Bigi
Bigi (Musa Yarullah Bigi) (December 24, 1874 - 1949). Volga-Ural Muslim philosopher and religious scholar. Born in Rostov on the Don, Bigi was the son of the mullah Yarullah Devlikam, originally from the Kikine village of Penza Gubernia, and of Fatma, the daughter of Imam Habibullah of the same village. He attended the Kulbue madrasah in Kazan but left without graduating and returned to Rostov to enroll in the Russian science gymnasium from which he graduated in 1895, when he left for Bukhara to continue his Islamic studies. After four years, he returned to Rostov only to leave again for an extended Middle Eastern trip.
Bigi traveled to Istanbul and then to Cairo, where he studied at al-Azhar and attended classes offered by Muhammad ‘Abduh. After four years, studying Islamic philosophy, theology, and jurisprudence, he returned to Rostov and married, but instead of seeking employment as a mullah or madrasah teacher and settling down, he left his wife Asma in his mother’s care and went to St. Petersburg to attend classes at the Law Faculty. As a scholar interested in tafsir (Qur’anic exegesis) and fiqh (law), he wanted to acquire the knowledge necessary to compare the Islamic and Western legal systems. Bigi’s closer acquaintance with Russian society during his stay in St. Petersburg resulted in a politicization of his thought and a deeper appreciation of Islam as a political force. While in St. Petersburg (1905-1917), he contributed eighteen essays to the Pan-Islamist journal Ulfat. He continued, however, to dedicate most of his time to research and scholarly writing, and his only active involvement in politics was the contribution he made as secretary to the Muslim Congress.
In 1910 and 1911, Bigi was employed as teacher of Arabic and Islamic history and theology at the Khosaeniya madrasah in Orenburg. As a scholar and teacher, Bigi was an exemplary practitioner of ijtihad (interpretation of Islam), but some of his interpretations were considered so far-fetched by the religious establishment that he was forced to leave Orenburg, despite the support of the well-respected scholar Rizaeddin Fakhreddin.
The revolutions of 1917 triggered Bigi’s hope for the beginning of an era of freedom for Muslims, and he chose not to leave Russia. Soon, however, he was to face bitter disappointment. In response to Bukharin’s "ABC of Communism," Bigi wrote in 1920 an “ABC of Islam” (Islam alifbasi), which he presented to the Congress of Scholars in Ufa. Of the work’s 236 points, 68 concerned the situation of the Muslims in Russia, and the remainder were devoted to Muslims elsewhere. The government retaliated with arrest and imprisonment, but after three months Bigi was released owing to a press campaign launched in Turkey and Finland on his behalf. Despite this experience, Bigi chose to stay in Soviet Russia and in 1926 participated in the Muslim Congress at Mecca representing his country. A year later he received permission to perform the pilgrimage. Bigi returned to Russia after this trip as well, because he still believed that he could serve his people by fighting to keep their heritage alive.
By 1930, however, even the idealist Bigi understood that all doors had been closed and neither political nor cultural pluralism was acceptable to the leaders of Soviet Russia. Consequently, he left his wife and six children behind and fled Russia. He stopped in Chinese Turkestan and then went to Afghanistan and India; in 1931 he traveled to Egypt and Finland; and in 1932 he took part in the first Congress of Turkish History in Ankara. The years of 1933 to 1937 took Bigi to Finland, Germany, and the Middle East, while in 1938 he traveled to China and Japan. In 1939, he went to India and Afghanistan with the intention of settling in the latter, but after being imprisoned by the British for eighteen months, he went to India instead. Bigi remained there until 1947, when he went to Egypt. He died there on October 25, 1949, having spent his last days in poverty in a charitable hospice.
Musa Yarullah Bigi left 122 works. The majority were written in Arabic and were devoted to issues of Islamic theology and jurisprudence; others addressed the social, political, and religious life of the Muslims of Russia and were written in Tatar. Several of his scholarly endeavors should be noted as illustrations of Bigi’s qualities as mujtahid. In Sherhu’l-luzumiyat, a volume of commentaries on the work of the tenth-century Islamic poet and philosopher al-Ma’ari, he argued, sharing al-Ma’ari’s skepticism, that none of the existing religions could be pleasing to God because they all contained moral if not physical oppression.
Bigi pursued the same iconoclastic line of thought in Rahmat-i ilahiya burhannari (The Storms of God’s Clemency), which challenged the official dogma that God’s mercy and forgiveness were not extended to unbelievers, arguing that on the contrary, God extended his forgiveness to everyone. Bigi was attacked by conservative ‘ulama’ through their publication Din va magishat (Religion and Life), as well as by liberal mullahs and jaded (modernist) intellectuals. One of the most vocal criticisms coming from the jaded reformers was articulated by Ismail Gasprali (Gasprinskii) in his article “Woe from Philosophy.” Fakhreddin was among the few defenders of Bigi, but he stated the issue from a different perspective, pointing to the historical precedents for the same interpretation.
When he discovered editorial changes in one of the copies of the Qur’an, Bigi was relentless in his criticism of mullahs, arguing that the changes reflected the ignorance of those who had tampered with the original text, whom he attacked in Tarikhu’l Qur’an va’l-masahif (A History of the Qur’an and Qur’anic Texts). Bigi also advocated translation of the Qur’an into Tatar, which he felt would contribute to making individual religious experience a more meaningful and conscientious act. He stressed that in a civilized world, it was the duty of the community to translate the Qur’an into the languages of the people and to ascertain the accuracy of existing translations. Bigi himself worked on a Tatar translation of the Qur’an, but it may have been destroyed together with his personal archives after his departure from Russia.
Bigi wrote extensively on issues concerning the position of women in Islam (Khatun, Aila masalalare, Hukuku’n-nisa fi’l-Islam); Sunnah and sharia‘ah (Kitabu’s-sunna); Shariat esaslari; and the social and political life of Russian Muslims (Islahat esaslari; Khalq nazarinda bir nicha masale). His most important contributions to Islamic thought, however, are his ijtihad works, of which two more deserve attention: Uzun kunlarde ruza (Fasting during Long Days), and Buyuk mevzularda ufak fikirlar (Small Thoughts on Big Issues). In the first essay, he discusses the ritual obligation of fasting with regard to Muslims living in the far north where the length of daylight and darkness does not coincide with that of the Islamic heartlands and renders a sharp criticism to dogmatics. In the second, he criticizes those who opposed Sufism and Sufi brotherhoods. Bigi valued the philosophical message of mysticism and was interested in the Sufi orders, and even in Christian monasticism.
Despite the breadth and originality of his thoughts and writings, Bigi did not have a strong impact on either Islamic thought in Russia or elsewhere, probably in large part because the door to Islamic studies was closed in Russia after 1917, and his works remained unknown. After leaving his country, he was socially and intellectually an outsider; although he was respected for his knowledge, his wanderings prevented him from planting the seeds of his ijtihad thought firmly in the soil of any Muslim country.
Musa Yarullah Bigi see Bigi
Bigi (Musa Yarullah Bigi) (December 24, 1874 - 1949). Volga-Ural Muslim philosopher and religious scholar. Born in Rostov on the Don, Bigi was the son of the mullah Yarullah Devlikam, originally from the Kikine village of Penza Gubernia, and of Fatma, the daughter of Imam Habibullah of the same village. He attended the Kulbue madrasah in Kazan but left without graduating and returned to Rostov to enroll in the Russian science gymnasium from which he graduated in 1895, when he left for Bukhara to continue his Islamic studies. After four years, he returned to Rostov only to leave again for an extended Middle Eastern trip.
Bigi traveled to Istanbul and then to Cairo, where he studied at al-Azhar and attended classes offered by Muhammad ‘Abduh. After four years, studying Islamic philosophy, theology, and jurisprudence, he returned to Rostov and married, but instead of seeking employment as a mullah or madrasah teacher and settling down, he left his wife Asma in his mother’s care and went to St. Petersburg to attend classes at the Law Faculty. As a scholar interested in tafsir (Qur’anic exegesis) and fiqh (law), he wanted to acquire the knowledge necessary to compare the Islamic and Western legal systems. Bigi’s closer acquaintance with Russian society during his stay in St. Petersburg resulted in a politicization of his thought and a deeper appreciation of Islam as a political force. While in St. Petersburg (1905-1917), he contributed eighteen essays to the Pan-Islamist journal Ulfat. He continued, however, to dedicate most of his time to research and scholarly writing, and his only active involvement in politics was the contribution he made as secretary to the Muslim Congress.
In 1910 and 1911, Bigi was employed as teacher of Arabic and Islamic history and theology at the Khosaeniya madrasah in Orenburg. As a scholar and teacher, Bigi was an exemplary practitioner of ijtihad (interpretation of Islam), but some of his interpretations were considered so far-fetched by the religious establishment that he was forced to leave Orenburg, despite the support of the well-respected scholar Rizaeddin Fakhreddin.
The revolutions of 1917 triggered Bigi’s hope for the beginning of an era of freedom for Muslims, and he chose not to leave Russia. Soon, however, he was to face bitter disappointment. In response to Bukharin’s "ABC of Communism," Bigi wrote in 1920 an “ABC of Islam” (Islam alifbasi), which he presented to the Congress of Scholars in Ufa. Of the work’s 236 points, 68 concerned the situation of the Muslims in Russia, and the remainder were devoted to Muslims elsewhere. The government retaliated with arrest and imprisonment, but after three months Bigi was released owing to a press campaign launched in Turkey and Finland on his behalf. Despite this experience, Bigi chose to stay in Soviet Russia and in 1926 participated in the Muslim Congress at Mecca representing his country. A year later he received permission to perform the pilgrimage. Bigi returned to Russia after this trip as well, because he still believed that he could serve his people by fighting to keep their heritage alive.
By 1930, however, even the idealist Bigi understood that all doors had been closed and neither political nor cultural pluralism was acceptable to the leaders of Soviet Russia. Consequently, he left his wife and six children behind and fled Russia. He stopped in Chinese Turkestan and then went to Afghanistan and India; in 1931 he traveled to Egypt and Finland; and in 1932 he took part in the first Congress of Turkish History in Ankara. The years of 1933 to 1937 took Bigi to Finland, Germany, and the Middle East, while in 1938 he traveled to China and Japan. In 1939, he went to India and Afghanistan with the intention of settling in the latter, but after being imprisoned by the British for eighteen months, he went to India instead. Bigi remained there until 1947, when he went to Egypt. He died there on October 25, 1949, having spent his last days in poverty in a charitable hospice.
Musa Yarullah Bigi left 122 works. The majority were written in Arabic and were devoted to issues of Islamic theology and jurisprudence; others addressed the social, political, and religious life of the Muslims of Russia and were written in Tatar. Several of his scholarly endeavors should be noted as illustrations of Bigi’s qualities as mujtahid. In Sherhu’l-luzumiyat, a volume of commentaries on the work of the tenth-century Islamic poet and philosopher al-Ma’ari, he argued, sharing al-Ma’ari’s skepticism, that none of the existing religions could be pleasing to God because they all contained moral if not physical oppression.
Bigi pursued the same iconoclastic line of thought in Rahmat-i ilahiya burhannari (The Storms of God’s Clemency), which challenged the official dogma that God’s mercy and forgiveness were not extended to unbelievers, arguing that on the contrary, God extended his forgiveness to everyone. Bigi was attacked by conservative ‘ulama’ through their publication Din va magishat (Religion and Life), as well as by liberal mullahs and jaded (modernist) intellectuals. One of the most vocal criticisms coming from the jaded reformers was articulated by Ismail Gasprali (Gasprinskii) in his article “Woe from Philosophy.” Fakhreddin was among the few defenders of Bigi, but he stated the issue from a different perspective, pointing to the historical precedents for the same interpretation.
When he discovered editorial changes in one of the copies of the Qur’an, Bigi was relentless in his criticism of mullahs, arguing that the changes reflected the ignorance of those who had tampered with the original text, whom he attacked in Tarikhu’l Qur’an va’l-masahif (A History of the Qur’an and Qur’anic Texts). Bigi also advocated translation of the Qur’an into Tatar, which he felt would contribute to making individual religious experience a more meaningful and conscientious act. He stressed that in a civilized world, it was the duty of the community to translate the Qur’an into the languages of the people and to ascertain the accuracy of existing translations. Bigi himself worked on a Tatar translation of the Qur’an, but it may have been destroyed together with his personal archives after his departure from Russia.
Bigi wrote extensively on issues concerning the position of women in Islam (Khatun, Aila masalalare, Hukuku’n-nisa fi’l-Islam); Sunnah and sharia‘ah (Kitabu’s-sunna); Shariat esaslari; and the social and political life of Russian Muslims (Islahat esaslari; Khalq nazarinda bir nicha masale). His most important contributions to Islamic thought, however, are his ijtihad works, of which two more deserve attention: Uzun kunlarde ruza (Fasting during Long Days), and Buyuk mevzularda ufak fikirlar (Small Thoughts on Big Issues). In the first essay, he discusses the ritual obligation of fasting with regard to Muslims living in the far north where the length of daylight and darkness does not coincide with that of the Islamic heartlands and renders a sharp criticism to dogmatics. In the second, he criticizes those who opposed Sufism and Sufi brotherhoods. Bigi valued the philosophical message of mysticism and was interested in the Sufi orders, and even in Christian monasticism.
Despite the breadth and originality of his thoughts and writings, Bigi did not have a strong impact on either Islamic thought in Russia or elsewhere, probably in large part because the door to Islamic studies was closed in Russia after 1917, and his works remained unknown. After leaving his country, he was socially and intellectually an outsider; although he was respected for his knowledge, his wanderings prevented him from planting the seeds of his ijtihad thought firmly in the soil of any Muslim country.
Musa Yarullah Bigi see Bigi
Bihbahani
Bihbahani ('Abd Allah Bihbahani) (1840-1910). Iranian religious scholar and one of the main leaders of the Constitutional Revolution. In 1891, alone among prominent clerics of Tehran, he opposed the celebrated tobacco boycott, thereby gratifying the prime minister of the day and the British legation. In the following decade, he gradually assumed a more patriotic stance, however, denouncing the extravagance of the court and its subordination to Russia. In November 1905, he concluded an alliance with Sayyid Muhammad Tabataba’i, a respected and enlightened religious leader, to seek fundamental changes in the government. This alliance is commonly regarded as the origin of the Constitutional Revolution. Bihbahani played a leading role in all the events of the movement, himself entering the Majlis that resulted from it. He was assassinated on July 16, 1910 by four men linked to a secularist group in the Majlis (parliament).
'Abd Allah Bihbahani see Bihbahani
Bihbahani ('Abd Allah Bihbahani) (1840-1910). Iranian religious scholar and one of the main leaders of the Constitutional Revolution. In 1891, alone among prominent clerics of Tehran, he opposed the celebrated tobacco boycott, thereby gratifying the prime minister of the day and the British legation. In the following decade, he gradually assumed a more patriotic stance, however, denouncing the extravagance of the court and its subordination to Russia. In November 1905, he concluded an alliance with Sayyid Muhammad Tabataba’i, a respected and enlightened religious leader, to seek fundamental changes in the government. This alliance is commonly regarded as the origin of the Constitutional Revolution. Bihbahani played a leading role in all the events of the movement, himself entering the Majlis that resulted from it. He was assassinated on July 16, 1910 by four men linked to a secularist group in the Majlis (parliament).
