Dictionary Of Modern Arab Histor

Bidwell

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN:
  9780710305053
• eBook ISBN:
  9781136162985
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Anthropology
• Index: Social Sciences

From 1980 until Dr. Bidwell's death in 1994, much of his time was taken up with the writing and compilation of this encyclopaedic work which represents, in the true sense of the word, a unique account of the Arab world from 1798 and a readable assessment of all its aspects. Whereas the classical period is covered in many publications, notably "The Encyclopaedia of Islam", the reader look up assessments and accounts of 14 presidents of modern Syria; all prime ministers of Egypt; the definition and effect of "Resolution 242"; the Istiqlal Party; the Rogers Plan; Saddam Hussein; Dair Yassin; the Agecirus Conference; the Mecca Declaration; the Black September Organization; President Nimeiri; the monarchs of Egypt, Iraq and Libya; King Khalid of Saudi Arabia; Colonel Gaddafi; Nasser; the Battle of Mehran; Count Folke Bernadotte; the massacre of the Mamluks; and President Bourguiba.

Abane, Ramdane (1920–57)

Algerian Revolutionary Leader. He came from a poor Kabyle family but educated himself to get his baccalaureat and gain a post as a municipal clerk in a commune mixte. He was a supporter of Messali Haj and was involved in the Setif Uprising. In 1950 he was sentenced to five years imprisonment during which time he studied the writings of revolutionary leaders, emerging with the belief that Algeria could only be freed by violence. He also undertook the longest hunger strike in a French jail, giving himself ulcers which permanently soured his temper. In the spring of 1955 he assumed charge of the nationalist network in Algiers and succeeded in winning the allegiance of many intellectuals and of members of competing nationalist groups although quite prepared to kill those who dissented. He provided an ideology for the Front de Libération Nationale which while neither fundamentalist Muslim nor Marxist-Leninist, could attract adherents of both. He out-manoeuvred the communist leadership whose members and military arsenal were absorbed by the FLN. Abane was the first to advocate urban terrorism as he saw that the killing of innocent civilians attracted more attention and inspired more fear than attacks on the military. He was the dominant figure at the Soummam Valley Conference which asserted the primacy of those fighting in the interior over exiled leaders such as Ben Bella and of the political over the military, setting up the supreme Comité de Coordination et d’Exécution of which he was a leading member to provide collective rather than one-man leadership. He took part in the Algiers Battle of early 1957 but when he realised that it would be lost, he escaped to join the exiles in Cairo where he found himself in a minority as the Soummam decisions were reversed by a new CCE upon which the military predominated. His quarrels with Colonels Abd al-Hafid Boussouf and Belkasim Krim were especially savage. In December 1957 they lured Abane to Morocco on the pretext of a meeting with King Muhammad V and strangled him, although it was announced that he had fallen in battle against the French. After independence one of the main streets of Algiers was renamed in his honour. Abane was described as the Robespierre of the Revolution, the best brain in the FLN, a skilled organiser and propagandist, decisive, fanatical, violent, brutal, radical, uninterested in the trappings of power. In person he was short with a round cheerful face.

Abbas, Farhat (1899–1986)

