A00064 - Tariq Aziz, Top Aide to Saddam Hussein

Tariq Aziz, also spelled Ṭāriq ʿAzīz, original name Mikhail Yuhanna   (b. April 28, 1936, Qaḍā Talkīf, Iraq — d. June 5, 2015, Al-Nāṣiriyyah, Iraq), was an Iraqi public official who served as foreign minister (1983–91) and deputy prime minister (1979–2003) in the Ba'thist government of Saddam Hussein.

Tariq Aziz was born Mikhail Yuhanna to a Chaldean Catholic family in northern Iraq. He studied English at Baghdad University and worked as a journalist after earning his degree. Beginning in 1958, he wrote for a series of Iraqi newspapers, and he became involved with the Baʿth Party. He changed his name to Tariq Aziz (Arabic for “glorious past”) to appeal to the party’s predominantly Muslim membership, and he became acquainted with Saddam Hussein. Aziz worked for the Baʿthist press in Syria in the mid-1960s, a period that saw the party’s fortunes rise and fall frequently, and he was named chief editor of Al-Thawra, the party’s official newspaper, in 1969.

As the Baʿth Party secured its hold on power in the early 1970s, Aziz held a number of government positions. In 1972 he was made a member of the Revolutionary Command Council’s General Affairs Bureau, and two years later he was named Minister of Information. He held that post until 1977. In that year he was also elected as a Baʿth Party regional leader. On July 16, 1979, Saddam, who had functioned as Iraq’s de facto leader during the final years of President Ahmad Hasan al-Bakr's rule, became President of Iraq, and Aziz was appointed Deputy Prime Minister. Aziz would remain in that position for almost a quarter century, notable as the only Christian in Saddam’s inner circle of advisers. In April 1980 he survived an assassination attempt, reportedly orchestrated by Iran, that was later presented by Saddam as a casus belli for the Iran-Iraq War. 

In January 1983 Aziz was made Minister of Foreign Affairs, and it was in this role that the bespectacled cigar-smoking diplomat served as Iraq’s face to the Western world. He won United States support for the war against Iran, and, after meeting with United States President Ronald Reagan in 1984, he secured the restoration of diplomatic relations between Iraq and the United States. Skillfully appealing to both sides in the Cold War, he also strengthened military and economic ties with the Soviet Union. With Iraq weakened by eight years of war, Saddam eyed the oil revenues of nearby Kuwait. Throughout 1989–90, as military conflict loomed, Aziz was dispatched to seek assurances of nonintervention from the United States and Arab countries. They were slow to materialize, and support for Iraq—even among its traditional allies—evaporated shortly after its August 2, 1990, invasion of Kuwait. During the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait, Aziz appealed the Iraqi case to the United Nations, and his fluency in English made him a regular guest on Western news programs.

After the Persian Gulf War, which saw the Iraqi military routed and driven from Kuwait, Iraq found itself isolated diplomatically and economically, and Aziz was relieved of his foreign affairs portfolio. He remained Deputy Prime Minister, however, and in this role he spent much of the next decade portraying Iraq as the victim of American designs on the Middle East. He played a much smaller role in the diplomatic maneuvering that preceded the beginning of the Iraq War in 2003, and he surrendered to United States forces shortly after the fall of Baghdad. He remained in United States custody from April 2003 to July 2010, when he was transferred to Iraqi custody. Like other senior Baʿthists, Aziz was tried on numerous charges, and in October 2010 he was sentenced to death for crimes against Islamic political parties during Saddam’s reign. His death sentence was never carried out, however, and he died in prison in 2015.

A00063 - Rohingya, a Muslim Minority of Burma

The Rohingya people are Indo-Aryan people from the Rakhine State, Burma, who speak the Rohingya language.  According to the Rohingyas, and some scholars, the Rohingya are indigenous to the Rakhine State, while other historians claim that they migrated to Burma from Bengal primarily during the period of British rule in Burma, and to a lesser extent, after the Burmese independence in 1948 and the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971. 

Muslims have settled in the Rakhine State (also known as Arakan) since the 16th century, although the number of Muslim settlers before British rule is unclear.  After the first Anglo-Burmese War in 1826, the British annexed Arakan and encouraged migrants from Bengal to work as farm laborers. The Muslim population may have constituted 5% of Arakan's population by 1869, although estimates for earlier years give higher numbers. Successive British censuses of 1872 and 1911 recorded an increase in Muslim population from 58,255 to 178,647 in the Akyab District. During World War II, the Rakhine State massacre in 1942 involved communal violence between the British-armed V Force Rohingya recruits and Buddhist Rakhine people and the region became increasingly ethnically polarized.