'Abd Allah Bihbahani see Bihbahani
Bihbihani
Bihbihani (Aqa Sayyid Muhammad Baqir Bihbihani) (Muhammad Baqir Bihbahani) (c.1705- c.1792). Shi‘ite mujtahid of Persia and proponent of the Usuliyya. He was commonly regarded by his contemporaries as the “renewer” (in Arabic, mujaddid) of the eighteenth century. By the end of his life, he had been able almost completely to uproot the influence of the Akhbariyya from the Shi‘ite shrines in Iraq and to establish the Usuliyya as normative for all of the Twelver Shi‘is. He was in effect the ancestor of all those mujtahids who have sought since his time to assert a guiding role in Iranian society.
Born in Isfahan, Bihbihani was taken as a child by his father -- a pupil of Muhammad Baqir Majlisi -- to Karbala in Iraq, which was to be his home for the rest of his life. After completing his studies in Karbala, Bihbahani first intended to return to Iran, but he decided to stay behind to combat the rival Akhbari school of jurisprudence. A vigorous debater and prolific writer, he attained the goal he had set himself and uprooted the Akhbaris from Karbala and other centers of Shi‘ite learning. The numerous pupils he trained returned to Iran in the early nineteenth century to inaugurate a tradition of assertive religious leadership that has continued down to the present day. {See also Akhbariyya; Majlisi, Muhammad Baqir; mujtahid; Shi'a; Twelvers; and Usuliyya.}
Aqa Sayyid Muhammad Baqir Bihbihani see Bihbihani
Muhammad Baqir Bihbahani see Bihbihani
“renewer” see Bihbihani
Bihbihani (Aqa Sayyid Muhammad Baqir Bihbihani) (Muhammad Baqir Bihbahani) (c.1705- c.1792). Shi‘ite mujtahid of Persia and proponent of the Usuliyya. He was commonly regarded by his contemporaries as the “renewer” (in Arabic, mujaddid) of the eighteenth century. By the end of his life, he had been able almost completely to uproot the influence of the Akhbariyya from the Shi‘ite shrines in Iraq and to establish the Usuliyya as normative for all of the Twelver Shi‘is. He was in effect the ancestor of all those mujtahids who have sought since his time to assert a guiding role in Iranian society.
Born in Isfahan, Bihbihani was taken as a child by his father -- a pupil of Muhammad Baqir Majlisi -- to Karbala in Iraq, which was to be his home for the rest of his life. After completing his studies in Karbala, Bihbahani first intended to return to Iran, but he decided to stay behind to combat the rival Akhbari school of jurisprudence. A vigorous debater and prolific writer, he attained the goal he had set himself and uprooted the Akhbaris from Karbala and other centers of Shi‘ite learning. The numerous pupils he trained returned to Iran in the early nineteenth century to inaugurate a tradition of assertive religious leadership that has continued down to the present day. {See also Akhbariyya; Majlisi, Muhammad Baqir; mujtahid; Shi'a; Twelvers; and Usuliyya.}
Aqa Sayyid Muhammad Baqir Bihbihani see Bihbihani
Muhammad Baqir Bihbahani see Bihbihani
“renewer” see Bihbihani
Bihzad
Bihzad (Kamal al-Din Bihzad) (Ostad Kamal od-din Bihzad) (c.1450-1536). Persian illustrator (miniature and manuscript painter). His patrons were the poet Mir ‘Ali Shir Nawa’i, the Timurid ruler in Khurasan, Husayn Bayqara (who reigned from 1470 to 1506) and the Safavid Shahs Isma‘il I and Tahmasp I. Born in Herat (in present day northwest Afghanistan), his artistic activity began around 1480 at the Timurid court of Sultan Husain Baiqara, where his first patron was Ali Shir Neva’i. Bihzad’s name is synonymous with the Timurid style of painting (sometimes called the Herat school), which reached its high point under his direction in the second half of the fifteenth century. Bihzad’s work represented the consummation of a new style of painting, characterized by refinement of composition, lifelike representation, a heightened sense of pictorial drama, and perfection of color technique. After the conquest of Herat by the Safavids in 1510, Bihzad entered the service of the Safavid Shah Isma‘il in Tabriz, where he was appointed head of the royal library and artists’ ateliers in 1522. Not only did he exert a great influence on the development of the Safavid style of painting, but, through his numerous pupils, the Timurid style was carried to Bukhara, where Timurid artistic traditions were preserved until the late sixteenth century under the patronage of the Shaibanid Uzbeks, as well as to the Mughal courts of India.
Bihzad was born in Herat (now in Afghanistan) and was taught by his guardian, the painter Mirak Naqqash (fl. 1494–1507). Bihzad worked in the royal library of the Timurid rulers, where an academy of scholars, calligraphers, and artists codified, copied, and illustrated classical works. In 1510, under the patronage of the new Safavid dynasty, Bihzad accompanied the court to Tabriz, Persia (now Iran). There, as director of the royal library after 1522, he influenced Persian painting and, through his works and his students, that of India and Turkey as well.
Of the many works completed in the style of Bihzad, scholars ascribe 32 to him. All were produced at Herat between 1486 and 1495. In these illustrations, richly clad courtiers move amid palaces, flowering gardens, and mountain landscapes. Bihzad developed new, subtle color relationships and a highly refined compositional skill. His genius won him the epithet "marvel of his age."
Kamal al-Din Bihzad see Bihzad
Ostad Kamal od-din Bihzad see Bihzad
Bihzad (Kamal al-Din Bihzad) (Ostad Kamal od-din Bihzad) (c.1450-1536). Persian illustrator (miniature and manuscript painter). His patrons were the poet Mir ‘Ali Shir Nawa’i, the Timurid ruler in Khurasan, Husayn Bayqara (who reigned from 1470 to 1506) and the Safavid Shahs Isma‘il I and Tahmasp I. Born in Herat (in present day northwest Afghanistan), his artistic activity began around 1480 at the Timurid court of Sultan Husain Baiqara, where his first patron was Ali Shir Neva’i. Bihzad’s name is synonymous with the Timurid style of painting (sometimes called the Herat school), which reached its high point under his direction in the second half of the fifteenth century. Bihzad’s work represented the consummation of a new style of painting, characterized by refinement of composition, lifelike representation, a heightened sense of pictorial drama, and perfection of color technique. After the conquest of Herat by the Safavids in 1510, Bihzad entered the service of the Safavid Shah Isma‘il in Tabriz, where he was appointed head of the royal library and artists’ ateliers in 1522. Not only did he exert a great influence on the development of the Safavid style of painting, but, through his numerous pupils, the Timurid style was carried to Bukhara, where Timurid artistic traditions were preserved until the late sixteenth century under the patronage of the Shaibanid Uzbeks, as well as to the Mughal courts of India.
Bihzad was born in Herat (now in Afghanistan) and was taught by his guardian, the painter Mirak Naqqash (fl. 1494–1507). Bihzad worked in the royal library of the Timurid rulers, where an academy of scholars, calligraphers, and artists codified, copied, and illustrated classical works. In 1510, under the patronage of the new Safavid dynasty, Bihzad accompanied the court to Tabriz, Persia (now Iran). There, as director of the royal library after 1522, he influenced Persian painting and, through his works and his students, that of India and Turkey as well.
Of the many works completed in the style of Bihzad, scholars ascribe 32 to him. All were produced at Herat between 1486 and 1495. In these illustrations, richly clad courtiers move amid palaces, flowering gardens, and mountain landscapes. Bihzad developed new, subtle color relationships and a highly refined compositional skill. His genius won him the epithet "marvel of his age."
Kamal al-Din Bihzad see Bihzad
Ostad Kamal od-din Bihzad see Bihzad
Bilal
Bilal (Bilal ibn Rabah) (Ibn Hamama) (Bilal ibn Habashi) (Bilal ibn Rabah) (Bilal ibn Riyah) (d.c.641). Manumitted slave of Abyssinian (Ethiopian) origin whose early interest in Islam and stentorian voice won him his freedom and the honor of being the first person to hold the position of muezzin, calling the Muslims to prayer. After being purchased and freed by Abu Bakr, he lived in Abu Bakr’s house, made the Hijra with Muhammad, and accompanied Muhammad on his campaigns. He was one of only five non-Arabs to receive stipends from the pay register drawn up by the caliph ‘Umar I.
Bilal died at the age of sixty around 641 at Damascus after having participated in the Wars of the Conquest. Today, Bilal is particularly honored as being the first Muslim of African descent -- the first Black Muslim.
Bilal ibn Rabah or Bilal al-Habeshi was an Ethiopian born in Mecca in the late 6th century, sometime between 578 and 582.
The Prophet Muhammad chose Bilal as his muezzin, effectively making him the first official muezzin of the Islamic faith. He was among the slaves freed by Abu Bakr and was known for his beautiful voice with which he called people to their prayers. His name can also be spelled as, "Bilal ibn Riyah" or "ibn Rabah" and he is sometimes known as "Bilal al-Habashi" or "Bilal the Ethiopian". He died sometime between 638 to 642, dying when he was just over sixty years old.
Bilal ibn Rabah is said to have been one of the most trusted and loyal Sahaba (companions of Muhammad) and was one of Ali's earliest and most loyal followers. His respected stature during the birth of Islam is often cited by Muslims as evidence of the importance of pluralism and racial equality in the foundation of the religion.
In 622, the year of the Hijra, Bilal migrated to Medina and over the next decade accompanied Muhammad on all his military expeditions. According to Islamic tradition, Bilal served as Muhammad's mace-bearer and steward, and as a muezzin revered by Muslims for his majestically sonorous renditions of the adhan. Bilal also carried Muhammad's spear, which was used from 624 onward to point the direction of prayer.
He fought in the Battle of Badr, in the aftermath of which he killed his former master, Umayyah ibn Khalaf, in spite of the protestation of Umayyah's capturer and long-time friend Abdur Rahman bin Awf. Bilal was also present in all of the major events and battles, including the battles of Uhud and Battle of the Trench.
Bilal's finest hour came in January 630, on an occasion regarded as one of the most hallowed moments in Islamic history. After the Muslim forces had captured Mecca, Muhammad's muezzin ascended to the top of the Kaaba to call the believers to prayer, - the first time the call to prayer was heard within Islam's holiest city..
There are contradictory reports about what happened to Bilal after the death of Muhammad in 632. What seems clear is that at some point Bilal accompanied the Muslim armies to Syria.
Bilal died there between 638 and 642, though the exact date of death and place of burial are disputed.
If there is some disagreement concerning the hard facts of Bilal's life and death, his importance on a number of levels is incontestable. Muezzin guilds, especially those in Turkey and Africa, have traditionally venerated the original practitioner of their noble profession, and African Muslims as a whole feel a special closeness and kinship to him. After all, he was an Ethiopian who had been exceptionally close to Muhammad, and is a model of steadfastness and devotion to the faith. The story of Bilal, in fact, remains the classic and most frequently cited demonstration that in Muhammad's eyes, the measure of a man was neither nationality nor social status nor race, but piety.
Bilal ibn Rabah see Bilal
Ibn Hamama see Bilal
Bilal al-Habeshi
B see Bilal
Bilal the Ethiopian see Bilal
Bilal (Bilal ibn Rabah) (Ibn Hamama) (Bilal ibn Habashi) (Bilal ibn Rabah) (Bilal ibn Riyah) (d.c.641). Manumitted slave of Abyssinian (Ethiopian) origin whose early interest in Islam and stentorian voice won him his freedom and the honor of being the first person to hold the position of muezzin, calling the Muslims to prayer. After being purchased and freed by Abu Bakr, he lived in Abu Bakr’s house, made the Hijra with Muhammad, and accompanied Muhammad on his campaigns. He was one of only five non-Arabs to receive stipends from the pay register drawn up by the caliph ‘Umar I.
Bilal died at the age of sixty around 641 at Damascus after having participated in the Wars of the Conquest. Today, Bilal is particularly honored as being the first Muslim of African descent -- the first Black Muslim.
Bilal ibn Rabah or Bilal al-Habeshi was an Ethiopian born in Mecca in the late 6th century, sometime between 578 and 582.
The Prophet Muhammad chose Bilal as his muezzin, effectively making him the first official muezzin of the Islamic faith. He was among the slaves freed by Abu Bakr and was known for his beautiful voice with which he called people to their prayers. His name can also be spelled as, "Bilal ibn Riyah" or "ibn Rabah" and he is sometimes known as "Bilal al-Habashi" or "Bilal the Ethiopian". He died sometime between 638 to 642, dying when he was just over sixty years old.
Bilal ibn Rabah is said to have been one of the most trusted and loyal Sahaba (companions of Muhammad) and was one of Ali's earliest and most loyal followers. His respected stature during the birth of Islam is often cited by Muslims as evidence of the importance of pluralism and racial equality in the foundation of the religion.
In 622, the year of the Hijra, Bilal migrated to Medina and over the next decade accompanied Muhammad on all his military expeditions. According to Islamic tradition, Bilal served as Muhammad's mace-bearer and steward, and as a muezzin revered by Muslims for his majestically sonorous renditions of the adhan. Bilal also carried Muhammad's spear, which was used from 624 onward to point the direction of prayer.
He fought in the Battle of Badr, in the aftermath of which he killed his former master, Umayyah ibn Khalaf, in spite of the protestation of Umayyah's capturer and long-time friend Abdur Rahman bin Awf. Bilal was also present in all of the major events and battles, including the battles of Uhud and Battle of the Trench.
Bilal's finest hour came in January 630, on an occasion regarded as one of the most hallowed moments in Islamic history. After the Muslim forces had captured Mecca, Muhammad's muezzin ascended to the top of the Kaaba to call the believers to prayer, - the first time the call to prayer was heard within Islam's holiest city..
There are contradictory reports about what happened to Bilal after the death of Muhammad in 632. What seems clear is that at some point Bilal accompanied the Muslim armies to Syria.
Bilal died there between 638 and 642, though the exact date of death and place of burial are disputed.
If there is some disagreement concerning the hard facts of Bilal's life and death, his importance on a number of levels is incontestable. Muezzin guilds, especially those in Turkey and Africa, have traditionally venerated the original practitioner of their noble profession, and African Muslims as a whole feel a special closeness and kinship to him. After all, he was an Ethiopian who had been exceptionally close to Muhammad, and is a model of steadfastness and devotion to the faith. The story of Bilal, in fact, remains the classic and most frequently cited demonstration that in Muhammad's eyes, the measure of a man was neither nationality nor social status nor race, but piety.
Bilal ibn Rabah see Bilal
Ibn Hamama see Bilal
Bilal al-Habeshi
B see Bilal
Bilal the Ethiopian see Bilal
Bilin
Bilin (Bilen) (Belen) (Blin) (Bogos). Ethnic group of south-central Eritrea. Until the latter part of the twentieth century of the Christian calendar, most Bilin Agaw lived in the Keren region of western Eritrea Province in Ethiopia. Many are now dispersed across Eritrea and in refugee camps in Sudan. They call themselves and their language Bilin, some of their neighbors call them Bogos and they are listed as Bilen and Belen in the literature. They also call themselves Gabra Tarqwe Qur (qur means "sons of").
From earliest, pre-Bilin times to the recent past, Keren has been on the caravan route between the Red Sea and the Nile Valley in Sudan. Ottoman Turkish occupation of the Eritrean seaport of Massawa in 1557 marked the beginning of three centuries of its sphere of influence in northern Ethiopia. Bilin were slaved by the Turks as late as the mid-nineteenth century. Egypt began to replace the Turks by the 1830s and controlled Bilinland by 1850.
Bilin history is a microcosm of the changes of the past 150 years in Eritrea. The global importance of this region, and the Keren-Bilin area central to it, was radically and almost instantly transformed when the Suez Canal was opened in 1869 by the British. The Red Sea was changed from a remote cul-de-sac of the Indian Ocean into the artery of commercial and military navigation between Europe and the Indo-Pacific region. The great geopolitical importance of the Red Sea and its coastal lands such as Eritrea (which means “land of the Red Sea”) continues into the present.
