Oxford Dictionary of World History

4362 Pages·2000·13.89 MB·English

by  Alan Isaacs, Fran Alexander, Jonathan Law, Elizabeth Martin

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A Dictionary of World History

© Oxford University Press 2000, 2003
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A

Abbas I (or Abbas the Great)
(1557–1628)
Shah of Persia (1588–1628). He ended an inherited war with the Ottomans by
conceding territory (1590) in order to free himself to drive the Uzbek Turks from
north-eastern Persia (1598). By 1618 he had strengthened his army by curbing
the Turcoman chiefs who supplied his recruits, and by using foreign advisers,
and had reconquered the lands ceded to the Ottomans, but he died before the end
of a further war over Mesopotamia (1623–29).

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Abbasid A dynasty of caliphs ruling in Baghdad from 750 to 1258, claiming
descent from Abbas, uncle of the prophet Muhammad. Some were outstanding
patrons of culture such as Mamun (813–33). Their power ended with the fall of
Baghdad to the Tartars in 1258.

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Abbott, Sir John (Joseph Caldwell) (1821–93)
Canadian politician, Conservative Prime Minister of Canada (1891–92). Abbott
was a compromise choice as Prime Minister after the death of Sir John
MACDONALD, but resigned the following year due to ill health.

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Abd-al Aziz ibn Saud See SAUD.

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Abd el-Krim (1881–1963)
Moroccan Berber resistance leader. In 1921 he roused the Rif Berbers, and
defeated a Spanish army of 20,000. He held out until 1925, when a joint Franco-
Spanish force took him prisoner. He was exiled to Réunion until 1947, when he
was given permission to go to France. On the way he escaped to Cairo, where he
set up the Maghrib Bureau, or Liberation Committee of the Arab West. After
Moroccan independence (1956), he refused to return as long as French troops
remained on African soil.

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Abdication crisis See EDWARD VIII.

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Abdul Hamid II (known as ‘the Great Assassin’) (1842–1918)
The last sultan of Turkey (1876–1909). An autocratic ruler, he suspended
Parliament and the constitution and is remembered for the brutal massacres of
Christian Armenians in 1894–96. In 1909 he was deposed after the revolt in the
previous year of the Young Turks.

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Abdullah II (1962– )
King of Jordan (1999– ). The eldest son of King HUSSEIN by his second wife,
Abdullah was named as heir in place of his uncle (Prince Hassan) in the last days
of his father's life.

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Abdullah, Sheikh Muhammad (known as ‘the Lion of Kashmir’) (1905–82)
Kashmiri Muslim leader. In the 1930s he actively opposed the rule of the Hindu
maharajah of Kashmir. After accepting Indian sovereignty (1947), he eventually
won for Kashmir a form of autonomy within India, although he was imprisoned
for much of the time between 1953 and 1968 on suspicion of seeking its full
independence.

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Abdullah ibn Hussein (1882–1951)
King of Jordan (1946–51). He served as emir of Transjordan (1921–46),
becoming Jordan's first king on independence in 1946. He was assassinated.

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Abdul Rahman, Tunku (1903–90)
Malayan statesman, Prime Minister of Malaya (1957–63) and of Malaysia
(1963–70). A skilled negotiator, he secured Malayan independence from Britain
(1957) and was one of the architects of modern Malaysia (1963).

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