Algerian nationalist leader. He came from a family of notables of Kabyle origin and was born near Constantine where he attended secondary school before doing three years conscription in the French army from which he was demobilised as a sergeant. He then studied pharmacy at Algiers University where he was President of the Association of Muslim Students. Abbas then opened a pharmacy at Setif, married a Frenchwoman and entered politics as a member of the Municipal Council and the Délégations Financières. He joined the Fédération des Elus Indigènes agreeing with Dr Ben Jalloul in the demand for the absorption of the local élite into French society and the end of the Indigénat Code. In 1932 he founded a newspaper L’Entente in which he published a famous statement that there had never been and could never be a separate Algerian state – “one cannot build on wind”. He called for political and cultural equality within one France from Dunkirk to Tammanrasset, stressing that the French Revolution had been the champion of the rights of man and was the heritage of all mankind. He was active in the Algiers Muslim Congress of 1936 but his secular views led to a split with the Association des Oulémas Algériens. Having come to believe in a separate Algerian personality he quarrelled also with Ben Jalloul who continued to stand for complete integration with France while Abbas called instead for autonomy and equality in a political federation. With the slogan “Algeria is a French country and its inhabitants must evolve within the cadre of the French nation” he founded the Union Populaire Algérienne but although he toured widely trying to attract support, he was never very successful being too honest to make demagogic promises and being opposed by all the other active political forces, the ulema, Ben Jalloul, the communists and the Parti du Peuple Algérien of Messali Haj. At the start of the war he enlisted in the French army sanitary service. After demobilisation he addressed an appeal to the Vichy Government setting out a programme of agrarian reform and political restructuring based on communes; there was a curt rejection. In February 1943 he was the principal creator of the Manifesto of the Algerian People which demanded a Constitution guaranteeing independence for all the inhabitants of Algeria which he presented to the French authorities and the Anglo-American leaders. This, after consultation with Messali, was followed by an Additif which for the first time called for full political autonomy for Algeria. This was vetoed by General de Gaulle and Abbas was briefly sent into forced residence in the Sahara for “provocation to disobedience in wartime”. He then founded the Amis du Manifeste et de la Liberté which opposed “annexation and assimilation” and was suppressed after the Setif Uprising. Abbas himself was imprisoned until March 1946. Upon his release he founded the Union Démocratique du Manifeste Algérien and was elected to the French Parliament for Setif, although ballot-rigging soon ensured that he lost his seat. He hoped for progress through the sympathy of French liberals and had no wish to be a revolutionary so various attempts to work with the Mouvement pour le Triomphe de la Liberté et de la Démocratie never lasted long as its leader Messali believed that only force would work. After the War of Algerian Independence began in November 1954 Abbas was at first convinced that it would fail and worked for reconciliation although the guerrillas deliberately murdered his nephew in the Philippeville Massacre. By early 1956 he saw the hardening of attitudes on both sides and despaired of achieving his aims by peaceful means; he therefore joined the Front de Libération Nationale proclaiming that “insurrection is the most sacred of duties”. He settled in Switzerland in charge of FLN propaganda but also travelled widely in the Arab world although he never managed to speak literary Arabic. At the Soummam Valley Conference of August 1956 he was elected to the Conseil National de la Révolution Algérienne and was later co-opted on to its “War Cabinet”, the Conseil de Coordination et d’Exécution. Always enthusiastic for Maghrib unity, he represented the FLN at the Tangier Conference of April 1958. In September 1958 when the FLN formed the Gouvernement Provisoire de la République Algérienne he was elected its President, perhaps to provide a moderate and internationally known front. He visited China where he was seated on Mao’s right hand on Revolution Day and Moscow where he obtained some form of recognition from Khruschev. In August 1961 to facilitate negotiations with de Gaulle, with whom it was said that the 1943 Manifesto and the attempt to involve the “Anglo-Saxons” still rankled, the GPRA replaced Abbas with Ben Khedda. In the struggle for power after the conclusion of the Evian Agreement Abbas at first supported the GPRA but then adhered to the side of Ben Bella and Boumédienne. He was appointed President of the Chamber but in August 1963 he resigned in protest at the drafting of the Constitution by the Party instead of by the Assembly and was expelled from the FLN. He accused Ben Bella of trying to turn “democratic and humanistic socialism” into “Marxist-Leninist socialism” and his relations with the President became so bad that in the summer of 1964 he was sent into forced residence in the Sahara. He was released before Boumédienne took power and refused to serve him as a figurehead, preferring to live in retirement. He refused to comment on public events until in March 1976 in conjunction with Ben Khedda he broke his silence and issued a Manifesto accusing Boumédienne of totalitarianism and personality cult, doctrinaire socialism and sabotaging North African unity by his needless quarrel with Morocco. He was put under house arrest and government history books were rewritten to excise his part in the national struggle. He was rehabilitated by Chadli and decorated as a hero of the war of which he published an account. In 1984 he published his last book, L’Indépendance Confisquée attacking the regimes of Ben Bella and Boumédienne, denouncing one-party rule, calling for democracy, Maghreb unity and a return to Islam. Abbas was never a charismatic leader, always the respectable bourgeois, but he was honest, brave, generous and without hatred, preferring honourable compromise to violence.