In the late nineteenth century, Britain tried to diminish growing French power in the Red Sea-Sudan zone by encouraging its satellite state, Egypt, and then the new but weak European state, Italy, to control strategic Eritrea. The Egyptian consolidation of its movement into Eritrea was under the leadership of Werner Munzinger Pasha, a Swiss soldier-scholar-adventurer. Munzinger made himself the protector of the Bilin and occupied the Keren-Bilin region in 1872-1874. While among the Bilin in 1859, Munzinger wrote the sole principal work to date about the people, On the Customs and Law of the Bogos. A number of Egyptian defeats by Ethiopian armies in 1875-1876 left only Keren-Bilinland in Egyptian hands.
To gain support in its fight against Mahdist revolts in Sudan, Britain signed the Anglo-Ethiopian Treaty in 1884, with Egyptian buildings and stores in the stronghold of Keren in Bilinland going to Ethiopia along with the rest of Eritrea. Despite the treaty, Britain allowed Italy to occupy Massawa in 1885 and use this port as a base to conquer all of Eritrea in 1889, with Keren Bilinland falling in June.
Italian Eritrea was used as the staging ground for the debacle of an Italian invasion of Ethiopia in 1896 and the more successful, mechanized invasion in 1935-1936. Bilin troops were used by the Italians in both invasions. British and Ethiopian armies drove the Italian forces out of all of northeast Africa in 1941 with a major three and one half month battle taking place in Bilinland around Keren. Under a United Nations directive, Eritrea was federated with Ethiopia in 1952. But in 1962, Ethiopia annexed the province.
With Eritrean separatist movements contending against Ethiopia, increasingly heavy fighting has taken place between the two sides since 1961. Ethiopia was first aided by the West, then by the Soviet bloc. The war resulted in tens of thousands of local casualties and caused perhaps one million of the three million Eritreans to be displaced from their homes, mostly as refugees in Sudan. Successful guerrilla warfare of 1974-1977 by the militant and well-organized Eritrean Peoples Liberation Front (EPLF), allied with the Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF), led to conventional open warfare against Ethiopian government forces trained and equipped by the United States and Israel. The taking of Keren from bastion in surrounding Bilinland by the EPLF was the capstone to effective control of most of their province by Eritreans. Wracked by war, the Kerenites and the Bilin chaffed under the rigid militant control of young, super-dedicated EPLF cadres. In the countryside, Bilin were caught between EPLF units and Ethiopian serial attacks with modern ordnance.
In 1977, the new revolutionary government of Ethiopia began to receive large-scale military aid from the Soviet bloc. Orchestrated by the Soviets, a lethal juggernaut of armor, heavy artillery, rockets, helicopters and jet fighter-bombers, aided by reconnaissance satellites and backed by trained infantry, knocked holes at strategic places in the Eritrean lines. In the final pitched battle in Bilinland, about 100 T-54 tanks and other armor, supported by MIG 21 and 23 jets, were stopped for days in the narrow verdant Elabaret Valley outside of Keren. Perhaps one-third of Ethio-Soviet was lost, as were much of the valuable commercial citrus and tomato plantations of the valley. After several days of fighting, the EPLF pulled back from the Keren vicinity into the Bilin hinterland.
Bogos see Bilin
Bilen see Bilin
Belen see Bilin
Gabra Tarqwe Qur see Bilin
Blin see Bilin
Bilin see Bilin
Bilin (Bilen) (Belen) (Blin) (Bogos). Ethnic group of south-central Eritrea. Until the latter part of the twentieth century of the Christian calendar, most Bilin Agaw lived in the Keren region of western Eritrea Province in Ethiopia. Many are now dispersed across Eritrea and in refugee camps in Sudan. They call themselves and their language Bilin, some of their neighbors call them Bogos and they are listed as Bilen and Belen in the literature. They also call themselves Gabra Tarqwe Qur (qur means "sons of").
From earliest, pre-Bilin times to the recent past, Keren has been on the caravan route between the Red Sea and the Nile Valley in Sudan. Ottoman Turkish occupation of the Eritrean seaport of Massawa in 1557 marked the beginning of three centuries of its sphere of influence in northern Ethiopia. Bilin were slaved by the Turks as late as the mid-nineteenth century. Egypt began to replace the Turks by the 1830s and controlled Bilinland by 1850.
Bilin history is a microcosm of the changes of the past 150 years in Eritrea. The global importance of this region, and the Keren-Bilin area central to it, was radically and almost instantly transformed when the Suez Canal was opened in 1869 by the British. The Red Sea was changed from a remote cul-de-sac of the Indian Ocean into the artery of commercial and military navigation between Europe and the Indo-Pacific region. The great geopolitical importance of the Red Sea and its coastal lands such as Eritrea (which means “land of the Red Sea”) continues into the present.
In the late nineteenth century, Britain tried to diminish growing French power in the Red Sea-Sudan zone by encouraging its satellite state, Egypt, and then the new but weak European state, Italy, to control strategic Eritrea. The Egyptian consolidation of its movement into Eritrea was under the leadership of Werner Munzinger Pasha, a Swiss soldier-scholar-adventurer. Munzinger made himself the protector of the Bilin and occupied the Keren-Bilin region in 1872-1874. While among the Bilin in 1859, Munzinger wrote the sole principal work to date about the people, On the Customs and Law of the Bogos. A number of Egyptian defeats by Ethiopian armies in 1875-1876 left only Keren-Bilinland in Egyptian hands.
To gain support in its fight against Mahdist revolts in Sudan, Britain signed the Anglo-Ethiopian Treaty in 1884, with Egyptian buildings and stores in the stronghold of Keren in Bilinland going to Ethiopia along with the rest of Eritrea. Despite the treaty, Britain allowed Italy to occupy Massawa in 1885 and use this port as a base to conquer all of Eritrea in 1889, with Keren Bilinland falling in June.
Italian Eritrea was used as the staging ground for the debacle of an Italian invasion of Ethiopia in 1896 and the more successful, mechanized invasion in 1935-1936. Bilin troops were used by the Italians in both invasions. British and Ethiopian armies drove the Italian forces out of all of northeast Africa in 1941 with a major three and one half month battle taking place in Bilinland around Keren. Under a United Nations directive, Eritrea was federated with Ethiopia in 1952. But in 1962, Ethiopia annexed the province.
With Eritrean separatist movements contending against Ethiopia, increasingly heavy fighting has taken place between the two sides since 1961. Ethiopia was first aided by the West, then by the Soviet bloc. The war resulted in tens of thousands of local casualties and caused perhaps one million of the three million Eritreans to be displaced from their homes, mostly as refugees in Sudan. Successful guerrilla warfare of 1974-1977 by the militant and well-organized Eritrean Peoples Liberation Front (EPLF), allied with the Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF), led to conventional open warfare against Ethiopian government forces trained and equipped by the United States and Israel. The taking of Keren from bastion in surrounding Bilinland by the EPLF was the capstone to effective control of most of their province by Eritreans. Wracked by war, the Kerenites and the Bilin chaffed under the rigid militant control of young, super-dedicated EPLF cadres. In the countryside, Bilin were caught between EPLF units and Ethiopian serial attacks with modern ordnance.
In 1977, the new revolutionary government of Ethiopia began to receive large-scale military aid from the Soviet bloc. Orchestrated by the Soviets, a lethal juggernaut of armor, heavy artillery, rockets, helicopters and jet fighter-bombers, aided by reconnaissance satellites and backed by trained infantry, knocked holes at strategic places in the Eritrean lines. In the final pitched battle in Bilinland, about 100 T-54 tanks and other armor, supported by MIG 21 and 23 jets, were stopped for days in the narrow verdant Elabaret Valley outside of Keren. Perhaps one-third of Ethio-Soviet was lost, as were much of the valuable commercial citrus and tomato plantations of the valley. After several days of fighting, the EPLF pulled back from the Keren vicinity into the Bilin hinterland.
Bogos see Bilin
Bilen see Bilin
Belen see Bilin
Gabra Tarqwe Qur see Bilin
Blin see Bilin
Bilin see Bilin
Bin Laden
Bin Laden (Osama bin Laden) (Usāmah bin Muḥammad bin `Awaḍ bin Lādin) (b. March 10, 1957 - d. May 2, 2011). Saudi born millionaire and Islamic fundamentalist who was accused of orchestrating terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, on September 11, 2001. The attacks which began with the hijacking of four commercial jets en route from East Coast cities to California, killed more than 3,000 people and caused billions of dollars in damage. Bin Laden was also suspected of masterminding attacks on United States embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in August 1998, as well as an attack on the United States Navy destroyer U.S.S. Cole in October 2000 while the ship was in port at Aden, Yemen.
Bin Laden operated at the center of al-Qaida (“The Base”), an international terrorist network. He and other al-Qaida members supported radical fundamentalist Islam and strongly opposed United States policies in the Middle East, particularly the presence of United States troops in Saudi Arabia. In 1996, bin Laden transferred his headquarters to Afghanistan, where he controlled al-Qaida activities. The Taliban, the ruling regime in Afghanistan, shielded bin Laden from arrest by international authorities.
Osama bin Laden was born in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. His family had accumulated considerable wealth in the construction business. Bin Laden attended King Abdul Aziz University in Jidda, Saudi Arabia.
Bin Laden soon became influenced by the anti-Western ideas of Sayyid Qutb and Maulana Maududi as well as by the conservative Wahhabi movement, the dominant form of Sunni Islam in Saudi Arabia. Wahhabis believe that any ideas not found in a literal reading of the Qur’an should be abandoned, and that Muslims must free themselves of any non-Islamic influence.
In 1979, Osama bin Laden joined a group of Islamic guerrillas fighting a jihad (holy war) against Soviet troops who had invaded Afghanistan. Bin Laden used his wealth to recruit Muslim fighters from around the world for the war and fought in several battles himself. Bin Laden and the Muslim warriors, supported by the United States, succeeded in ousting the Soviets from Aghanistan in 1989, and Bin Laden returned to Saudi Arabia. Bin Laden’s recruitment of Arab troops, however, marked the beginning of al-Qaida.
The chain of events that eventually led to the attacks on America in 2001 began during the Persian Gulf War of 1991, when King Fahd of Saudi Arabia allowed United States forces to use Saudi territory for launching air strikes against Iraqi troops who had invaded neighboring Kuwait. This decision enraged Bin Laden, who believed Islamic law required the Saudis to support their fellow Muslims, the Iraqis. Bin Laden’s outspoken opposition to the Saudi-United States alliance caused Saudi authorities to place him under house arrest. However, bin Laden fled to Sudan, where he lived from 1991 to 1996. While in Sudan, he built up the Al-Qaida network and began to turn it against the United States. In 1996, the government of Sudan, under pressure from the United States, expelled bin Laden, and he moved his terrorist training operations to Afghanistan, which was coming under the control of an extremist Islamic militia called the Taliban. The Taliban and al-Qaida soon formed a mutually supportive relationship.
Bin Laden had set as his goals expelling the Western presence from Islamic lands, abolishing boundaries between Muslim nations, and creating a multi-ethnic Islamic society ruled by a restored caliphate (the title of Islamic governments during Medieval times). Working toward these goals, bin Laden and his compatriots supported Muslim rebel forces in Chechnya (a republic in southwestern Russia); Kosovo (a province in Yugoslavia); Bosnia-Herzegovina; Tajikistan; Somalia; and Yemen. Al-Qaida also trained members of terrorist organizations from such diverse countries as the Philippines, Algeria, and Eritrea.
Since 2001, Osama bin Laden and his organization have been major targets of the United States' War on Terrorism. Bin Laden and fellow Al-Qaeda leaders are believed to be hiding in the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas.
Osama bin Laden was born in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. His father, Muhammed Awad bin Laden, was a wealthy businessman with close ties to the Saudi royal family. Osama bin Laden was born the only son of Muhammed bin Laden's tenth wife, Hamida al-Attas. Osama's parents divorced soon after he was born. Osama's mother then married Muhammad al-Attas. The couple had four children, and Osama lived in the new household with three stepbrothers and one stepsister.
Bin Laden was raised as a devout Wahhabi Muslim. From 1968 to 1976 he attended the "élite" secular Al-Thager Model School. Bin Laden studied economics and business administration at King Abdulaziz University. Some reports suggest bin Laden earned a degree in civil engineering in 1979, or a degree in public administration in 1981. Other sources describe him as having left university during his third year, never completing a college degree. At university, bin Laden's main interest was religion, where he was involved in both interpreting the Quran and jihad and charitable work. He also wrote poetry.
In 1974, at the age of 17, bin Laden married his first wife Najwa Ghanem at Latakia. As of 2002 bin Laden had married four women and fathered anywhere from 12 to 26 children.
Bin Laden believed that the restoration of Sharia law would set things right in the Muslim world, and that all other ideologies—pan-Arabism, socialism, communism, democracy—should be opposed. These beliefs, along with violent expansive jihad, have sometimes been called Qutbism. Bin Laden believed that Afghanistan under the rule of Mullah Omar's Taliban was the only Islamic country in the Muslim world. Bin Laden consistently dwelt on the need for violent jihad to right what he believed were injustices against Muslims perpetrated by the United States and sometimes by other non-Muslim states; the need to eliminate the state of Israel; and the necessity of forcing the United States to withdraw from the Middle East. He also called on Americans to reject the "immoral" acts of fornication and homosexuality, intoxicants, gambling, and usury.
Probably the most infamous part of Bin Laden's ideology was that civilians, including women and children, were legitimate targets of jihad. Bin Laden was anti-semitic, and delivered warnings against alleged Jewish conspiracies.
After leaving college in 1979 bin Laden joined Abdullah Azzam to fight the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan and lived for a time in Peshawar.
By 1984, with Azzam, bin Laden established Maktab al-Khadamat, which funneled money, arms and Muslim fighters from around the Arabic world into the Afghan war. Through al-Khadamat, bin Laden's inherited family fortune paid for air tickets and accommodations, dealt with paperwork with Pakistani authorities and provided other such services for the jihad fighters. Bin Laden moved to Peshawar in 1994, and during this time met his future collaborator, Ayman al-Zawahiri, who encouraged Osama to split away from Azzam, Osama established a camp in Afghanistan, and with other volunteers fought the Soviets.
By 1988, bin Laden had split from Maktab al-Khidamat. While Azzam acted in support of Afghan fighters, bin Laden wanted a more military role. One of the main disputes leading to the split and the creation of al-Qaeda was the insistence of Azzam that Arab fighters be integrated into the Afghan fighting groups instead of forming their own separate fighting force. Bin Laden returned to Saudi Arabia in 1990 as a hero of jihad, who along with his Arab legion, had brought down the mighty superpower -- the Soviet Union. However, during this time Iraq invaded Kuwait. Bin Laden met with the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, and told him not to depend on non-Muslim troops. Bin Laden offered to help defend Saudi Arabia. Bin Laden's offer was rebuffed and after the American offer to help was accepted he publicly denounced Saudi Arabia's dependence on the United States military. Bin Laden's criticism of the Saudi monarchy led that government to attempt to silence him.
