WESTERN ASIA

GEORGIA
Zhiuli Shartava
Shartava was born on March 7, 1944 in Sukhumi, Abkhaz ASSR. An engineer by education, he was elected to
the Parliament of Georgia in 1992. Shartava chaired the legal Council of Ministers and the Council of Self-Defence
of Autonomous Republic of Abkhazia during the Georgian-Abkhazian War in 1993. When the city of Sukhumi fell to
the Russian-supported separatist forces on September 27, 1993, Shartava with other members of the Abkhaz
Government (Guram Gabiskiria, Raul Eshba, Alexander Berulava, Mamia Alasania, Sumbat Saakian, Misha Kokaia and
others) refused to flee and were captured by the Abkhaz militants. Initially they were promised safety,[1] however
Shartava and others from the Council of Ministers were killed by the militants and according to UN report Shartava was
excessively tortured.[2] In 2005, American journalist Malcolm Linton displayed his photo materials taken during the war
in Abkhazia at the art gallery in Tbilisi, where Shartavas body was identified among the pile of corpses, clearly visible on
one of the photographs. On video materials taken during the capture of Sukhumi by the militants, Shartava is carried out
from the Government building and physically assaulted, after which he was forced into the van and taken to the
outskirts of Sukhumi where he was killed with other Georgian and Abkhaz members of the government and their staff.
Shartava's body was handed over to the Georgian side and was buried in the western Georgian city of Senaki.[3][4] In
1994, Shartava was officially honored as the National Hero of Georgia posthumously in 2004.

Interesting fact:

Zhiuli Shartava (Georgian: ჟიული შარტავა) (March 7, 1944 – September 27, 1993) was a Georgian politician and the
Head of the Council of Ministers of the Autonomous Republic of Abkhazia who was killed by Abkhaz militants during
the ethnic cleansing of Georgians in Abkhazia in 1993.

Zviad Gamsakhurdia
Zviad Gamsakhurdia studied at Tbilisi secondary school N47. He continued his education at Tbilisi State University, the
faculty of Western European Languages and Literature, specialty –English Literature. He finished studies at the
University in 1962. In 1973 he was awarded PhD candidate degree in the field of philology, and in 1991 – PhD scientific
degree.

Protest to the Soviet Union regimen by young Zviad Gamsakhurdia and his friends was revealed in 1956 year. They
published proclamations in Tbilisi’s streets and blamed Soviet Union for bloody intervention in Hungary. Members of
this group were arrested but soon released. Zviad Gamsakhurdia was arrested for the second time in 1959 but he was
again released very soon.

In 1975, Zviad Gamsakhurdia and Merab Kostava became members of international organization “International
Amnesty”. In 1976, these two friends founded Georgian Helsinki Group in Tbilisi. Zviad Gamsakhurdia was a Chairman of
this group until the end of his life. The group was publishing underground magazines, such as: “Georgia”, “Golden
Fleece”, “Georgian Bulletin”, etc. Gamsakhurdia was first who published The Gulag Archipelago of Russian dissident
writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn in Tbilisi.
In 1978, the Congress of United States nominated Zviad Gamsakhurdia as Nobel Peace Prize Official Nomineefor the
merit of human rights and dissident movement.

Lately, Gamsakhurdia became member of Human Rights International Organization (ISHR-IGFM, Frankfurt). In addition,
he actively cooperated with dissident magazine “Chronicle of the Current Events” in Moscow (Editor – S. Kovaliov).
For the dissident movement, the KGB arrested Gamsakhurdia in 1977 and released him in 1979.
In 1979, he was actively involved in National Liberation Movement and was one of the leaders of almost all the peaceful
mass demonstration in 1987-1990. The demonstration in 1898 was finished with 9 April tragedy and Gamsakhurdia was
arrested as the organizer of this demonstration.

After the death of Merab Kostava, Zviad Gamsakhurdia headed the Society of Saint Ilia the Truth.
In 1990, under his leadership bloc of political parties and organizations “Round Table – Free Georgia “was founded. This
bloc won the first democratic and multiparty parliamentary elections on 28 October of 1990.

After the graduation from the university, Zviad Gamsakhurdia was assistant at Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University
at the department of Western Europe and Literature.

In 1972-1977 and 1983-1990, was Senior Researcher Officer of the Department of Rustvelology at Georgian Academy
Science Shota Rustaveli Georgian Literature Institute.

