the Arabian Sea, thereby opening up a naval route to the rest of the world. Following this astonishing series of conquests, Akbar managed to establish Mughal power and authority throughout northern India. According to his son Salim (who later became Emperor Jahangir), ‘Although he was illiterate, so much became clear to him through constant intercourse with the learned and the wise in his conversations with them…’
As an intelligent ruler, Akbar knew that brute force only breaks; it does not mend and fix. Since all the previous Indian Muslim dynasties had disintegrated within a few decades of their inception, Akbar was determined not to allow the same to happen to the Mughals. He decided to win the hearts and minds of his people – that is, particularly the Muslims and Hindus. He appointed provincial governors who were responsible for overseeing the affairs of their own provinces and regularly reported directly to him.
As a fiercely monotheistic religion, Islam preaches the absolute Oneness of God (Tawhid), thus negating all forms of associationism (shirk). By contrast, the Hindus believe in multiple gods and goddesses, and also worship statues, idols and various animals. As such, these two religions are more diametrically opposed to each other than probably any of the other major world faiths. Akbar’s approach to inter-faith dialogue proved both inept and foolish. Far from uniting the two rival religious factions, this only served to make matters worse, because both orthodox Muslims and Hindus considered Akbar’s religious eclecticism very offensive.
As a religious freethinker, Akbar was fascinated by religion and philosophy and regularly engaged in religious discussion and debate with the leading Muslim, Hindu and Christian scholars of his time, for he was very keen to discover the truth about religion. He accepted the authority of the Qur’an, but also believed in the spiritual unity of religions (that is to say, he believed that all religions were true and authentic in their essence, only their forms differed). This became the basis of his new religious synthesis, namely din-i-Ilahi (or ‘the Divine Religion’).
Akbar’s long reign of forty-nine years represented one of the most glorious periods in the history of Mughal India. He also built some of India’s most magnificent buildings including the breathtaking Fatehpur Sikri, which is today considered to be one of the most beautiful sites in India along with the immortal Taj Mahal. As a ruler, Akbar was determined and ruthless, but also benevolent; his most famous motto was ‘Servant of all and master of none.’ He died at the age of sixty-three and was buried inside the mausoleum he had prepared for himself at Sikandra, located about five miles west of Agra, India.
The third and greatest of the Moguls, who ruled India from 1555 to 1605. At 13 he inherited a fragile empire, but military conquests brought Rajasthan, Gujarat, Bengal, Kashmir, and the north Deccan under his sway. He introduced a system of civil and military service which ensured loyalty and centralized control, and made modifications to the land revenue system which reduced pressure on peasant cultivators. Akbar created the basis for Mogul control over India until the early 18th century, and also left a distinctive mark on Muslim-Hindu relations in India. Son of Humayun, who retook Kandahar and Heart in Afghanistan; Akbar claimed the throne at age 13; he moved the capital from Delhi to Agra; died in 1555 after entering Delhi, India.
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Al-Ahmar, Abdullah ibn Hussein (1933-2007): Yemeni political. Son of Shaikh Hussein ibn Nasser al Ahmar, head of the Hashid tribal confederation, who was executed in 1959 for his part in a failed coup against Imam Ahmad ibn Yahya al Ahmar succeeded his father. When civil war erupted in September 1962, soon after Imam Ahmad’s death, al Ahmar sided with the republicans. In the 1994 Yemeni Civil War he actively sided with the government. Following the 1997 general election, in which the Isah secured fifty three seats, he was reelected parliamentary speaker. With the tenure of the parliament extended to six years, al Ahmar’s status remained unchanged until 2003.
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Al-Assad, Hafez (1930-2000): Syrian politician, secretary general of the Ba’athist party and president of Syria from 1971-2000. Assad is one of the longest-serving and most influential leaders of the Middle East; after positions as an air force general and defense minister, he became prime minister after a bloodless coup in 1970, and was elected president the following year. In the effectively one-party state that Assad created, he was re-elected president in 1978, 1985, and 1991. He lost the Golan Heights in the Yom Kippur War against Israel in 1973, but won increasing influence in Lebanon after committing some 50,000 troops to the civil war there (1975 – 1990). president 1971-2000 Born Hafiz Wahhash in the family of a notable in Qurdaha, an Alawi village near Latakia, Assad enrolled at the Homs military academy in 1951 and graduated as an air force pilot four years later. During the last days of his rule was marked by his consistency and tenacity. A distant and authoritarian personality, he combined realism with a cool calculating disposition. He was strongly anti-Zionist and a major supporter of Palestinian guerrilla organizations.
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Al-Assad, Rifaat (1937- ): Syrian politician Born in the family of a rural notable in Qurdaha, an Alawi village near Latakia. Assad joined the Baath party in 1952. He did his military service during the period when Syria was part of the United Arab Republic (1958-61). After the Ba’athist coup of March 1963, Assad was put through a crash course at the Homs military academy. In late 1999 the government closed down a port in Latakia that had been built illegally by Assad, and warned him that he faced prosecution if he returned home. Following Hafiz Assad’s death in 2000, Assad described the accession of Bashar Assad as unconstitutional.
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Al Badr, Muhammad (1926-1996): ruler of North Yemen, 1962 As the eldest son of Imam Ahmad ibn Yahya al Badr assisted his father in administering North Yemen and fulfilling specific assignments. In 1955 when Imam Ahmad faced an armed revolt by two of his brothers, al Badr mobilized the Bakil and Hashid tribal confederations and saved his father’s throne. Al Badr was named crown prince. The resulting civil war lasted until 1970. As the rapprochement between the royalist and republican sides, brokered by Saudi Arabia, was based on acceptance of a republic in North Yemen, al Badr went into self exile in Britain.
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Al Banna, Sabri (1937-2002): Palestinian leader Born into a prosperous, plantation owning family in Jaffa al Banna and his family fled to the al Bureij refugee camp in the Gaza strip after the established of Israel in May 1948. They then moved to the West Bank city of Nablus. In August 2002, the Iraqi government claimed that al Banna had entered the country illegally and that when confronted by a security unit in his Baghdad apartment, he committed suicide. Other reports suggested that al Banna had been killed by the Iraqi security unit in a shoot out.
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Al-Battani (850–922): An astronomer who accurately determined the length of the solar year. He contributed to numeric tables, such as the Tables of Toledo, used by astronomers to predict the movements of the sun, moon and planets across the sky. Some of Battani’s astronomic tables were later used by Copernicus. Battani also developed numeric tables which could be used to find the direction of Mecca from different locations. Knowing the direction of Mecca is important for Muslims, as this is the direction faced during prayer.
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Al Baz, Abdul Aziz ibn Abdullah (1911-1999): Saudi Arabian religious leader Born into a religious family in Riyadh al Baz studied the Quran and Sharia. After going blind at sixteen he became a student of Shaikh Muhammad ibn Abdul Wahhab, the grand lufti, to train as an Islamic judge. The next year he was appointed grand mufti of Saudi Arabia, a job that had been left vacant since 1969, and president of the Supreme Religious Council. Among his several books is Inquiry and clarification of Many Hajj and Umra Issues.
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Al-Beidh, Ali Salim (1939- ): South Yemeni and Temeni political Born into a religious family in the Hadramaut region, al