Around this time, Bosnia and Herzegovina essentially became a safe haven for terrorists, after it was revealed that militant elements of the former Sarajevo government were protecting extremists, some with ties to Osama bin Laden. In 1997, Rzeczpospolita, one of the largest Polish daily newspapers, reported that intelligence services of the Nordic-Polish SFOR Brigade suspected that a center for training terrorists from Islamic countries was located in the Bocina Donja village near Maglaj in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In 1992, hundreds of volunteers joined an "all-mujahedeen unit" called El Moujahed, which was headquartered in Zenica in an abandoned hillside factory, a compound with a hospital and prayer hall. According to Middle East intelligence reports. Bin Laden financed small convoys of recruits from the Arab world through his businesses in Sudan. Among them was Karim Said Atmani who was identified by authorities as the document forger for a group of Algerians accused of plotting the bombings in the USA. He was a former roommate of Ahmed Ressam, the man arrested at the Canadian-U.S. border in mid-December 1999 with a car full of nitroglycerin and bomb-making materials. Atmani was convicted of colluding with Osama bin Laden by a French court. A Bosnian government search of passport and residency records, conducted at the urging of the United States, revealed other former mujahideen who were linked to the same Algerian group or to other suspected terrorist groups and who lived in the area 60 miles (97 km) north of Sarajevo. Khalil al-Deek, was arrested in Jordan in late December 1999 on suspicion of involvement in a plot to blow up tourist sites; a second man with Bosnian citizenship, Hamid Aich, lived in Canada at the same time as Atmani and worked for a charity associated with Osama Bin Laden. In its June 26, 1997, Report on the bombing of the Al Khobar building in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, the New York Times noted that those arrested confessed to serving with Bosnian Muslim forces. Further, the terrorists also admitted to ties with Osama Bin Laden. In 1999, it was revealed that Osama bin Laden and his Tunisian assistant Mehrez Aodouni were granted citizenship and a Bosnian passport in 1993 by the Government in Sarajevo. This information was denied by Bosnian government following the 9/11 attacks but it was later found out that Aodouni was arrested in Turkey and that at that time he possessed the Bosnian passport. Following this revelation, a new explanation was given that bin Laden did not personally collect his Bosnian passport and that officials at the Bosnian embassy in Vienna, which issued the passport, could not have known who bin Laden was at the time. The Bosnian daily Oslobođenje published in 2001 that three men, believed to be linked to Osama Bin Laden, were arrested in Sarajevo in July 2001. The three, one of whom was identified as Imad El Misri, were Egyptian nationals. The paper said that two of the suspects were holding Bosnian passports.
In 1998, it was reported that bin Laden was operating his terrorist network out of Albania. It was also reported that a network run by Saudi exile Osama Bin Laden sent units to fight in the Serbian province of Kosovo. Confirmation of these activities came from Claude Kader, a French national who said he was a member of Bin Laden's Albanian network. He claimed he had visited Albania to recruit and arm fighters for Kosovo. In 2000, bin Laden was operating from Kosovo planning the terrorist activities during the Insurgency in the Preševo Valley.
Connections between bin Laden and the National Liberation Army, an insurgent, terrorist, and guerrilla organization that operated in the Republic of Macedonia in 2001 were also drawn. According to the Washington Times, the NLA was fighting to keep control over the region’s drug trafficking, which had grown into a large, lucrative enterprise since the Kosovo war and that in addition to drug money, the NLA also had another prominent venture capitalist, Osama Bin Laden. According to documents written by the chief commander of the Macedonian Security Forces, bin Laden was financing the rebel group through a representative in Macedonia. Osama Bin Laden, paid $6 to $7 million for the needs of the National Liberation Army through his representative. Osama Bin Laden was planning to gain control over Macedonia so that he could control the distribution of oil to the United States through the pipeline that was planned to stretch from Bulgaria to Albania ports.
Bin Laden moved to Sudan in 1992 and established a new base for Mujahideen operations in Khartoum. Due to bin Laden's continuous verbal assault on King Fahd of Saudi Arabia, on March 5, 1994, Fahd sent an emissary to Sudan demanding bin Laden's passport. His family was persuaded to cut off his monthly stipend, the equivalent of $7 million a year. By now bin Laden was strongly associated with Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ), which made up the core of al-Qaeda. In 1995, the EIJ attempted to assassinate Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. The attempt failed and the EIJ was expelled from Sudan.
In February 1996, Sudanese officials began approaching officials from the United States and other governments, asking what actions of theirs might ease foreign pressure. In secret meetings with Saudi officials, Sudan offered to expel bin Laden to Saudi Arabia and asked the Saudis to pardon him. United States officials became aware of these secret discussions, certainly by March. Saudi officials apparently wanted bin Laden expelled from Sudan. They had already revoked his citizenship, however, and would not tolerate his presence in their country. Also bin Laden may have no longer felt safe in Sudan, where he had already escaped at least one assassination attempt that he believed to have been the work of the Egyptian or Saudi regimes, or both.
In late 1995, when Bin Laden was still in Sudan, the State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) learned that Sudanese officials were discussing with the Saudi government the possibility of expelling Bin Laden. United States Ambassador Timothy Carney encouraged the Sudanese to pursue this course. The Saudis, however, did not want Bin Laden, giving as their reason their revocation of his citizenship.
In May 1996, under increasing pressure from Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the United States on Sudan, bin Laden returned to Jalalabad, Afghanistan aboard a chartered jet. In Afghanistan, bin Laden and Al-Qaeda raised money from "donors from the days of the Soviet jihad", and from Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). When Bin Laden left Sudan, he and his organization were significantly weakened, despite his ambitions and organizational skills.
It is believed that the first bombing attack involving bin Laden was the December 29, 1992 bombing of the Gold Mihor Hotel in Aden in which two people were killed. It was after this bombing that al-Qaeda was reported to have developed its justification for the killing of innocent people. According to a fatwa issued by Mamdouh Mahmud Salim, the killing of someone standing near the enemy is justified because any innocent bystander will find their proper reward in death, going to Paradise if they were good Muslims and to hell if they were bad or non-believers. The fatwa was issued to al-Qaeda members but not the general public.
In the 1990s bin Laden's al-Qaeda assisted jihadis financially and sometimes militarily in Algeria, Egypt and Afghanistan. In 1992 or 1993 bin Laden sent an emissary, Qari el-Said, with $40,000 to Algeria to aid the Islamists and urge war rather than negotiation with the government. Their advice was heeded but the war that followed killed 150,000-200,000 Algerians and ended with Islamist surrender to the government. Another effort by bin Laden was the funding of the Luxor massacre of November 17 1997, which killed sixty-two civilians, but so revolted the Egyptian public that it turned against Islamist terror. In mid-1997, the Northern Alliance threatened to overrun Jalalabad, causing Bin Laden to abandon his Nazim Jihad compound and move his operations to Tarnak Farms in the south.
A later effort that did succeed was an attack on the city of Mazar-e-Sharif in Afghanistan. Bin Laden helped cement his alliance with his hosts the Taliban by sending several hundred of his Afghan Arab fighters along to help the Taliban kill between five and six thousand Hazaras overrunning the city.
In 1998, Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri co-signed a fatwa in the name of the World Islamic Front for Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders which declared the killing of the North Americans and their allies an "individual duty for every Muslim" to "liberate the al-Aqsa Mosque (in Jerusalem) and the holy mosque (in Mecca) from their grip". At the public announcement of the fatwa, bin Laden announced that North Americans are "very easy targets."
At the end of 2000, Richard Clarke revealed that Islamic militants headed by bin Laden had planned a triple attack on January 3, 2000 which would have included bombings in Jordan of the Radisson SAS Hotel in Amman, tourists at Mount Nebo and a site on the Jordan River, and the sinking of the destroyer USS The Sullivans in Yemen, as well as an attack on a target within the United States. The plan was foiled by the arrest of the Jordanian terrorist cell, the sinking of the explosive-filled skiff intended to target the destroyer, and the arrest of Ahmed Ressam.
Osama bin Laden has claimed responsibility for the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States. The attacks involved the hijacking of United Airlines Flight 93, United Airlines Flight 175, American Airlines Flight 11, and American Airlines Flight 77; the subsequent destruction of those planes and the World Trade Center in New York City, New York; severe damage to The Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia; and the deaths of 2,974 people excluding the nineteen hijackers. In response to the attacks, the United States launched a War on Terrorism to depose the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and capture al-Qaeda operatives, and several countries strengthened their anti-terrorism legislation to preclude future attacks.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation has stated that evidence linking Al-Qaeda and bin Laden to the attacks of September 11 is clear and irrefutable. The Government of the United Kingdom reached the same conclusion regarding Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden's culpability for the September 11, 2001, attacks. Bin Laden initially denied involvement in the September 11, 2001 attacks. On September16, 2001, bin Laden read a statement later broadcast by Qatar's Al Jazeera satellite channel denying responsibility for the attack.
In a videotape recovered by United States forces in November 2001 in Jalalabad, bin Laden was seen discussing the attack with Khaled al-Harbi in a way that indicated foreknowledge. The tape was broadcast on various news networks on December 13, 2001.
In a 2004 Osama bin Laden video, bin Laden abandoned his denials without retracting past statements. In it he stated he had personally directed the nineteen hijackers. In the 18-minute tape, played on Al-Jazeera, four days before the American presidential election, bin Laden accused United States President George W. Bush of negligence on the hijacking of the planes on September 11.
According to the tapes, bin Laden claimed he was inspired to destroy the World Trade Center after watching the destruction of towers in Lebanon by Israel during the 1982 Lebanon War.
On March 16, 1998, Libya issued the first official international Interpol arrest warrant against Bin Laden and three other people for killing two German citizens in Libya on March 10, 1994, one of which is thought to have been a German counter-intelligence officer. Bin Laden is still wanted by the Libyan government. Osama bin Laden was first indicted by the United States on June 8, 1998, when a grand jury indicted Osama bin Laden on charges of killing five Americans and two Indians in the November 14, 1995 truck bombing of a United States - operated Saudi National Guard training center in Riyadh. Bin Laden was charged with "conspiracy to attack defense utilities of the United States" and prosecutors further charged that bin Laden is the head of the terrorist organization called al Qaeda, and that he was a major financial backer of Islamic fighters worldwide. Bin Laden denied involvement but praised the attack. On November 4, 1998, Osama bin Laden was indicted by a Federal Grand Jury in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, on charges of Murder of United States Nationals Outside the United States, Conspiracy to Murder United States Nationals Outside the United States, and Attacks on a Federal Facility Resulting in Death for his alleged role in the 1998 United States embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania. The evidence against bin Laden included courtroom testimony by former Al Qaeda members and satellite phone records.
Bin Laden became the 456th person listed on the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list, when he was added to the list on June 7, 1999, following his indictment along with others for capital crimes in the 1998 embassy attacks. Attempts at assassination and requests for the extradition of bin Laden from the Taliban of Afghanistan were met with failure prior to the bombing of Afghanistan in October 2001. In 1999, United States President Bill Clinton convinced the United Nations to impose sanctions against Afghanistan in an attempt to force the Taliban to extradite him. Years later, on October 10, 2001, bin Laden appeared as well on the initial list of the top 22 FBI Most Wanted Terrorists, which was released to the public by the President of the United States George W. Bush, in direct response to the attacks of 9/11, but which was again based on the indictment for the 1998 embassy attack. Bin Laden was among a group of thirteen fugitive terrorists wanted on that latter list for questioning about the 1998 embassy bombings. Bin Laden remains the only fugitive ever to be listed on both FBI fugitive lists.
Despite the multiple indictments listed above and multiple requests, the Taliban refused to extradict Osama Bin Laden. It was not until after the bombing of Afghanistan began in October 2001 that the Taliban finally did offer to turn over Osama bin Laden to a third-party country for trial, in return for the United States ending the bombing and providing evidence that Osama bin Laden was involved in the 9/11 attacks. This offer was rejected by George W Bush stating that this was no longer negotiable.
Capturing Osama bin Laden had been an objective of the United States government since the presidency of Bill Clinton. Shortly after the September 11 attacks it was revealed that President Clinton had signed a directive authorizing the CIA to apprehend bin Laden and bring him to the United States to stand trial after the 1998 United States embassy bombings in Africa. Indeed, it was ordered that if taking bin Laden alive was deemed impossible, then deadly force was authorized. On August 20, 1998, 66 cruise missiles launched by United States Navy ships in the Arabian Sea struck bin Laden's training camps near Khost in Afghanistan, narrowly missing him by a few hours. In 1999 the CIA, together with Pakistani military intelligence, prepared a team of approximately 60 Pakistani commandos to infiltrate Afghanistan to capture or kill bin Laden, but the plan was aborted by the 1999 Pakistani coup d'état. In 2000, foreign operatives working on behalf of the CIA fired a rocket-propelled grenade at a convoy of vehicles in which bin Laden was traveling through the mountains of Afghanistan, hitting one of the vehicles but not the one bin Laden was in.
In late 2001, the United States government concluded that Osama bin Laden was present during the Battle of Tora Bora. However, the failure by the United States to commit United States ground troops to hunt him led to his escape and was the gravest failure by the United States in the war against al Qaeda. Intelligence officials have assembled what they believe to be decisive evidence from contemporary and subsequent interrogations and intercepted communications, that bin Laden began the battle of Tora Bora inside the cave complex along Afghanistan's mountainous eastern border.
The CIA unit dedicated to capturing Osama was shut down in late 2005. However, from August 14 to 16, 2007, United States and Afghanistan forces raided the mountain caves in Tora Bora. The military was drawn to the area after receiving intelligence of a pre-Ramadan meeting held by al Qaeda members. After killing dozens of al Qaeda and Taliban members, they did not find either Osama bin Laden or Ayman al Zawahiri.
Immediately after the 9/11 attacks, United States government officials named bin Laden and the Al-Qaeda organization as the prime suspects and offered a reward of $25 million for information leading to his capture or death. On July 13, 2007, this figure was doubled to $50 million.
After December 2001, many claims were made with regards to the location of Osama bin Laden. However, none were proven to be true and some even placed Osama in different locations during overlapping time periods.
At the end of the 20th century, bin Laden was thought to have had thousands of militant followers worldwide, in places as diverse as Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Libya, Bosnia, Chechnya, and the Philippines. In 2001, after 19 militants associated with al-Qaeda staged the September 11 attacks, the United States led a coalition that overthrew the Taliban in Afghanistan. In December 2001 bin Laden went into hiding after evading capture by United States forces in the Tora Bora cave complex. In the following years United States forces searched for him along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, during which time bin Laden remained absent from the public eye. Then in October 2004—less than a week before that year’s United States presidential election—bin Laden emerged in a videotaped message in which he claimed responsibility for the September 11 attacks. After that he periodically released audio messages, including in 2008, when he threatened retaliation for the deaths of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, and in 2009, when he challenged the nerve of the new United States president, Barack Obama, to continue the fight against al-Qaeda.
Meanwhile, United States forces continued to hunt for bin Laden, who was still thought possibly to be hiding either in Afghanistan or in the tribal regions of Pakistan near the border with Afghanistan. United States intelligence eventually located him in Pakistan, living in a secure compound in Abbottabad, a medium-sized city near Islamabad. On May 2, 2011, bin Laden was killed when a small United States force transported by helicopters raided the compound. His body, identified visually at the site of the raid, was taken out of Pakistan by United States forces for examination and DNA identification and soon after was given a sea burial. Hours after its confirmation, bin Laden’s death was announced by President Barack Obama in a televised address. Several days after Obama’s announcement, al-Qaeda released a statement publicly acknowledging bin Laden’s death and vowing revenge.
In late May, 2011, al-Qaeda released an audio message purportedly recorded by bin Laden shortly before he was killed. In the message, bin Laden praised the Tunisian and Egyptian uprisings of early 2011 and called on al-Qaeda followers to help people struggling against unjust governments.