In 1982, General Ne Win's government enacted the Burmese nationality law, which denied the Rohingya citizenship. Since the 1990s, the term "Rohingya" has increased in usage among Rohingya communities.

As of 2013, about 735,000 Rohingyas lived in Burma. They resided mainly in the northern Rakhine townships, where they formed 80–98% of the population. International media and human rights organizations have described Rohingyas as one of the most persecuted minorities in the world.

A00062 - Kayahan Acar, Turkish Singer and Songwriter

Kayahan Açar, stage name Kayahan, (March 29, 1949 – April 3, 2015) was a Turkish pop music singer and songwriter. He was an accomplished composer, consistently ranking among the best-selling Turkish musicians of all time. Kayahan composed all of his own material and released more than eight best-selling albums during a career spanning three decades.

Kayahan was born in Izmir, Turkey, on March 29, 1949. He spent his childhood and young adulthood years in Ankara before moving to Istanbul. 

Kayahan, whose full name was Kayahan Acar, released his first album in 1975 and went on to release nearly two dozen more. Best known for his love songs, he built his musical legacy on his use of idiomatic Turkish to describe emotions. Many of his songs are considered pop classics.

He first won global recognition at the 1986 International Mediterranean Music Contest in Antalya, a Turkish Mediterranean town, and in 1990 he represented Turkey in the Eurovision Song Contest with his composition "Gozlerinin Hapsindeyim" (“I Am Entrapped by Your Eyes”). The song did not win, but it became a hit in Turkey.

Açar was married three times. He made his first marriage to Nur in 1973. From this marriage, which lasted 24 years long, he became father of a daughter Beste (Turkish for music composition), born in 1975. Beste was runner-up for Miss Turkey in 1995. Kayahan remarried to Lale Yılmaz in 1990. The couple divorced in 1996. In 1999, at age fifty, he remarried to his third wife,1976-born İpek Tüter. In August 2000, İpek gave birth to their daughter Aslı Gönül.

A00061 - Ibn Badis, Author of Staff of the Scribes

Ibn Badis
Ibn Badis (Al- Muʻizz ibn Bādīs) (Arabic:  المعز بن باديس‎); 1008–1062) was the fourth ruler of the Zirids in Ifriqiya, reigning from 1016 to 1062.

Al-Muizz ascended the throne as a minor following the death of his father Badis ibn Mansur,  with his aunt acting as regent. In 1016 there was a bloody revolt in Ifriqiya in which the Fatimid residence Al-Mansuriya was completely destroyed and 20,000 Shiites were massacred. The unrest forced a ceasefire in the conflict with the Hammadids of Algeria, and their independence was finally recognized in 1018.

Al-Muizz took over the government in 1022 following the overthrow of his aunt. The relationship with the Fatimids was strained, when in 1027 they supported a revolt of the Zanatas in Tripolitania which resulted in permanent loss of control of the region. His son Abdallah shortly ruled Sicily in 1038-1040, after intervening with a Zirid army in the civil war that broke out in the island.

The political turmoil notwithstanding, the general economic well-being initially made possible an extensive building program. However, the kingdom found itself in economic crisis in the 1040s, reflected in currency devaluation, epidemic and famine. This may have been related to the high level of tribute which the Zirids were compelled to pay annually to the Fatimids (one million gold dinars a year).

When al-Muizz (under the influence of Sunni jurists in Kairouan, growing Sunni public pressure in his realm and a violent backlash against the Shi'ite minority) recognized the Abbasids in Baghdad as rightful Caliphs in 1045 and adopted Sunni orthodoxy, the break with the Fatimids was complete. He even denounced the Fatimids and their followers as heretics in newly minted coinage.

The Fatimids then deported the Bedouin tribes of the Banu Hilal and the Banu Sulaym fromEgypt to Ifriqiya. The invasion of the Bedouin (1051–1052) led to great hardship after the defeat at Jabal Haydaran, severely impacting agriculture in Ifriqiya. The conquest of Kairouan in 1057 resulted in further anarchy. The Zirids lost control over the hinterland and were only able to retain the coastal areas, the capital being moved to Mahdia. With the growth of Bedouin Emirates and the continuing insecurity inland, the economy of Ifriqiya looked increasingly towards the Mediterranean, with the result the coastal cities grew in importance through maritime trade and piracy.

Al-Muizz was succeeded by his son Tamim ibn Muizz. 

Al-Muizz ibn Badis is usually thought to be the author of the famous Kitab `umdat al-kuttab wa `uddat dhawi al-albab (Staff of the Scribes). It is divided in twelve chapters.  Al-Muizz wrote on (amongst others) on the excellence of the pen, on the preparation of types of inks, the preparation of colored inks, metallic inks (including ones prepared from silver filings and alcohol), the coloring of dyes and mixtures, secret writing, the making of paper and the Arabic gum and glue. 