Abbas Halim (1897–1960)

Egyptian Prince and Trade Union leader. A great-grandson of Muhammad Ali, he was brought up in Germany at the Court of the Kaiser and served with the Turkish army in the First World War. Returning to Egypt he organised golf and boxing clubs, presided over the Royal Automobile Club and went big game shooting. In 1930 he published a manifesto stating that the dismissal of Nahhas Pasha who had recently won 90% of the popular vote in an unusually free election might lead to civil war. King Fuad was affronted and struck the Prince’s name from the list of the Royal Family. Abbas Halim then worked to encourage the individual Trade Unions, persecuted by the police, to get new strength by collaboration and brought them together into a Federation with the support of the Wafd. In 1934 he was imprisoned for three weeks after an affray. He then quarrelled with the Wafd and formed another Trade Union Federation. In 1937 he went to England to study how to create a Labour Party but did not pursue the idea. British officials described him as very popular but obstinate and stupid.

Abbas i Hilmi (1813–54)

Ruler of Egypt 1849–54. He was the son of Tussin, second son of Muhammad Ali but as the oldest member of the family he became heir on the death of his uncle Ibrahim. He had fought in the Syrian campaign and spent some time in Arabia. From the beginning he set out to reverse the policies of his grandfather, persecuting his old ministers, expelling his foreign advisers and closing down factories as innovations – he even wished to destroy the Nile Barrage. He ended state monopolies such as that on the sale of corn. He sold Muhammad Ali’s fleet and shut the translation school which he regarded as promoting foreign influences. He felt that if Egypt had to have foreign friends, the Turks as fellow-Muslims were preferable to Europeans and he tried to ingratiate himself with the Sultan by sending considerable sums of money and later 15,000 troops to take part in the Crimean war. The Ottomans insisted that the Tanzimat reforms, including the tariff of 1838 and the provision that only the Sultan could approve death sentences should apply to Egypt but Abbas secured the dropping of these demands through British mediation, rewarding the British with a concession to build a railway from Alexandria to Cairo which Muhammad Ali had refused. Thus he reversed his grandfather’s foreign policy by a preference for England and Turkey rather than for France; when the Russians tried to persuade Britain not to intervene in the Crimean war by suggesting it should instead annex Egypt, a French diplomat remarked that this was unnecessary as British influence there was anyway all-powerful. The French tried intrigues to replace Abbas. Another break with the practices of Muhammad Ali was the raising of loans; one was needed to finance the railway and others to build fortified palaces in the desert where Abbas lived far from civilisation, surrounded by wild animals and 6,000 Albanian mercenaries. He put IOUs in the Treasury and left debts of some 100 million francs. He took an interest in the Sudan, opening a school there. Abbas was fanatical, cowardly, distrustful, superstitious and reactionary; he was noted for his cruelty, bricking up a servant who had kicked his dog, sewing up the lips of another caught smoking and flogging his women, at least two of whom he drowned. Many of his relatives took refuge abroad. He warned two servants that the following day he proposed to punish them so they murdered him during the night. He was buried in a heatwave, caused, people said, by the gates of hell opening to receive him.

Abd al-Baqi, Ahmad Hilmi (1882–?)

Palestinian leader. Born in Sidon of Bosnian stock, he served in the Ottoman army before becoming a financial specialist. He rallied to Faysal in Damascus where he was given the Ministry of Finance. After the collapse of the regime he went to Trans-Jordan where the Amir Abd Allah made use of his financial skills. In 1925 he was made Director-General of Charitable Trusts in Palestine and in 1930 was one of the founders of the Arab National Bank. He took an active part in nationalist politics and with Awni Abd al-Hadi revived the Istiqlal in 1932. When the Arab Higher Committee was formed in 1936 he was elected its Treasurer. However he approved the White Paper of 1939 and later, with the Mufti Haj Amin al-Hussaini in exile and Raghib al-Nashashibi inactive, he tried with British support to rally the Arabs behind his own leadership. His control of the Arab National Front gave him much influence. During the Palestine War Abd Allah made him Military Governor of Jerusalem with the rank of General. Abd al-Baqi broke with him in September and supported the Egyptians, becoming Prime Minister of the Gaza Government. With its collpase he passed into obscurity.