Osama bin Laden see Bin Laden
Usāmah bin Muḥammad bin `Awaḍ bin Lādin see Bin Laden
Bin Laden (Osama bin Laden) (Usāmah bin Muḥammad bin `Awaḍ bin Lādin) (b. March 10, 1957 - d. May 2, 2011). Saudi born millionaire and Islamic fundamentalist who was accused of orchestrating terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, on September 11, 2001. The attacks which began with the hijacking of four commercial jets en route from East Coast cities to California, killed more than 3,000 people and caused billions of dollars in damage. Bin Laden was also suspected of masterminding attacks on United States embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in August 1998, as well as an attack on the United States Navy destroyer U.S.S. Cole in October 2000 while the ship was in port at Aden, Yemen.
Bin Laden operated at the center of al-Qaida (“The Base”), an international terrorist network. He and other al-Qaida members supported radical fundamentalist Islam and strongly opposed United States policies in the Middle East, particularly the presence of United States troops in Saudi Arabia. In 1996, bin Laden transferred his headquarters to Afghanistan, where he controlled al-Qaida activities. The Taliban, the ruling regime in Afghanistan, shielded bin Laden from arrest by international authorities.
Osama bin Laden was born in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. His family had accumulated considerable wealth in the construction business. Bin Laden attended King Abdul Aziz University in Jidda, Saudi Arabia.
Bin Laden soon became influenced by the anti-Western ideas of Sayyid Qutb and Maulana Maududi as well as by the conservative Wahhabi movement, the dominant form of Sunni Islam in Saudi Arabia. Wahhabis believe that any ideas not found in a literal reading of the Qur’an should be abandoned, and that Muslims must free themselves of any non-Islamic influence.
In 1979, Osama bin Laden joined a group of Islamic guerrillas fighting a jihad (holy war) against Soviet troops who had invaded Afghanistan. Bin Laden used his wealth to recruit Muslim fighters from around the world for the war and fought in several battles himself. Bin Laden and the Muslim warriors, supported by the United States, succeeded in ousting the Soviets from Aghanistan in 1989, and Bin Laden returned to Saudi Arabia. Bin Laden’s recruitment of Arab troops, however, marked the beginning of al-Qaida.
The chain of events that eventually led to the attacks on America in 2001 began during the Persian Gulf War of 1991, when King Fahd of Saudi Arabia allowed United States forces to use Saudi territory for launching air strikes against Iraqi troops who had invaded neighboring Kuwait. This decision enraged Bin Laden, who believed Islamic law required the Saudis to support their fellow Muslims, the Iraqis. Bin Laden’s outspoken opposition to the Saudi-United States alliance caused Saudi authorities to place him under house arrest. However, bin Laden fled to Sudan, where he lived from 1991 to 1996. While in Sudan, he built up the Al-Qaida network and began to turn it against the United States. In 1996, the government of Sudan, under pressure from the United States, expelled bin Laden, and he moved his terrorist training operations to Afghanistan, which was coming under the control of an extremist Islamic militia called the Taliban. The Taliban and al-Qaida soon formed a mutually supportive relationship.
Bin Laden had set as his goals expelling the Western presence from Islamic lands, abolishing boundaries between Muslim nations, and creating a multi-ethnic Islamic society ruled by a restored caliphate (the title of Islamic governments during Medieval times). Working toward these goals, bin Laden and his compatriots supported Muslim rebel forces in Chechnya (a republic in southwestern Russia); Kosovo (a province in Yugoslavia); Bosnia-Herzegovina; Tajikistan; Somalia; and Yemen. Al-Qaida also trained members of terrorist organizations from such diverse countries as the Philippines, Algeria, and Eritrea.
Since 2001, Osama bin Laden and his organization have been major targets of the United States' War on Terrorism. Bin Laden and fellow Al-Qaeda leaders are believed to be hiding in the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas.
Osama bin Laden was born in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. His father, Muhammed Awad bin Laden, was a wealthy businessman with close ties to the Saudi royal family. Osama bin Laden was born the only son of Muhammed bin Laden's tenth wife, Hamida al-Attas. Osama's parents divorced soon after he was born. Osama's mother then married Muhammad al-Attas. The couple had four children, and Osama lived in the new household with three stepbrothers and one stepsister.
Bin Laden was raised as a devout Wahhabi Muslim. From 1968 to 1976 he attended the "élite" secular Al-Thager Model School. Bin Laden studied economics and business administration at King Abdulaziz University. Some reports suggest bin Laden earned a degree in civil engineering in 1979, or a degree in public administration in 1981. Other sources describe him as having left university during his third year, never completing a college degree. At university, bin Laden's main interest was religion, where he was involved in both interpreting the Quran and jihad and charitable work. He also wrote poetry.
In 1974, at the age of 17, bin Laden married his first wife Najwa Ghanem at Latakia. As of 2002 bin Laden had married four women and fathered anywhere from 12 to 26 children.
Bin Laden believed that the restoration of Sharia law would set things right in the Muslim world, and that all other ideologies—pan-Arabism, socialism, communism, democracy—should be opposed. These beliefs, along with violent expansive jihad, have sometimes been called Qutbism. Bin Laden believed that Afghanistan under the rule of Mullah Omar's Taliban was the only Islamic country in the Muslim world. Bin Laden consistently dwelt on the need for violent jihad to right what he believed were injustices against Muslims perpetrated by the United States and sometimes by other non-Muslim states; the need to eliminate the state of Israel; and the necessity of forcing the United States to withdraw from the Middle East. He also called on Americans to reject the "immoral" acts of fornication and homosexuality, intoxicants, gambling, and usury.
Probably the most infamous part of Bin Laden's ideology was that civilians, including women and children, were legitimate targets of jihad. Bin Laden was anti-semitic, and delivered warnings against alleged Jewish conspiracies.
After leaving college in 1979 bin Laden joined Abdullah Azzam to fight the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan and lived for a time in Peshawar.
By 1984, with Azzam, bin Laden established Maktab al-Khadamat, which funneled money, arms and Muslim fighters from around the Arabic world into the Afghan war. Through al-Khadamat, bin Laden's inherited family fortune paid for air tickets and accommodations, dealt with paperwork with Pakistani authorities and provided other such services for the jihad fighters. Bin Laden moved to Peshawar in 1994, and during this time met his future collaborator, Ayman al-Zawahiri, who encouraged Osama to split away from Azzam, Osama established a camp in Afghanistan, and with other volunteers fought the Soviets.
By 1988, bin Laden had split from Maktab al-Khidamat. While Azzam acted in support of Afghan fighters, bin Laden wanted a more military role. One of the main disputes leading to the split and the creation of al-Qaeda was the insistence of Azzam that Arab fighters be integrated into the Afghan fighting groups instead of forming their own separate fighting force. Bin Laden returned to Saudi Arabia in 1990 as a hero of jihad, who along with his Arab legion, had brought down the mighty superpower -- the Soviet Union. However, during this time Iraq invaded Kuwait. Bin Laden met with the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, and told him not to depend on non-Muslim troops. Bin Laden offered to help defend Saudi Arabia. Bin Laden's offer was rebuffed and after the American offer to help was accepted he publicly denounced Saudi Arabia's dependence on the United States military. Bin Laden's criticism of the Saudi monarchy led that government to attempt to silence him.
Around this time, Bosnia and Herzegovina essentially became a safe haven for terrorists, after it was revealed that militant elements of the former Sarajevo government were protecting extremists, some with ties to Osama bin Laden. In 1997, Rzeczpospolita, one of the largest Polish daily newspapers, reported that intelligence services of the Nordic-Polish SFOR Brigade suspected that a center for training terrorists from Islamic countries was located in the Bocina Donja village near Maglaj in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In 1992, hundreds of volunteers joined an "all-mujahedeen unit" called El Moujahed, which was headquartered in Zenica in an abandoned hillside factory, a compound with a hospital and prayer hall. According to Middle East intelligence reports. Bin Laden financed small convoys of recruits from the Arab world through his businesses in Sudan. Among them was Karim Said Atmani who was identified by authorities as the document forger for a group of Algerians accused of plotting the bombings in the USA. He was a former roommate of Ahmed Ressam, the man arrested at the Canadian-U.S. border in mid-December 1999 with a car full of nitroglycerin and bomb-making materials. Atmani was convicted of colluding with Osama bin Laden by a French court. A Bosnian government search of passport and residency records, conducted at the urging of the United States, revealed other former mujahideen who were linked to the same Algerian group or to other suspected terrorist groups and who lived in the area 60 miles (97 km) north of Sarajevo. Khalil al-Deek, was arrested in Jordan in late December 1999 on suspicion of involvement in a plot to blow up tourist sites; a second man with Bosnian citizenship, Hamid Aich, lived in Canada at the same time as Atmani and worked for a charity associated with Osama Bin Laden. In its June 26, 1997, Report on the bombing of the Al Khobar building in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, the New York Times noted that those arrested confessed to serving with Bosnian Muslim forces. Further, the terrorists also admitted to ties with Osama Bin Laden. In 1999, it was revealed that Osama bin Laden and his Tunisian assistant Mehrez Aodouni were granted citizenship and a Bosnian passport in 1993 by the Government in Sarajevo. This information was denied by Bosnian government following the 9/11 attacks but it was later found out that Aodouni was arrested in Turkey and that at that time he possessed the Bosnian passport. Following this revelation, a new explanation was given that bin Laden did not personally collect his Bosnian passport and that officials at the Bosnian embassy in Vienna, which issued the passport, could not have known who bin Laden was at the time. The Bosnian daily Oslobođenje published in 2001 that three men, believed to be linked to Osama Bin Laden, were arrested in Sarajevo in July 2001. The three, one of whom was identified as Imad El Misri, were Egyptian nationals. The paper said that two of the suspects were holding Bosnian passports.
In 1998, it was reported that bin Laden was operating his terrorist network out of Albania. It was also reported that a network run by Saudi exile Osama Bin Laden sent units to fight in the Serbian province of Kosovo. Confirmation of these activities came from Claude Kader, a French national who said he was a member of Bin Laden's Albanian network. He claimed he had visited Albania to recruit and arm fighters for Kosovo. In 2000, bin Laden was operating from Kosovo planning the terrorist activities during the Insurgency in the Preševo Valley.
Connections between bin Laden and the National Liberation Army, an insurgent, terrorist, and guerrilla organization that operated in the Republic of Macedonia in 2001 were also drawn. According to the Washington Times, the NLA was fighting to keep control over the region’s drug trafficking, which had grown into a large, lucrative enterprise since the Kosovo war and that in addition to drug money, the NLA also had another prominent venture capitalist, Osama Bin Laden. According to documents written by the chief commander of the Macedonian Security Forces, bin Laden was financing the rebel group through a representative in Macedonia. Osama Bin Laden, paid $6 to $7 million for the needs of the National Liberation Army through his representative. Osama Bin Laden was planning to gain control over Macedonia so that he could control the distribution of oil to the United States through the pipeline that was planned to stretch from Bulgaria to Albania ports.
Bin Laden moved to Sudan in 1992 and established a new base for Mujahideen operations in Khartoum. Due to bin Laden's continuous verbal assault on King Fahd of Saudi Arabia, on March 5, 1994, Fahd sent an emissary to Sudan demanding bin Laden's passport. His family was persuaded to cut off his monthly stipend, the equivalent of $7 million a year. By now bin Laden was strongly associated with Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ), which made up the core of al-Qaeda. In 1995, the EIJ attempted to assassinate Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. The attempt failed and the EIJ was expelled from Sudan.
In February 1996, Sudanese officials began approaching officials from the United States and other governments, asking what actions of theirs might ease foreign pressure. In secret meetings with Saudi officials, Sudan offered to expel bin Laden to Saudi Arabia and asked the Saudis to pardon him. United States officials became aware of these secret discussions, certainly by March. Saudi officials apparently wanted bin Laden expelled from Sudan. They had already revoked his citizenship, however, and would not tolerate his presence in their country. Also bin Laden may have no longer felt safe in Sudan, where he had already escaped at least one assassination attempt that he believed to have been the work of the Egyptian or Saudi regimes, or both.
In late 1995, when Bin Laden was still in Sudan, the State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) learned that Sudanese officials were discussing with the Saudi government the possibility of expelling Bin Laden. United States Ambassador Timothy Carney encouraged the Sudanese to pursue this course. The Saudis, however, did not want Bin Laden, giving as their reason their revocation of his citizenship.
In May 1996, under increasing pressure from Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the United States on Sudan, bin Laden returned to Jalalabad, Afghanistan aboard a chartered jet. In Afghanistan, bin Laden and Al-Qaeda raised money from "donors from the days of the Soviet jihad", and from Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). When Bin Laden left Sudan, he and his organization were significantly weakened, despite his ambitions and organizational skills.
It is believed that the first bombing attack involving bin Laden was the December 29, 1992 bombing of the Gold Mihor Hotel in Aden in which two people were killed. It was after this bombing that al-Qaeda was reported to have developed its justification for the killing of innocent people. According to a fatwa issued by Mamdouh Mahmud Salim, the killing of someone standing near the enemy is justified because any innocent bystander will find their proper reward in death, going to Paradise if they were good Muslims and to hell if they were bad or non-believers. The fatwa was issued to al-Qaeda members but not the general public.
In the 1990s bin Laden's al-Qaeda assisted jihadis financially and sometimes militarily in Algeria, Egypt and Afghanistan. In 1992 or 1993 bin Laden sent an emissary, Qari el-Said, with $40,000 to Algeria to aid the Islamists and urge war rather than negotiation with the government. Their advice was heeded but the war that followed killed 150,000-200,000 Algerians and ended with Islamist surrender to the government. Another effort by bin Laden was the funding of the Luxor massacre of November 17 1997, which killed sixty-two civilians, but so revolted the Egyptian public that it turned against Islamist terror. In mid-1997, the Northern Alliance threatened to overrun Jalalabad, causing Bin Laden to abandon his Nazim Jihad compound and move his operations to Tarnak Farms in the south.
A later effort that did succeed was an attack on the city of Mazar-e-Sharif in Afghanistan. Bin Laden helped cement his alliance with his hosts the Taliban by sending several hundred of his Afghan Arab fighters along to help the Taliban kill between five and six thousand Hazaras overrunning the city.
In 1998, Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri co-signed a fatwa in the name of the World Islamic Front for Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders which declared the killing of the North Americans and their allies an "individual duty for every Muslim" to "liberate the al-Aqsa Mosque (in Jerusalem) and the holy mosque (in Mecca) from their grip". At the public announcement of the fatwa, bin Laden announced that North Americans are "very easy targets."
At the end of 2000, Richard Clarke revealed that Islamic militants headed by bin Laden had planned a triple attack on January 3, 2000 which would have included bombings in Jordan of the Radisson SAS Hotel in Amman, tourists at Mount Nebo and a site on the Jordan River, and the sinking of the destroyer USS The Sullivans in Yemen, as well as an attack on a target within the United States. The plan was foiled by the arrest of the Jordanian terrorist cell, the sinking of the explosive-filled skiff intended to target the destroyer, and the arrest of Ahmed Ressam.
Osama bin Laden has claimed responsibility for the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States. The attacks involved the hijacking of United Airlines Flight 93, United Airlines Flight 175, American Airlines Flight 11, and American Airlines Flight 77; the subsequent destruction of those planes and the World Trade Center in New York City, New York; severe damage to The Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia; and the deaths of 2,974 people excluding the nineteen hijackers. In response to the attacks, the United States launched a War on Terrorism to depose the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and capture al-Qaeda operatives, and several countries strengthened their anti-terrorism legislation to preclude future attacks.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation has stated that evidence linking Al-Qaeda and bin Laden to the attacks of September 11 is clear and irrefutable. The Government of the United Kingdom reached the same conclusion regarding Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden's culpability for the September 11, 2001, attacks. Bin Laden initially denied involvement in the September 11, 2001 attacks. On September16, 2001, bin Laden read a statement later broadcast by Qatar's Al Jazeera satellite channel denying responsibility for the attack.