A00060 - Ibn al-Wafid, The Book of Simple Drugs Author

Ibn al-Wafid

Ibn al-Wafid (Ali Ibn al-Husain Ibn al-Wafid) (997-c.1074), known in Latin Europe as Abenguefit, was a pharmacologist and physician from Toledo. He was the vizier of  Al-Mamun of Toledo. His main work is Kitāb al-adwiya al-mufrada (The Book of Simple Drugs) (كتاب الأدوية المفردة, translated into Latin as De medicamentis simplicibus).

Ibn al-Wafid was mainly a pharmacist in Toledo, and he used the techniques and methods available in alchemy to extract at least 520 different kinds of medicines from various plants and herbs.

Ibn al-Wafid's student Ali Ibn al-Lukuh was the author of ʿUmdat al-Ṭabīb fī Maʿrifat al-Nabāt li kulli Labīb, a famous botanical dictionary.

Kitāb al-adwiya al-mufrada (The Book of Simple Drugs) ran to five hundred pages, taking twenty-five years to compile.  The Latin translation, De medicamentis simplicibus is only a fragment of all his work.  

As well as investigatin the action of drugs, sleep and bathing, Ibn al-Wafid also wrote on farming, because agriculture, plant cultivation, botany, chemistry and medicine were closely linked.

A00059 - Yasar Kemal, Master Turkish Novelist

Kemal, Yasar

Yasar Kemal, Yasar also spelled Yashar, original name Kemal Sadik Gogceli, (b. 1923, Hemite, Turkey - d. February 28, 2015, Istanbul) was a Turkish novelist of Kurdish descent best known for his stories of village life and for his outspoken advocacy on behalf of the dispossessed. 

At age five, Kemal saw his father murdered in a mosque and was himself blinded in one eye.  He left secondary school after two years and worked at a variety of odd jobs.  In 1950, he was arrested for his political activism, but he was ultimately acquitted.  The following year, Kemal moved to Istanbul and was hired as a reporter for the daily newspaper Cumhuriyet, where he worked in various capacities until 1963.  During this time, he published a novella, Teneke (1955, "The Tin Pan"), and the novel Ince Memed (1955, Memed, My Hawk).  The latter, a popular tale about a bandit and folk hero, was translated into more than twenty (20) languages and was made into a movie in 1984.  Kemal wrote three more novels featuring Memed as the protagonist.  In 1962, he joined the Turkish Labour Party, and in 1967, he founded Ant, a weekly political magazine informed by Marxist ideology.  He was arrested again in 1971, and in 1996 a court sentenced him to a deferred jail term for alleged seditious statements about the Turkish government's oppression of the Kurdish people.

Kemal's other novels include the trilogy Ortadirek (1960, The Wind from the Plain); Yer demir, gok bakir (1963, Iron Earth, Copper Sky), Olmez otu (1968, The Undying Grass), and Tanyeri horozlan (2002, The Cocks of Dawn).  He also published volumes of nonfiction -- including Peri bacalan (1957, The Fairy Chimneys),  collection of reportage, and Baldaki tuz (1974, The Salt in the Honey), a book of political essays -- as well as the children's book Filler sultani ile kirmizi sakalli topal karinca (1977, The Sultan of the Elephants and the Red-Bearded Lame Ant).  In 2007, an operatic adaptation of Kemal's Teneke premiered at La Scala in Milan.

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A00058 - Ibn al-Thahabi, Author of First Known Alphabetical Medical Encyclopedia

Ibn al-Thahabi
Abu Mohammed Abdellah Ibn Mohammed Al-Azdi (Arabic: ابو محمد عبدالله بن محمد الأزدي‎) (ca. ? - 1033 CE), known also as Ibn Al-Thahabi, was an Arab physician, famous for writing the first known alphabetical encyclopedia of medicine.

He was born in Suhar, Oman.  He moved then into Basra,  then to Persia where he studied under Al-Biruni and Ibn Sina.  Later he migrated to Jerusalem and finally settled in Valencia, in Al-Andalus (Islamic Spain).

He is famous for his book Kitab al-Ma'a (The Book of Water), which is a medical encyclopedia that lists the names of diseases, its medicine and a physiological process or a treatment. It is the first known alphabetical classification of medical terms. In this encyclopedia, Ibn Al-Thahabi not only lists the names but adds numerous original ideas about the function of the human organs. It also contains a course for the treatment psychological symptoms. The main thesis of his medication is that cure must start from controlled food and exercise and if it persists then use specific individual medicines.  If it still persists, then use medical compounds. If the disease continued, surgery was performed.