Abd al-Hadi, Awni (1889–1970)

Arab nationalist leader. He came from an aristocratic family of Nablus and studied law and administration in Istanbul. He continued his law studies at the Sorbonne and being in Paris when the First Arab Congress took place in 1913 attended it as a delegate. He was then one of the early members of the Fatat, the secret nationalist society. One of his uncles was hanged by the Turks during the war. Abd al-Hadi then became secretary to the Amir Faysal, accompanying him to the Versailles Peace Conference. When Syria was taken over by the French, Abd al-Hadi encouraged the Amir Abd Allah to move on from Ma’an and establish himself in Amman. He then practised and taught law in Jerusalem. In 1932 he was one of the founders with Ahmad Hilmi Abd al-Baqi of the Palestinian branch of the Istiqlal Party. He was accused of fomenting anti-Jewish riots in 1933 and accepted a temporary ban on political activity rather than a prison sentence. In 1936 he was one of the founders of the Arab Higher Committee of which he became secretary. Abd al-Hadi was regarded as one of the leaders of the Arab Rebellion and in 1937 was exiled to Syria where he remained until 1941. During this period he was in contact with the Nazis and visited Berlin. By 1943 the Istiqlal had become extremely influential in Palestine, controlling much of the Arab press and financial activities and the British hoped to use him as the leader of the moderate nationalists opposed to the Mufti Haj Amin al-Hussaini. In March 1946 he testified before the Anglo-American Committee on Palestine. Abd al-Hadi was a Minister in the Gaza Government established by the Egyptians in September 1948 but soon left it and made his peace with the Hashemites. He became Ambassador to Cairo and served as Foreign Minister in the brief administration of Ibrahim Hashim in the summer of 1956. He later moved to Cairo, working as Chairman of the Legal Committee of the Arab League.

Abd al-Hadi, Ibrahim Pasha (1896–1981)

Egyptian Prime Minister. By profession a lawyer he was, as a young member of the Wafd in the 1930s increasingly troubled by the scandals surrounding his party leaders so he defected to the Saadists of which he was later President. As Foreign Minister he helped to negotiate the Bevin–Sidqi Agreement of 1946 and then was Chef de Cabinet to King Farouq. After the murder of his friend Nuqrashi in December 1948 he became Prime Minister and showed great ruthlessness in repression of the Muslim Brothers and of the Egyptian Communist Party, packing off large numbers to concentration camps in Sinai. A dour, honest man, he did not hide his disapproval of the private life of the King and when it became known that he was looking into the Palace finances, he was summarily dismissed after seven months in office. The harshness of the police activity that he had shown during his premiership was not forgotten after the July Revolution and he was the only politician condemned to death by the Revolutionary Tribunal. The sentence was however commuted to life imprisonment and he was actually released on grounds of ill health in 1954.

Abd Allah (c. 1882–1951)