In a videotape recovered by United States forces in November 2001 in Jalalabad, bin Laden was seen discussing the attack with Khaled al-Harbi in a way that indicated foreknowledge. The tape was broadcast on various news networks on December 13, 2001.
In a 2004 Osama bin Laden video, bin Laden abandoned his denials without retracting past statements. In it he stated he had personally directed the nineteen hijackers. In the 18-minute tape, played on Al-Jazeera, four days before the American presidential election, bin Laden accused United States President George W. Bush of negligence on the hijacking of the planes on September 11.
According to the tapes, bin Laden claimed he was inspired to destroy the World Trade Center after watching the destruction of towers in Lebanon by Israel during the 1982 Lebanon War.
On March 16, 1998, Libya issued the first official international Interpol arrest warrant against Bin Laden and three other people for killing two German citizens in Libya on March 10, 1994, one of which is thought to have been a German counter-intelligence officer. Bin Laden is still wanted by the Libyan government. Osama bin Laden was first indicted by the United States on June 8, 1998, when a grand jury indicted Osama bin Laden on charges of killing five Americans and two Indians in the November 14, 1995 truck bombing of a United States - operated Saudi National Guard training center in Riyadh. Bin Laden was charged with "conspiracy to attack defense utilities of the United States" and prosecutors further charged that bin Laden is the head of the terrorist organization called al Qaeda, and that he was a major financial backer of Islamic fighters worldwide. Bin Laden denied involvement but praised the attack. On November 4, 1998, Osama bin Laden was indicted by a Federal Grand Jury in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, on charges of Murder of United States Nationals Outside the United States, Conspiracy to Murder United States Nationals Outside the United States, and Attacks on a Federal Facility Resulting in Death for his alleged role in the 1998 United States embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania. The evidence against bin Laden included courtroom testimony by former Al Qaeda members and satellite phone records.
Bin Laden became the 456th person listed on the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list, when he was added to the list on June 7, 1999, following his indictment along with others for capital crimes in the 1998 embassy attacks. Attempts at assassination and requests for the extradition of bin Laden from the Taliban of Afghanistan were met with failure prior to the bombing of Afghanistan in October 2001. In 1999, United States President Bill Clinton convinced the United Nations to impose sanctions against Afghanistan in an attempt to force the Taliban to extradite him. Years later, on October 10, 2001, bin Laden appeared as well on the initial list of the top 22 FBI Most Wanted Terrorists, which was released to the public by the President of the United States George W. Bush, in direct response to the attacks of 9/11, but which was again based on the indictment for the 1998 embassy attack. Bin Laden was among a group of thirteen fugitive terrorists wanted on that latter list for questioning about the 1998 embassy bombings. Bin Laden remains the only fugitive ever to be listed on both FBI fugitive lists.
Despite the multiple indictments listed above and multiple requests, the Taliban refused to extradict Osama Bin Laden. It was not until after the bombing of Afghanistan began in October 2001 that the Taliban finally did offer to turn over Osama bin Laden to a third-party country for trial, in return for the United States ending the bombing and providing evidence that Osama bin Laden was involved in the 9/11 attacks. This offer was rejected by George W Bush stating that this was no longer negotiable.
Capturing Osama bin Laden had been an objective of the United States government since the presidency of Bill Clinton. Shortly after the September 11 attacks it was revealed that President Clinton had signed a directive authorizing the CIA to apprehend bin Laden and bring him to the United States to stand trial after the 1998 United States embassy bombings in Africa. Indeed, it was ordered that if taking bin Laden alive was deemed impossible, then deadly force was authorized. On August 20, 1998, 66 cruise missiles launched by United States Navy ships in the Arabian Sea struck bin Laden's training camps near Khost in Afghanistan, narrowly missing him by a few hours. In 1999 the CIA, together with Pakistani military intelligence, prepared a team of approximately 60 Pakistani commandos to infiltrate Afghanistan to capture or kill bin Laden, but the plan was aborted by the 1999 Pakistani coup d'état. In 2000, foreign operatives working on behalf of the CIA fired a rocket-propelled grenade at a convoy of vehicles in which bin Laden was traveling through the mountains of Afghanistan, hitting one of the vehicles but not the one bin Laden was in.
In late 2001, the United States government concluded that Osama bin Laden was present during the Battle of Tora Bora. However, the failure by the United States to commit United States ground troops to hunt him led to his escape and was the gravest failure by the United States in the war against al Qaeda. Intelligence officials have assembled what they believe to be decisive evidence from contemporary and subsequent interrogations and intercepted communications, that bin Laden began the battle of Tora Bora inside the cave complex along Afghanistan's mountainous eastern border.
The CIA unit dedicated to capturing Osama was shut down in late 2005. However, from August 14 to 16, 2007, United States and Afghanistan forces raided the mountain caves in Tora Bora. The military was drawn to the area after receiving intelligence of a pre-Ramadan meeting held by al Qaeda members. After killing dozens of al Qaeda and Taliban members, they did not find either Osama bin Laden or Ayman al Zawahiri.
Immediately after the 9/11 attacks, United States government officials named bin Laden and the Al-Qaeda organization as the prime suspects and offered a reward of $25 million for information leading to his capture or death. On July 13, 2007, this figure was doubled to $50 million.
After December 2001, many claims were made with regards to the location of Osama bin Laden. However, none were proven to be true and some even placed Osama in different locations during overlapping time periods.
At the end of the 20th century, bin Laden was thought to have had thousands of militant followers worldwide, in places as diverse as Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Libya, Bosnia, Chechnya, and the Philippines. In 2001, after 19 militants associated with al-Qaeda staged the September 11 attacks, the United States led a coalition that overthrew the Taliban in Afghanistan. In December 2001 bin Laden went into hiding after evading capture by United States forces in the Tora Bora cave complex. In the following years United States forces searched for him along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, during which time bin Laden remained absent from the public eye. Then in October 2004—less than a week before that year’s United States presidential election—bin Laden emerged in a videotaped message in which he claimed responsibility for the September 11 attacks. After that he periodically released audio messages, including in 2008, when he threatened retaliation for the deaths of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, and in 2009, when he challenged the nerve of the new United States president, Barack Obama, to continue the fight against al-Qaeda.
Meanwhile, United States forces continued to hunt for bin Laden, who was still thought possibly to be hiding either in Afghanistan or in the tribal regions of Pakistan near the border with Afghanistan. United States intelligence eventually located him in Pakistan, living in a secure compound in Abbottabad, a medium-sized city near Islamabad. On May 2, 2011, bin Laden was killed when a small United States force transported by helicopters raided the compound. His body, identified visually at the site of the raid, was taken out of Pakistan by United States forces for examination and DNA identification and soon after was given a sea burial. Hours after its confirmation, bin Laden’s death was announced by President Barack Obama in a televised address. Several days after Obama’s announcement, al-Qaeda released a statement publicly acknowledging bin Laden’s death and vowing revenge.
In late May, 2011, al-Qaeda released an audio message purportedly recorded by bin Laden shortly before he was killed. In the message, bin Laden praised the Tunisian and Egyptian uprisings of early 2011 and called on al-Qaeda followers to help people struggling against unjust governments.
Osama bin Laden see Bin Laden
Usāmah bin Muḥammad bin `Awaḍ bin Lādin see Bin Laden
Binzagr, Safeya
Safeya Binzagr (b. 1940, Saudi Arabia, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia – d. September 12, 2024, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia) was a Saudi Arabian artist, active in the art scene of Jeddah. She opened a museum and gallery, the Darat Safeya Binzagr, in 2000. She was the only artist in her country to have their own museum.
Binzagr was born in 1940 to a prosperous merchant family in Jeddah. She was privately taught art in Egypt and went on to earn a degree from Saint Martin's School of Art in London, England, in 1965.
Binzagr's first exhibition took place in 1968. In 1970, she was the first woman to hold a solo exhibition of her work in Saudi Arabia. Despite her art being presented, Binzagr was not allowed to attend the openings of her own exhibitions until Aramco held a private exhibition of her work in 1976. She was instead represented by male members of her family. In 1973, she chose to stop selling her art. In 1979, Binzagr published a book about Saudi Arabian art called Saudi Arabia, An Artist's View of the Past. The book has been translated into English and French.
Binzagr's work uses various mediums, ranging from oil paint, watercolor, pastel, drawing and etchings, and often centers around daily life in Saudi Arabia. She has series of works based on themes such as marriage customs, local costumes and old homes in Saudi Arabia. Binzagr paints cultural themes in order to preserve the cultural traditions of her country. Some of her paintings are based on descriptions given to her by older women about their lives. Binzagr meticulously researches her paintings, either by capturing through photographs images of buildings, craftwork and neighborhoods or by looking through historic documents and photography. Much of the history Binzagr has recorded belongs to the Hejaz cultural tradition.
In 1989, she started to imagine a place where she could permanently display and curate her work. The museum took about nine years of planning and construction and was opened in 2000. Binzagr's work can be seen at her museum, the Darat Safeya Binzagr, where admission is free. The museum served as her home, her studio, and as a gallery of her work. Binzagr hosted public events at her museum to promote art in Saudi Arabia.
Safeya Binzagr died on September 12, 2024, in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
Biruni
Biruni (Abu Raihan Muhammad al-Biruni) (Abu al-Rayhan al-Biruni) (Abu Rayhan Muhammad ibn Ahmad Biruni) (Alberuni) (September 5, 973 - December 13, 1048). One of the most original and profound scholars of medieval Islam. Of Iranian origin, he was equally versed in the mathematical, astronomic, physical and natural sciences and also distinguished himself as a geographer and historian, chronologist and linguist and as an impartial observer of customs and creeds.
Al-Biruni is considered to be one of the most prominent (if not "the" most prominent) of figures in the phalanx of those universally learned Muslim scholars who characterize the Golden Age of Islamic Science. His great contributions in so many diverse fields earned him the title al-Ustadh -- “the Master” -- the Professor par excellence. Indeed, some historians have called the period of his activity as “The Age of al-Biruni.”
Abu Raihan Muhammad al-Biruni was born in Khwarizm (now Kara-kalpakskaya in present day Uzbekistan) in 973. He studied Arabic, Islamic law, and several other fields of knowledge. Later, he learned Greek, Syriac, and Sanskrit. His knowledge of several languages helped him in understanding the available disparate scholarship and to bring a fresh and original approach to his work. Al-Biruni was of the view that whatever the subject one should use every available source in its original form, investigate the available work with objective scrutiny, and carry out research through direct observation and experimentation.
Al-Biruni was a contemporary of the famous physician Ibn Sina (Avicenna) and is known to have corresponded with him. Al-Biruni’s contributions are so extensive that an index of his written works covers more than sixty pages. His scientific work combined with the contributions of al-Haitham (Al-Hazen) and other Muslim scientists laid down the early foundation of modern science.
Al-Biruni made original and important contributions to science. He discovered seven different ways of finding the direction of the north and south, and discovered mathematical techniques to determine exactly the beginnings of the season. He also wrote about the sun and its movements and the eclipse. In addition, he invented a number of astronomical instruments. Many centuries before the rest of the world, Al-Biruni theorized that the earth rotated on its axis and made accurate calculations of latitude and longitude. These observations are contained in his book Al-Athar al-Baqia. He wrote a treatise on timekeeping in the year 1000 of the Christian calendar.
Al-Biruni was the first to conduct elaborate experiments related to astronomical phenomena. He stated that the speed of light is immense as compared with the speed of sound. He described the Milky Way as a collection of countless fragments of the nature of nebulous stars. Al-Biruni described his observation of the solar eclipse of April 8, 1019, and the lunar eclipse of September 17, 1019. He observed the lunar eclipse at Ghazna and gave precise details of the exact altitude of various well-known stars at the moment of first contact. Al-Biruni’s book Al-Tafhim-li-Awail Sina’at al-Tanjim summarizes work on mathematics and astronomy.
Al-Biruni’s contributions in physics include an accurate determination of the specific weight of eighteen elements and compounds including many metals and precious stones. His book Kitab-al-Jamahir discusses the properties of various precious stones. He was a pioneer in the study of angles and trigonometry. He worked on shadows and chords of circles and developed a method for the trisection of an angle. He elaborated on the principle of position and discussed Indian numerals.
In the fields of geology and geography, al-Biruni contributed on geological eruptions and metallurgy, to the measurement of the longitudes and latitudes and methods of determining the relative position of one place to another. He explained the working of natural springs and artesian wells by the hydrostatic principle of communicating vessels. His book Al-Athar al-Baqiyah fi Qanun al-Khaliyah (The Chronology of Ancient Nations) deals with ancient history and geography. Al-Biruni observed that flowers have 3, 4, 5, 6, or 18 petals, but never seven or nine.
Al-Biruni is most commonly known by his association with Mahmud of Ghazna, a famous Muslim king who also ruled India, and his son Sultan Masud. Impressed by his scholarship and fame, Mahmud took al-Biruni along with him on his journeys to India several times. Al-Biruni traveled many places in India for about 20 years and studied Hindu philosophy, mathematics, geography and religion from various learned men. In return, he taught them Greek and Muslim sciences and philosophy.
Al-Biruni’s book Kitab al-Hind (Ta’rikh al-Hind -- History of India), completed in 1030, provides a detailed account of Indian life, religions, languages, and cultures and includes many observations on geography. He stated that the Indus Valley must be considered as an ancient sea basin filled with alluvials. In this book, al-Biruni mentions two books Patanjal and Sakaya. He translated these two Sanskrit books into Arabic. The former book deals with after death accounts, and the latter with the creation of things and their types. Abu-al-Fadal’s book Aein-i-Akbari, written six centuries later during the reign of Akbar, was influenced by al-Biruni’s book.
Al-Biruni wrote his famous book Al-Qanun al-Masudi Fi al-Hai‘a Wa al-Nujum (1030) after he returned from India. The book was dedicated to Sultan Masud and it discusses several theorems of trigonometry, astronomy, solar, lunar and planetary motions, and contains a collection of twenty-three observations of equinoxes. Another well-known books is Kitab al-Saidana. This book is an extensive materia medicia that synthesizes Arab medicine with Indian medicine. His investigations included a description of Siamese twins. He also wrote on the astrolabe and a mechanical calendar.
Al-Biruni was a scientist who was always mindful of his faith, and who believed himself to be blessed in his scientific endeavors. He said: "My experience in the study of astronomy and geometry and experiments in physics revealed to me that there must be a Planning Mind of Unlimited Power. My discoveries in astronomy showed that there are fantastic intricacies in the universe which prove that there is a creative system and a meticulous control that cannot be explained through sheer physical and material causes."
When Sultan Masud sent al-Biruni three camel loads of silver coins in appreciation of his encyclopedic work Al-Qanun al-Masudi (The Mas’udi Canon), al-Biruni politely returned the royal gift saying, "I serve knowledge for the sake of knowledge and not for money."
Some of al-Biruni's works which were well known in Medieval Europe were: The Chronology of Ancient Nations (Al-Athar al-Baqiya), in which al-Birunu treats the eras, traditions, and histories of the various religious and ethnic groups, known in medieval Islam; The Determination of Coordinates of Cities, the most extensive treatise on mathematical geography written in medieval times; and his Pharmacology, a detailed compilation of sources on drugs known in antiquity and medieval times.
