesh Awami League (BAL) (translated from Urdu Bangladesh People's League), commonly known as the Awami League, became the mainstream center-left and secular political party in Bangladesh. It also became the governing party after winning the 2008 Parliamentary elections in Bangladesh.
The Awami League was founded in Dhaka, the erstwhile capital of the Pakistani province of East Bengal, in 1949 by Bengali nationalists Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy, Maulana Abdul Hamid Khan Bhashani and Shamsul Huq. The Awami League was established as the Bengali alternative to the domination of the Muslim League in Pakistan. The party quickly gained massive popular support in East Bengal, later named East Pakistan, and eventually led the forces of Bengali nationalism in the struggle against West Pakistan's military and political establishment. The party under the leadership of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founding father of Bangladesh, would lead the struggle for independence, first through massive populist and civil disobedience movements, such as the Six Point Movement and 1971 Non-Cooperation Movement, and then during the Bangladesh Liberation War. After the emergence of independent Bangladesh, the Awami League would win the first general elections in 1973 but was overthrown in 1975 after the dramatic assassination of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.The party was forced by subsequent military regimes into political wilderness and many of its senior leaders and actvists were executed and jailed. After the restoration of democracy in 1990, the Awami League emerged as one of the principal players of Bangladeshi politcs.
Amongst the leaders of the Awami League, five hav become the President of Bangladesh, four have become the Prime Minister of Bangladesh and one became the Prime Minister of Pakistan. Since the independence of Bangladesh, the party has been under the control of the family of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.
The Bangladesh Awami League (BAL) laid down four key principles as the basis of its ideology and approach to politics, which is to establish "Sonar Bangla" (Golden Bengal), a term that refers to Bangladesh as a modern developed nation. The four key principles are in line with the original constitution of Bangladesh. Those four principles are Bengali nationalism, democracy, secularism and socialism.
The "All Pakistan Awami Muslim League" was formed as a breakaway faction of the "All Pakistan Muslim League" in 1949, within two years of the formation of Pakistan through the partition of India. The word "Muslim" was dropped in 1955. Two parties of the same name were created in Pakistan, one in the then East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) on June 23, 1949 by Maulana Abdul Hameed Khan Bhashani. Its first general secretary was Shamsul Hoq and Treasurer was Nurul Islam Chowdhury . Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Khondokar Mostaq Ahmed and A.K. Rafiqul Hussain were its first three joint secretaries in East Pakistan. The other in the North-West Frontier Province of the then West Pakistan was created by Peer Manki Shareef soon after. In February 1950, the two were merged, creating the "All Pakistan Awami Muslim League", with Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy as its leader. As the years went by the Awami League became associated with the oppressed Bangla speaking majority of East Pakistan. Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was elected party president in 1966, and the BAL gained much popularity through the famous six point movement.
The 6-point demands, proposed by Mujib, were widely accepted by the East Pakistani populace, as they proposed greater autonomy for the provinces of Pakistan. After the so-called Agartala Conspiracy Case, and subsequent end of the Ayub Khan regime in Pakistan, the Awami League and its leader Sheikh Mujib reached the peak of their popularity among the East Pakistani Bengali population. In the elections of 1970, the Awami League won 167 of 169 East Pakistan seats in the National Assembly but none of West Pakistan's 138 seats. It also won 288 of the 300 provincial assembly seats in East Pakistan. This win gave the Awami League a healthy majority in the 313-seat National Assembly and placed it in a position to establish a national government without a coalition partner. This was not acceptable to the political leaders of West Pakistan and led directly to the events of the Bangladesh Liberation War. The AL leaders, taking refuge in India, successfully led the war against the Pakistani Army throughout 1971.
After independence on December 16, 1971, the party formed the national government of Bangladesh. In 1972, under Sheikh Mujib, the party name was changed to "Awami League". The party was plagued by internal corruption and failed to repair the nation's wounds from the independence war. As Bangladesh continued exporting jute to Egypt, violating US economic sanctions, the Nixon government barred grain imports that Bangladesh had already paid for from reaching the country. As a consequence, the famine of 1974 occurred. 28,000 people died, and support for Mujib declined dramatically.
In January 1975, Mujib declared a state of emergency and later assumed the presidency, after the Awami League dominated parliament decided to switch from parliamentary to a presidential form of government. Sheikh Mujib renamed the League the "Bangladesh Farmers and Workers Awami League (Bangladesh Krishok Sramik Awami League, BAKSAL), and banned all other parties. BAKSAL became the strong arm of what had turned into a dictatorship, with Sheikh Mujib becoming the lifetime president. Many opposition political workers, mostly revolutionary communist elements, were jailed after three Members of Parliament were killed by the communist insurgency. The crackdown on opposition was aided by the elite paramilitary force Rakkhi Bahini.
These negative developments led to a widespread dissatisfaction among the people and even inside the Army. On August 15, 1975 some junior members of the armed forces in Dhaka, led by Major Faruk Rahman and Major Rashid, assassinated Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and all his family members. Within months, on November 3, 1975, four more of its top leaders, Syed Nazrul Islam, Tajuddin Ahmed, Captain Muhammad Mansur Ali and A. H. M. Qamaruzzaman were killed inside the Dhaka Central Jail. Only Sheikh Hasina and Sheikh Rehana, two daughters of Mujib, survived the massacre as they were in West Germany as a part of a cultural exchange program. They later claimed political asylum in the United Kingdom. Sheikh Rehana, the younger sister, chose to remain in the United Kingdom permanently, while Sheikh Hasina moved to India and lived in self imposed exile. Her stays abroad helped her gain important political friends in the West and in India that proved to be a valuable asset for the party in the future.