Amir of Trans-Jordan and King of Jordan. He was the second son of Sharif Hussain who in 1893 was ordered to move from Mecca into residence in Constantinople where he remained until 1908. Abd Allah was thus brought up in contact with young Arab nationalists from the whole of the Ottoman Empire. These links were reinforced when in 1909 he gained a seat in the Turkish Parliament as MP for Mecca. In 1911 he took part in his father’s campaign against Muhammad b. Ali al-Idrisi but ran into an ambush and had to flee the field. He became friendly with the Khedive Abbas II Hilmi and took advantage of a visit to Cairo in February 1914 to call on Lord Kitchener to enquire whether, in the event of a Turkish dismissal of his father, he could count on British support. As the two Empires were at peace Kitchener evaded the question but even before war broke out he contacted Abd Allah, beginning the exchanges which culminated in the Arab Revolt. In 1916 the first dispatch of British gold was to Abd Allah and when the fighting started his father kept him at hand as Foreign Minister although he also conducted a leisurely siege of Ta’if. Lawrence described him at this time as “short and thick built, apparently as strong as a horse, with merry dark-brown eyes, a round smooth face... open and very charming, not standing at all on ceremony” and possibly more an astute politician than a far-seeing statesman. He spent some time spasmodically besieging Medina and achieved little military success. When the war had ended he determined to use his trained forces to subdue Ibn Saud but a crushing defeat at Turabah in May 1919 when he had to flee in his night clothes, ended his ambitions in Arabia. In March 1920 when his brother Faysal was proclaimed King of Syria, 29 Iraqis present at the Damascus Congress proclaimed Abd Allah their King. In July Faysal was expelled by the French, and in September Abd Allah, announcing his intention to restore him, left Mecca with 500–1,000 tribesmen. He lingered at Ma’an for several months while Faysal was being installed by the British in Iraq. In March 1921 Abd Allah moved on to Amman at a time when the Cairo Conference was meeting to determine British policy in the area. It was not clear whether the bedouin areas east of the Jordan should be regarded as part of Palestine and the Colonial Secretary Winston Churchill went on to Jerusalem. He sent for Abd Allah who agreed to take charge of Trans-Jordan for six months and keep the area free of anti-Zionist and anti-French nationalists in return for a stipend of £5,000 a month and hints that if he behaved well he might yet become ruler of Syria. Abd Allah, however, formed a government almost entirely staffed by strongly nationalist refugees from Syria whose rule was resented by the local tribes; there were five revolts in eighteen months of which that of the Adwan was the most serious and was only suppressed with British help. There was also a series of raids across the frontier of Najd by the Ikhwan which were checked by the RAF. By 1923 London decided to make the situation permanent and Abd Allah was recognised as Amir of a state with a population of 250,000 entirely dependent upon British subsidies: Abd Allah himself was given £36,000 a year paid monthly. He saw Trans-Jordan as no more than a stepping stone to greater things (in 1922 he met Weizmann and volunteered to help to guarantee the establishment of a Jewish national home if the Zionists would help him to become King of Palestine) and at the beginning made no attempt to rule for the benefit of his people. The British Resident Philby said that he was “tyrannical” and other officials regarded him as obstructionist, prodigal, financially dishonest and “languid”: Peake, the Commander of the Arab Legion stated he was “a disease which was rapidly destroying” the country. In June 1924 after Abd Allah had departed for the Pilgrimage serious consideration was given to a forceful prevention of his return: in the end he was met at Aqaba by Cox the new Resident who presented an ultimatum as to his future conduct which he tearfully accepted. He realised his complete dependence upon Britain and was prepared to accept limitations on what he could do in internal matters. The relationship was formalised in the Anglo-Trans-Jordanian Agreement of 1928. He allied with the great landowners and formed a group of “Palace” politicians such as Ibrahim Hashim, Tawfiq Abu al-Huda and Samir al-Rifai, men of considerable ability upon whom he could rely to keep things quiet at home for, restricted in Trans-Jordan, his ambitions lay elsewhere. For many years he did not give up hope of a return to the Hijaz, constantly intriguing to encourage revolts such as those of Ibn Rifada and Hassan b. Ali al-Idrisi against Ibn Saud; although they were formally reconciled in April 1933, the hostility persisted. In the 1930s he had hopes in Palestine, aiming to be recognised as spokesman for the Arabs. Abd Allah plunged deep into Palestinian politics, in alliance with Raghib al-Nashashibi and in bitter hostility to the Mufti Haj Amin al-Hussaini, although he did offer to make him Prime Minister if he himself became King. He was anxious not to antagonise the Jews, encouraging them to invest in Trans-Jordan and selling them land. He also took money from them for political purposes such as trying to keep his own country quiet during times of tension such as the Wailing Wall Incident and the troubles of 1936-9. He ignored the Arab boycott on discussing partition and was the only ruler to endorse it, receiving money and political concessions from London in return. After the death of his brother Faysal he hoped to be seen as the leader of Arab nationalism but was always on bad terms with most of their politicians, partly through his incautious tongue and actions such as alienating the Syrians by visiting Turkey during the Alexandretta Dispute. In September 1939 Abd Allah declared his support for Britain in the war even before some of the Dominions had done so. He won unpopularity with Arab nationalists by allowing the Arab Legion to play a part in crushing the regime of Rashid Ali al-Gilani. After the British invaded Syria in 1941 he hoped that the British would make him its King but they never seriously considered it. Grateful, however, for his loyalty during the war, the British gave Abd Allah considerably more independence and the title of King in the Anglo-Trans-Jordanian Treaty of March 1946. As Palestine move...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Preface
• Introduction
• A-Z