Without a doubt, al-Biruni was one of the greatest scientists of all times. However, in spite of his prolific and diverse output, medieval biographers devoted only a few lines to him and the European Latin translators of Arabic manuscripts showed little interest in his works. In comparison to the honored treatment rendered his contemporaries Ibn Sina and Ibn al-Haitham, al-Biruni was relatively ignored. The reason for this disregard may lie in the fact that while obviously gifted in scientific and historical matters, al-Biruni was not particularly adept in the more esteemed philosophical matters and, as such, was not well regarded amongst his contemporaries. Nevertheless, when al-Biruni died in 1048 in Ghazna (Afghanistan), his death brought to an end an illustrious and productive forty-year career.
Al-Biruni was one of the greatest scholars of medieval Islam. He was both a singular compiler of the knowledge and scientific traditions of ancient cultures and a leading innovator in Islamic science.
Abu al-Rayhan Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Biruni was born in 973 in Khiva, Khwarizm (in modern day Uzbekistan). He was of Iranian descent and spent most of his childhood and young adult years in his homeland of Khwarizm, south of the Aral Sea. (His sobriquet derives from birun – “suburb” -- in reference to his birth in an outlying neighborhood of Khiva.) Little is known of al-Biruni’s childhood except for the important matter of his education, which was directed by the best local mathematicians and other scholars. His exceptional intellectual powers must have become apparent very early. Al-Biruni’s religious background was Shi‘a, although in later years he professed agnostic leanings. A precocious youth, while still a student in Khwarizm, al-Biruni entered into correspondence with Avicenna (Ibn Sina), one of the leading lights of Islamic medicine. Some of Avicenna’s replies are preserved in the British Museum.
Although he published some material as a young student, the scope of al-Biruni’s intellectual powers only became apparent when he left Khwarizm to travel and learn abroad. In al-Biruni’s age, the key to scholarly success lay in attaching oneself to a powerful and influential court society and obtaining noble patronage. He found the first of many such benefactors in the Samanid sultan Mansur II, after whose demise he took up residence in the important intellectual center of Jurjan, southeast of the Caspian Sea. From here, al-Biruni was able to travel throughout northeastern Iran.
While at Jurjan, al-Biruni produced his first major work, al-Athar al-baqiyah ‘an al-qurun al-khaliyah (The Chronology of Ancient Nations). This work is an imposing compilation of calendars and eras from many cultures. It also deals with numerous issues in mathematics, astronomy, geography, and meteorology. The work is in Arabic -- the major scientific and cultural language of the time -- as are nearly all of al-Biruni’s later writings, although al-Biruni himself was a native speaker of an Iranian dialect. As would have been common among Muslim scholars of his time, al-Biruni was also fluent in Hebrew and Syriac, the major cultural and administrative languages in the Semitic world prior to the Arab conquest.
Around 1008, al-Biruni returned to his homeland of Khwarizm at the invitation of the local shah, who subsequently entrusted him with several important diplomatic missions. In 1017, however, his tranquil life as a scholar-diplomat took a rude turn. The shah lost his life in a military uprising, and shortly thereafter forces of the powerful Ghaznavid dynasty of neighboring Afghanistan invaded Khwarizm. Together with many other scholars -- as part of the booty of war -- al-Biruni found himself led away to Ghazna, which was to become his home base for the remainder of his life.
Ironically, this deportation afforded al-Biruni his greatest intellectual opportunity. The Ghaznavids appreciated scholarly talent, and the sultan, Mahmud, attached al-Biruni to his court as official astronomer/astrologer. Mahmud was in the process of expanding his frontiers in every direction. The most coveted lands were in India, and during the sultan’s campaigns there al-Biruni was able to steep himself in the world of Hindu learning. In India, he taught eager scholars his store of Greek, Persian, and Islamic knowledge. In return, he acquired fluency in Sanskrit, the doorway to what was, for al-Biruni, essentially a whole new intellectual universe.
In 1030, al-Biruni completed his marvelous Tar’ikh al-Hind. This masterpiece remains, in the eyes of many scholars, the most important treatise on Indian history and culture produced by anyone prior to the twentieth century. The degree of scholarly detachment and objectivity displayed in al-Biruni's history of India is almost without parallel for the time, and the work consequently is still of enormous value to contemporary scholars.
Almost at the same time, al-Biruni produced another work dedicated to the sultan Mas‘ud ibn Mahmud, heir to the Ghaznavid throne. Kitab al-qanun al-Mas‘udi fi ‘l-hay’a wa ‘l-nujum (Canon Masudicus -- c. 1030) is the largest and most important of al-Biruni’s mathematical and geographical studies.
During his long and productive life, al-Biruni authored many other treatises of varying length -- he himself claimed to have produced more than one hundred -- in addition to those mentioned above. They include essays on arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and astrology, a pioneering effort in mineralogical classification, and, toward the end of his career, material on the medical sciences. His compendia of Indian and Chinese minerals, drugs, potions, and other concoctions, still not systematically studied, may be of immense value to pharmacology. Some of these works have been lost. They are known only through references by other scholars. Many survive but await translation into European languages.
In the golden age of medieval Islam, a small number of incredibly versatile and creative intellects stood at the interface of Semitic, Hellenistic, Persian, and Hindu culture and learning. Their syntheses and insights often brought about quantum leaps in scientific and historical thought in Islam -- so vast, in fact, that in some cases their achievements were fully appreciated only by later ages better prepared to comprehend them. Al-Biruni was one of these intellects and, for some historians, the most important of all. The Chronology of Ancient Nations, for example, constitutes an unprecedented attempt to periodize the history of the known world by comparing and cross-referencing large numbers of chronologies and calendrical systems. His work provides a basis for chronological studies which has yet to be fully exploited.
Al-Biruni’s immense store of astronomical and geographical knowledge led him to the verge of modern scientific ideas about the earth and the universe. He was familiar with the concept that Earth rotates on its axis to produce the apparent movement of celestial bodies, rather than those bodies revolving around Earth (although he did not necessarily endorse the idea). His insights with respect to geography were profound. On the basis of reports of various flotsam found in the seas, al-Biruni reasoned that the continent of Africa must be surrounded by water, thus taking exception with the Ptolemaic cosmography popular in Christendom, which held that Africa extended indefinitely to the south. Upon examining the Indus Valley in what is now Pakistan, al-Biruni correctly guessed that it had once been a shallow sea filled in through the centuries by alluvial deposits from the river. Al-Biruni also explained the operation of artesian springs and wells essentially in terms of modern hydrostatic principles. He devised a system of geographical coordinates which is still a marvel to cartographers.
In medieval Islam, the significance of scholarship may often be determined by how frequently a scholar’s materials were copied by later generations of researchers (a practice for which modern scholars are grateful, since much otherwise would now be lost. The thirteenth century geographer Yaqut, for example, cited al-Biruni extensively in his own work. Yaqut’s material on oceanography and general cosmography is drawn almost verbatim from his illustrious predecessor.
Like many scholars in Islam’s golden age, al-Biruni was a polymath, a Renaissance man before there was a Renaissance. Some modern scholars have criticized him for writing extensively on astrology, usually at the behest of his noble patrons. Astrology, however, was in a certain sense a means of popularizing the science of the time, and al-Biruni most likely used it to reach a lay audience, just as contemporary popular science writers often simplify and make use of analogy. He seems to have regarded astrology as a gesture to simple people who wanted immediate, practical results from science.
Al-Biruni’s astounding versatility has prompted some to place him in a league with Leonardo da Vinci as one of the greatest geniuses of all time. The most appropriate description, however, comes from his students, patrons, and other contemporaries. To them, al-Biruni was simply “The Master.”
al-Ustadh see Biruni
Abu Raihan Muhammad al-Biruni see Biruni
Abu al-Rayhan al-Biruni see Biruni
“The Master” see Biruni
Abu Rayhan Muhammad ibn Ahmad Biruni see Biruni
Alberuni see Biruni
In medieval Islam, the significance of scholarship may often be determined by how frequently a scholar’s materials were copied by later generations of researchers (a practice for which modern scholars are grateful, since much otherwise would now be lost. The thirteenth century geographer Yaqut, for example, cited al-Biruni extensively in his own work. Yaqut’s material on oceanography and general cosmography is drawn almost verbatim from his illustrious predecessor.
Like many scholars in Islam’s golden age, al-Biruni was a polymath, a Renaissance man before there was a Renaissance. Some modern scholars have criticized him for writing extensively on astrology, usually at the behest of his noble patrons. Astrology, however, was in a certain sense a means of popularizing the science of the time, and al-Biruni most likely used it to reach a lay audience, just as contemporary popular science writers often simplify and make use of analogy. He seems to have regarded astrology as a gesture to simple people who wanted immediate, practical results from science.
Al-Biruni’s astounding versatility has prompted some to place him in a league with Leonardo da Vinci as one of the greatest geniuses of all time. The most appropriate description, however, comes from his students, patrons, and other contemporaries. To them, al-Biruni was simply “The Master.”
al-Ustadh see Biruni
Abu Raihan Muhammad al-Biruni see Biruni
Abu al-Rayhan al-Biruni see Biruni
“The Master” see Biruni
Abu Rayhan Muhammad ibn Ahmad Biruni see Biruni
Alberuni see Biruni
Bistami
Bistami (Abu Yazid Bistami) (Bayazid Bastami) (Tayfur Abu Yazid al-Bustami) (804-874). Prototype of the ecstatic Sufi, renowned for his paradoxical utterances. Little is known about his life. His hometown, Bistam, was in northwestern Iran and his spiritual master was Abu ‘Ali Sindi, possibly from Sind in present-day Pakistan. This has given rise to speculation about possible Hindu influences on his spiritual formation. What distinguishes Abu Yazid among early Sufis is his renunciation of renunciation. “How can one give up God?” he asked. In his yearning to find God alone, Abu Yazid was continually frustrated, and yet he never ceased to yearn. Abu Yazid’s legendary quest has been condensed in numerous anecdotes and aphorisms, of which the most famous is Subhani -- “Glory be to Me!” Like Ana’l-Haqq (“I am Truth!”) by al-Hallaj, Subhani defies explanation, and perhaps for that reason both phrases echo through the writings of later Persian Sufis.
Bistami was a Persian Sufi born in Bastam, Iran. Bastami's grandfather was a Zoroastrian who converted to Islam. Bistami's predecessor Dhu'l-Nun al-Misri (d. CE 859) had formulated the doctrine of ma'rifa (gnosis), presenting a system which helped the murid (initiate) and the shaykh (guide) to communicate. Bayazid Bastami took this another step and emphasized the importance of ecstasy, referred to in his words as drunkenness (sukr or wajd), a means of annihilation in the Divine Presence. Before him, Sufism was mainly based on piety and obedience and he played a major role in placing the concept of divine love at the core of Sufism.
Bistami was truly the first to speak openly of "annihilation of the self in God" (fana fi 'Allah') and "subsistence through God" (baqa' bi 'Allah). His paradoxical sayings gained a wide circulation and soon exerted a captivating influence over the minds of students who aspired to understand the meaning of the wahdat al-wujud, -- Unity of Being.
Bistami died in 874 and is buried either in the city of Bistam in north central Iran, or in Semnan, Iran. Bistami had great influence on Sufi mysticism and is considered to be one of the important early teachers of Sufi Islam.
Interestingly enough, there is a shrine in Chittagong, Bangladesh that local people believe to be Bistami's tomb as well. This seems unlikely to be true, as Bistami was never known to have visited Bangladesh. However, Sufi teachers were greatly influential in the spread of Islam in Bengal and this might explain the belief. The Islamic scholars of Bangladesh usually regard the tomb at Chittagong attributed to him as a jawab, or imitation.
One explanation is the local legend that Bistami did indeed visit Chittagong. At the time of his return, he found that his local followers did not want to leave. Overwhelmed by the love of his local followers, he pierced his finger and dropped a few drops of his blood on the ground and allowed his followers to build a shrine in his name where his blood drops fell.
This is also explained by the traditional Sufi masters as a mash-had, or site of witnessing, where the spiritual presence of the saint has been witnessed, and is known to appear. This is explained through the Sufi concept of the power of the saint's soul to travel and in its spiritual form, even after death, to appear to the living. The Quran mentions that some of those who have proven their sincerity have achieved a life beyond the grave (Think not of those who are slain in Allah's way as dead. Nay, they live, finding their sustenance in the presence of their Lord; 3:169).
Abu Yazid Bistami see Bistami
Bayazid Bastami see Bistami
Tayfur Abu Yazid al-Bustami see Bistami
Bistami (Abu Yazid Bistami) (Bayazid Bastami) (Tayfur Abu Yazid al-Bustami) (804-874). Prototype of the ecstatic Sufi, renowned for his paradoxical utterances. Little is known about his life. His hometown, Bistam, was in northwestern Iran and his spiritual master was Abu ‘Ali Sindi, possibly from Sind in present-day Pakistan. This has given rise to speculation about possible Hindu influences on his spiritual formation. What distinguishes Abu Yazid among early Sufis is his renunciation of renunciation. “How can one give up God?” he asked. In his yearning to find God alone, Abu Yazid was continually frustrated, and yet he never ceased to yearn. Abu Yazid’s legendary quest has been condensed in numerous anecdotes and aphorisms, of which the most famous is Subhani -- “Glory be to Me!” Like Ana’l-Haqq (“I am Truth!”) by al-Hallaj, Subhani defies explanation, and perhaps for that reason both phrases echo through the writings of later Persian Sufis.
Bistami was a Persian Sufi born in Bastam, Iran. Bastami's grandfather was a Zoroastrian who converted to Islam. Bistami's predecessor Dhu'l-Nun al-Misri (d. CE 859) had formulated the doctrine of ma'rifa (gnosis), presenting a system which helped the murid (initiate) and the shaykh (guide) to communicate. Bayazid Bastami took this another step and emphasized the importance of ecstasy, referred to in his words as drunkenness (sukr or wajd), a means of annihilation in the Divine Presence. Before him, Sufism was mainly based on piety and obedience and he played a major role in placing the concept of divine love at the core of Sufism.
Bistami was truly the first to speak openly of "annihilation of the self in God" (fana fi 'Allah') and "subsistence through God" (baqa' bi 'Allah). His paradoxical sayings gained a wide circulation and soon exerted a captivating influence over the minds of students who aspired to understand the meaning of the wahdat al-wujud, -- Unity of Being.
Bistami died in 874 and is buried either in the city of Bistam in north central Iran, or in Semnan, Iran. Bistami had great influence on Sufi mysticism and is considered to be one of the important early teachers of Sufi Islam.
Interestingly enough, there is a shrine in Chittagong, Bangladesh that local people believe to be Bistami's tomb as well. This seems unlikely to be true, as Bistami was never known to have visited Bangladesh. However, Sufi teachers were greatly influential in the spread of Islam in Bengal and this might explain the belief. The Islamic scholars of Bangladesh usually regard the tomb at Chittagong attributed to him as a jawab, or imitation.
One explanation is the local legend that Bistami did indeed visit Chittagong. At the time of his return, he found that his local followers did not want to leave. Overwhelmed by the love of his local followers, he pierced his finger and dropped a few drops of his blood on the ground and allowed his followers to build a shrine in his name where his blood drops fell.
This is also explained by the traditional Sufi masters as a mash-had, or site of witnessing, where the spiritual presence of the saint has been witnessed, and is known to appear. This is explained through the Sufi concept of the power of the saint's soul to travel and in its spiritual form, even after death, to appear to the living. The Quran mentions that some of those who have proven their sincerity have achieved a life beyond the grave (Think not of those who are slain in Allah's way as dead. Nay, they live, finding their sustenance in the presence of their Lord; 3:169).