After 1975, the party remained split into several rival factions, and fared poorly in the 1979 parliamentary elections held under a military government. In 1981, Sheikh Hasina returned after the largest party faction, the "Bangladesh Awami League", elected her its president, and she proceeded to take over the party leadership and unite the factions. As she was under age at the time she could not take part in the 1981 presidential elections that followed the assassination of then President Ziaur Rahman. Throughout the following nine years of military rule by General Ershad the Awami League participated in some polls but boycotted most, nearly all of them allegedly rigged.
The Awami League emerged as the largest opposition party in parliament in the elections in 1991, following the uprising against Ershad. It made major electoral gains in 1994 as its candidates won mayoral elections in the two largest cities of the country: the capital Dhaka and the commercial capital Chittagong. Demanding electoral reforms the party resigned from the parliament in 1995, boycotted the February 1996 parliamentary polls, and subsequently won 146 out of 300 seats in the June 1996 parliamentary polls. Supported by a few smaller parties, the Awami League formed a "Government of National Unity," and elected a non-partisan head of state, retired Chief Justice Shahabuddin Ahmed.
The Awami League's second try at governance produced mixed results. Apart from sustaining economic stability during the Asian economic crisis, the government successfully settled Bangladesh's long standing dispute with India over sharing the water of the river Ganga (also known as Padma) in late 1996, and signed a peace treaty with tribal rebels in 1997. In 1998, Bangladesh faced one of the worst floods ever, and the government handled the crisis satisfactorily. It also had significant achievements in containing inflation, and peacefully neutralizing a long-running leftist insurgency in south-western districts dating back to the first Awami League government's time. However, rampant corruption allegations against party office bearers and ministers as well as a deteriorating law and order situation troubled the government. Its pro poor policies achieved wide micro-economic development but that left the country's wealthy business class dissatisfied. The Awami League's last months in office were marred by sporadic bombing by alleged Islamist militants. Hasina herself escaped several attempts on her life, in one of which two anti-tank mines were planted under her helipad in Gopalganj district. In July 2001, the second Awami League government stepped down, becoming the first elected government in Bangladesh to serve a full term in office.
The party won only 62 out of 300 parliamentary seats in the elections held in October 2001, despite garnering forty percent (40%) of the votes, up from thirty-six percent (36%) in 1996 and thirty-three percent (33%) in 1991. The BNP and its allies won a two-thirds majority in parliament with forty-six percent (46%) of the votes cast, with BNP alone winning forty-one percent (41%) up from thirty-three percent (33%) in 1996 and thirty percent (30%) in 1991..
In its second term in opposition since 1991, the party suffered the assassination of several key members. Popular young leader Ahsanullah Master, a Member of Parliament from Gazipur, was killed in 2004. This was followed by a grenade attack on Hasina during a public meeting on August 21, 2004, resulting in the death of 22 party supporters, including party women's secretary Ivy Rahman, though Hasina lived. Finally, the party's electoral secretary, ex finance minister, and veteran diplomat Shah M S Kibria, a Member of Parliament from Habiganj, was killed in a grenade attack in Sylhet later that year.
In June 2005, the Awami League won an important victory when the Awami League nominated incumbent mayor A. B. M. Mohiuddin Chowdhury won the important mayoral election in Chittagong, by a huge margin, against BNP nominee State Minister of Aviation Mir Mohammad Nasiruddin. This election was seen as a showdown between the Awami League and the BNP. However, the killing of party leaders continued. In December 2005, the Awami League supported Mayor of Sylhet narrowly escaped the third attempt on his life as a grenade thrown at him failed to explode .
In September 2006, several of the party's top leaders, including Saber Hossain Choudhury and Asaduzzaman Nur, were hospitalized after being critically injured by police beatings while they demonstrated in support of electoral-law reforms. Starting in late October 2006, the Awami League led alliance carried out a series of nationwide demonstrations and blockades centering around the selection of the leader of the interim caretaker administration to oversee the 2007 elections. Although an election was scheduled to take place on January 22, 2007 that the Awami League decided to boycott, the country's military intervened on January 11, 2007 and installed an interim government composed of retired bureaucrats and military officers.
Throughout 2007 and 2008, the military backed government tried to root out corruption and get rid of the two dynastic leaders of the Awami League and BNP. While these efforts largely failed, they succeeded in producing a credible voter list that was used in the December 29, 2008 national election.
The Awami league participated in the national election on December 29, 2008 as part of a larger electoral alliance that also included the Jatiya Party led by former military ruler General Ershad as well as some leftist parties. The Bangladesh Awami League won 230 out of 299 constituencies, and together with its allies, garnered a total of 262 seats. The Awami League and its allies received fifty-seven percent (57%) of the total votes cast. The Awami League alone got forty-eight percent (48%), compared to thirty-six percent (36%) of the other major alliance led by the BNP which by itself won thirty-three percent (33%) of the votes. Ex-Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, as party head, was the Prime Minister-Elect.
Awami Muslim League see Awami League
Bangladesh Awami League see Awami League
BAL see Awami League
Bangladesh People's League see Awami League
All Pakistan Awami Muslim League see Awami League
All Pakistan Awami League see Awami League
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