Abu Yazid Bistami see Bistami
Bayazid Bastami see Bistami
Tayfur Abu Yazid al-Bustami see Bistami
Bitar
Bitar (Salah al-Din Bitar) (Salah ad-Din al-Bitar) (b. Damascus 1912 - d. Paris July 21, 1980). Syrian politician, foreign minister (1956-1957), and prime minister (1963-1966). Bitar, with Michel Aflaq, founded the Arab Ba'th Party in the early 1940s. During their student days in Paris in the early 1930s, the two worked together to formulate a doctrine that combined aspects of nationalism and socialism. Bitar later served as prime minister in several early Ba'thist governments in Syria, but became alienated from the party as it grew more radical, and in 1966 fled the country. He lived most of the rest of his life in Europe, and remained politically active until he was assassinated by unknown persons in 1980.
Salah ad-Din al-Bitar was born in the Midan area of Damascus in 1912, the son of a reasonably well-off Sunni Muslim grain merchant. His family was religious and many of his ancestors had been ulama and preachers in the district's mosques. Bitar thus grew up in a conservative family atmosphere, and attended a Muslim elementary school before receiving his secondary education in Maktab Anbar. He was also exposed to the political vicissitudes of the time, as Midan played a leading role in the Great Syrian Revolution of 1925 against the French, who were then the mandatory power in Syria. The district was heavily bombarded with considerable loss of life and physical damage.
Bitar traveled to France in 1929 to study in the Sorbonne. There he became acquainted with Michel Aflaq, like him the son of a Midan grain merchant, albeit from a Christian Orthodox family. The two were greatly interested in the political and intellectual movements of the time, and began applying the nationalist and Marxist thought they encountered to the situation of their homeland. Bitar returned to Syria in 1934, and took up an appointment teaching physics and mathematics at the Tajhiz al-Ula, where Aflaq was already a teacher.
In the course of the next two years, Bitar and Aflaq along with some other associates edited a review entitled al-Tali`a (The Vanguard). Al-Tali'a displayed more concern with social issues than with the national question, and the political orientation of the two young activists was closer to the Syrian Communist Party than to any of the other groups on the political scene in Damascus. They subsequently became disillusioned with the Communists in 1936, after the Popular Front government came to power in France. Although the French Communist Party became part of the government, the colonial power's approach to its subject nations was not appreciably different. The Syrian party's stance in these circumstances did not impress the young nationalist activists.
In 1939, Aflaq and al-Bitar began to attract a small following of students, and in 1941, the pair issued leaflets agitating against French rule, using the title al-ihyaa' al-'arabi - "the Arab Resurrection". Their first use of the name al-ba'th al-'arabi, which has the same meaning, came some time later. Indeed, the name al-ba'th al-'arabi had already been adopted by Zaki al-Arsuzi, a nationalist activist from Iskandarun province in north-western Syria who had come to Damascus in the wake of his native area's annexation by Turkey.
On October 24, 1942 both al-Bitar and Aflaq resigned from their teaching positions, now determined to devote their full efforts to the political struggle. They slowly gained supporters, and in 1945 the first elected Bureau of the Arab Ba'th Movement was formed, including both of them. The following year, the organization gained a substantial number of new members when most of the former supporters of Zaki al-Arsuzi, led by Wahib al-Ghanim, joined it.
In 1947 the first party congress was held in Damascus, and al-Bitar was elected secretary general. Aflaq took the pre-eminent position of 'amid, sometimes translated as "doyen"; under the constitution adopted at the congress, this made him effective leader of the party, with sweeping powers within the organization.
In 1952 Syria's military dictator, Adib al-Shishakli, banned all political parties. Al-Bitar took refuge in neighboring Lebanon, along with Aflaq. There they came into contact with Akram al-Hawrani, a far more seasoned politician who had recently established the Arab Socialist Party and boasted a considerable following among the peasantry of the Hama region in central Syria as well as a valuable foothold in the military officer corps. The three politicians agreed to unite their parties, and co-operated in the overthrow of al-Shishakli in 1954, following which a congress ratified the merger of the two parties into the Arab Socialist Ba'th Party. The rules and constitution of al-Bitar and Aflaq's party were adopted unchanged. All three were elected to the party's new National Command, along with a supporter of al-Hawrani.
Following the overthrow of al-Shishakli, Syria held its first democratic elections in five years. Al-Bitar was elected as a deputy for Damascus, defeating the secretary general of the Syrian Socialist National Party, one of the Ba'th's bitterest ideological enemies. He became Minister for Foreign Affairs in 1956 and held the post until 1958. Along with other Ba'thists, he agitated in favor of the unification of Syria with Nasser's Egypt, and when unification took place in 1958 he became Minister for Guidance of the new United Arab Republic (UAR). Like many of the other Syrian politicians who had initially supported unification, he found the experience disenchanting, and resigned his position the following year.
When a right-wing coup in Syria put an end to the UAR, al-Bitar was one of sixteen prominent politicians to sign a declaration in support of the secession. Al-Hawrani also signed, but al-Bitar was still known as a Ba'thist whereas al-Hawrani's secessionist position was well-known. Much of the party's base was outraged by al-Bitar's action, although he quickly retracted his signature. The Ba'th splintered in the aftermath of the secession, with a large part of its base turning to Nasserism. Al-Bitar remained close to Aflaq, who retained the party leadership with a pro-reunification line, albeit a more cautious one than that of the Nasserists or the Arab Nationalist Movement (ANM), and indeed a more cautious one than much of the party's membership wished for.
In 1963, a military coup by pro-reunification officers removed the secessionist regime from power. The officers included many Ba'thists, but also initially Nasserists and other elements. They established a National Revolutionary Command Council (NCRC) as the supreme organ of power in the land, and this body offered al-Bitar the position of prime minister at the head of a coalition cabinet made up of the various pro-reunification forces. Al-Bitar took up the appointment, and was later appointed to the NCRC as well.
However, the military Ba'thists who had taken control were not in tune with Aflaq and al-Bitar. They were of a younger generation, and a more radical disposition, traits they shared with an increasingly influential element of the civilian party membership in both Syria and Iraq. Later that year, the radical elements gained control of the party at the Sixth National Party Congress. The Congress approved a far-left program evidently inspired by Soviet socialism, and condemned what it termed "ideological notability" inside the party - an implicit attack on Aflaq and al-Bitar. The latter resigned the premiership, which passed to a military Ba'thist, Amin Hafiz. Al-Bitar was restored to the position the following year when the ruling group decided to adopt a more conciliatory approach following massive riots in Hama, which the army had had to suppress with notable loss of life. However, he was clearly not in any sense in charge of Syria - rather, he was acting as the face of a regime with which he was ideologically and personally out of sympathy.
On February 23, 1966, the Ba'th's secret military committee decided that the time had come to take power into its own hands. Members of the party's other factions fled. Bitar was captured and detained, along with other members of the party's historic leadership, in a government guest house. When the new rulers launched a purge in August that year, al-Bitar managed to make his escape and flee to Beirut. In 1969 a court condemned him to death in absentia. He was pardoned the following year by Hafiz al-Asad after the latter came to power. However, despite a brief return to Damascus he was not reconciled with al-Asad, and in 1978, after a meeting with him ended without agreement, he launched a press campaign against the Syrian president from his exile in Paris, attacking him in a new magazine which he entitled al-ihyaa' al-'arabi in an echo of the name he and Aflaq had first adopted almost forty years earlier.
On July 21, 1980 Salah ad-Din al-Bitar was shot dead in Paris. The identity of his killers was never discovered.
Bitar was probably the least philosophical of the three founders of the Ba‘th Party, but he proved to be the most successful politician of them all. However, his period of political success lasted for only ten years and, eventually, he came to be regarded by the President of Syria, Hafiz al-Assad, as a dangerous opponent. From his exile in Paris, Bitar used his last years to promote the cause of Syrian opposition, through his magazine Al-Ihyatur al-Arabi (Arab Revival) and it is believed that this activity ultimately was the reason for his being assassinated.
Salah al-Din Bitar see Bitar
Salah ad-Din al-Bitar see Bitar
Bitar (Salah al-Din Bitar) (Salah ad-Din al-Bitar) (b. Damascus 1912 - d. Paris July 21, 1980). Syrian politician, foreign minister (1956-1957), and prime minister (1963-1966). Bitar, with Michel Aflaq, founded the Arab Ba'th Party in the early 1940s. During their student days in Paris in the early 1930s, the two worked together to formulate a doctrine that combined aspects of nationalism and socialism. Bitar later served as prime minister in several early Ba'thist governments in Syria, but became alienated from the party as it grew more radical, and in 1966 fled the country. He lived most of the rest of his life in Europe, and remained politically active until he was assassinated by unknown persons in 1980.
Salah ad-Din al-Bitar was born in the Midan area of Damascus in 1912, the son of a reasonably well-off Sunni Muslim grain merchant. His family was religious and many of his ancestors had been ulama and preachers in the district's mosques. Bitar thus grew up in a conservative family atmosphere, and attended a Muslim elementary school before receiving his secondary education in Maktab Anbar. He was also exposed to the political vicissitudes of the time, as Midan played a leading role in the Great Syrian Revolution of 1925 against the French, who were then the mandatory power in Syria. The district was heavily bombarded with considerable loss of life and physical damage.
Bitar traveled to France in 1929 to study in the Sorbonne. There he became acquainted with Michel Aflaq, like him the son of a Midan grain merchant, albeit from a Christian Orthodox family. The two were greatly interested in the political and intellectual movements of the time, and began applying the nationalist and Marxist thought they encountered to the situation of their homeland. Bitar returned to Syria in 1934, and took up an appointment teaching physics and mathematics at the Tajhiz al-Ula, where Aflaq was already a teacher.
In the course of the next two years, Bitar and Aflaq along with some other associates edited a review entitled al-Tali`a (The Vanguard). Al-Tali'a displayed more concern with social issues than with the national question, and the political orientation of the two young activists was closer to the Syrian Communist Party than to any of the other groups on the political scene in Damascus. They subsequently became disillusioned with the Communists in 1936, after the Popular Front government came to power in France. Although the French Communist Party became part of the government, the colonial power's approach to its subject nations was not appreciably different. The Syrian party's stance in these circumstances did not impress the young nationalist activists.
In 1939, Aflaq and al-Bitar began to attract a small following of students, and in 1941, the pair issued leaflets agitating against French rule, using the title al-ihyaa' al-'arabi - "the Arab Resurrection". Their first use of the name al-ba'th al-'arabi, which has the same meaning, came some time later. Indeed, the name al-ba'th al-'arabi had already been adopted by Zaki al-Arsuzi, a nationalist activist from Iskandarun province in north-western Syria who had come to Damascus in the wake of his native area's annexation by Turkey.
On October 24, 1942 both al-Bitar and Aflaq resigned from their teaching positions, now determined to devote their full efforts to the political struggle. They slowly gained supporters, and in 1945 the first elected Bureau of the Arab Ba'th Movement was formed, including both of them. The following year, the organization gained a substantial number of new members when most of the former supporters of Zaki al-Arsuzi, led by Wahib al-Ghanim, joined it.
In 1947 the first party congress was held in Damascus, and al-Bitar was elected secretary general. Aflaq took the pre-eminent position of 'amid, sometimes translated as "doyen"; under the constitution adopted at the congress, this made him effective leader of the party, with sweeping powers within the organization.
In 1952 Syria's military dictator, Adib al-Shishakli, banned all political parties. Al-Bitar took refuge in neighboring Lebanon, along with Aflaq. There they came into contact with Akram al-Hawrani, a far more seasoned politician who had recently established the Arab Socialist Party and boasted a considerable following among the peasantry of the Hama region in central Syria as well as a valuable foothold in the military officer corps. The three politicians agreed to unite their parties, and co-operated in the overthrow of al-Shishakli in 1954, following which a congress ratified the merger of the two parties into the Arab Socialist Ba'th Party. The rules and constitution of al-Bitar and Aflaq's party were adopted unchanged. All three were elected to the party's new National Command, along with a supporter of al-Hawrani.
Following the overthrow of al-Shishakli, Syria held its first democratic elections in five years. Al-Bitar was elected as a deputy for Damascus, defeating the secretary general of the Syrian Socialist National Party, one of the Ba'th's bitterest ideological enemies. He became Minister for Foreign Affairs in 1956 and held the post until 1958. Along with other Ba'thists, he agitated in favor of the unification of Syria with Nasser's Egypt, and when unification took place in 1958 he became Minister for Guidance of the new United Arab Republic (UAR). Like many of the other Syrian politicians who had initially supported unification, he found the experience disenchanting, and resigned his position the following year.
When a right-wing coup in Syria put an end to the UAR, al-Bitar was one of sixteen prominent politicians to sign a declaration in support of the secession. Al-Hawrani also signed, but al-Bitar was still known as a Ba'thist whereas al-Hawrani's secessionist position was well-known. Much of the party's base was outraged by al-Bitar's action, although he quickly retracted his signature. The Ba'th splintered in the aftermath of the secession, with a large part of its base turning to Nasserism. Al-Bitar remained close to Aflaq, who retained the party leadership with a pro-reunification line, albeit a more cautious one than that of the Nasserists or the Arab Nationalist Movement (ANM), and indeed a more cautious one than much of the party's membership wished for.
In 1963, a military coup by pro-reunification officers removed the secessionist regime from power. The officers included many Ba'thists, but also initially Nasserists and other elements. They established a National Revolutionary Command Council (NCRC) as the supreme organ of power in the land, and this body offered al-Bitar the position of prime minister at the head of a coalition cabinet made up of the various pro-reunification forces. Al-Bitar took up the appointment, and was later appointed to the NCRC as well.
However, the military Ba'thists who had taken control were not in tune with Aflaq and al-Bitar. They were of a younger generation, and a more radical disposition, traits they shared with an increasingly influential element of the civilian party membership in both Syria and Iraq. Later that year, the radical elements gained control of the party at the Sixth National Party Congress. The Congress approved a far-left program evidently inspired by Soviet socialism, and condemned what it termed "ideological notability" inside the party - an implicit attack on Aflaq and al-Bitar. The latter resigned the premiership, which passed to a military Ba'thist, Amin Hafiz. Al-Bitar was restored to the position the following year when the ruling group decided to adopt a more conciliatory approach following massive riots in Hama, which the army had had to suppress with notable loss of life. However, he was clearly not in any sense in charge of Syria - rather, he was acting as the face of a regime with which he was ideologically and personally out of sympathy.
On February 23, 1966, the Ba'th's secret military committee decided that the time had come to take power into its own hands. Members of the party's other factions fled. Bitar was captured and detained, along with other members of the party's historic leadership, in a government guest house. When the new rulers launched a purge in August that year, al-Bitar managed to make his escape and flee to Beirut. In 1969 a court condemned him to death in absentia. He was pardoned the following year by Hafiz al-Asad after the latter came to power. However, despite a brief return to Damascus he was not reconciled with al-Asad, and in 1978, after a meeting with him ended without agreement, he launched a press campaign against the Syrian president from his exile in Paris, attacking him in a new magazine which he entitled al-ihyaa' al-'arabi in an echo of the name he and Aflaq had first adopted almost forty years earlier.
On July 21, 1980 Salah ad-Din al-Bitar was shot dead in Paris. The identity of his killers was never discovered.
Bitar was probably the least philosophical of the three founders of the Ba‘th Party, but he proved to be the most successful politician of them all. However, his period of political success lasted for only ten years and, eventually, he came to be regarded by the President of Syria, Hafiz al-Assad, as a dangerous opponent. From his exile in Paris, Bitar used his last years to promote the cause of Syrian opposition, through his magazine Al-Ihyatur al-Arabi (Arab Revival) and it is believed that this activity ultimately was the reason for his being assassinated.
Salah al-Din Bitar see Bitar
Salah ad-Din al-Bitar see Bitar
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