New Georgian Supreme Council held the first session on 14 November of 1990 year and elected Gamsakhurdia as a
Chairman. On the same session was taken decision to name the country as “Georgian Republic” and to restore Georgian
Democratic Republic (1918-1921) state attribution (flag, emblem, and hymn).
Lately, on 9 April, 1991, according to the results of Public Referendum of 31 March of 1991, the Supreme Council
declared about the restoration of state independence of Georgia. Soon, Zviad Gamsakhurdia was elected as the
President of Georgia, what was confirmed with the results of presidential elections on 26 May.

In 1992, after the military coup, Zviad Gamsakhurdia was forced to move in Grozny, where the general Johar Dudaev
granted him asylum.
In 1993, Gamsakhurdia returned in Samegrelo, Georgia. In 1993 he was in the villages of Samegrelo with some
accompanying person.

he died on 31 December, 1993 in village Xibula, Tsalenjikha region. He was interred in village Jikhashkar and soon was
reinterred in Grozny. Finally, he was interred at Mtatsminda Pantheonin Georgia in 2007.
His wife – Manana Archvadze is pediatric. She was partial comrade of Gamsakhurdia.
Has three child: Konstantine Gamsakhurdia (from the first marriage), Tsotne Gamsakhurdia and Giorgi Gamsakhrudia.

Interesting fact:

Zviad Gamsakhurdia was born in Tbilisi, on March 31, 1939, in the family of a famous Georgian writer Konstantine
Gamsakhurdia and Miranda Palavandishvili. He was a Georgian politician, dissident, scholar, and writer who became
the first democratically elected President of Georgia in the post-Soviet era. Gamsakhurdia is the only Georgian President
to have died while formally in office.
 ARMENIA
Vazgen I
Vazgen was born in Bucharest to a family belonging to the Armenian-Romanian community. His father was a
shoemaker and his mother was a schoolteacher. The young Levon Baljian did not initially pursue the Church as a
profession, instead graduating from the University of Bucharest's Faculty of Philosophy and Letters. After
graduation, he became a philosopher and published a series of scholarly articles.
As his interests began to shift from philosophy to theology, Baljian studied Armenian Apostolic Theology and Divinity
in Athens, Greece. He eventually gained the title of vardapet, an ecclesiastical rank for learned preachers and
teachers in the Armenian Apostolic Church roughly equivalent to receiving a doctorate in theology. In the 1940s, he
became a bishop, and then the arajnord (leader) of the Armenian Apostolic Church in Romania.
His rise through the hierarchy of the Church culminated in 1955 when, on September 30th 1955, he was elected
Catholicos of All Armenians, becoming one of the youngest Catholicoi in the history of the Armenian Apostolic
Church. He reigned until his death in 1994. During his long time as Catholicos, he managed to assert some
independence for his church in face of the totalitarian Soviet rule in the Armenian SSR, and lived to see religious
freedom restored under Armenia's national government in 1991.
From then on, he was busy renewing ancient Armenian churches and reviving institutions of the church. He saved a
number of church treasures by establishing the Alex ManoogianMuseum of the Mother Church. Vazgen intensified
contacts with the Armenian Catholic Church, with the aim of reuniting both wings of Armenian Christianity. He died
on August 18, 1994, after suffering from a long-illness.

Interesting fact:
Vazgen I also Vazken I of Bucharest, born in Levon Garabed Baljian September 20, 1908 and died on August 18,
1994 was the Catholicos of All Armenians between 1955 and 1994, for a total of 39 years, the 4th longest reign in
the history of the Armenian Apostolic Church.

Victor Ambartsumian
Hambardzumyan was born to an Armenian family in Tiflis (Tbilisi) in 1908. His father was the philologist and writer
Hamazasp Asaturovich Hambardzumyan, the translator of Homer’s Iliad into Armenian. In 1924 Victor entered the
physico-mathematical department of Leningrad State Pedagogical Institute and then of Leningrad State University.
As a student, in 1926, he published his first scientific article, devoted to sun jets. Hambardzumyan continued his
postgraduate studies at Pulkovo Observatory, under the guidance of professor Aristarkh Belopolsky in 1928–1931.
His work first came to prominence in physics when in 1929 with Dmitry Ivanenko he published a paper
demonstrating that atomic nuclei could not be made from protons and electrons. Three years later this was
confirmed when Sir James Chadwick discovered neutrons, which with protons make up atomic nuclei. In 1930 he
married Vera Feodorovna Klochihina (born at Lisva, Solikamsk uyezd, Perm). After three years of affiliation at
Leningrad University in 1934 Hambardzumyan founded and headed the first astrophysics chair. In 1939–1941
Hambardzumyan was the director of the Leningrad University Observatory. In 1940 he joined the Communist Party.
The war found him holding the position of the pro-rector of Leningrad State University. The scientific laboratories of
the University were evacuated in 1941 to remote Elabuga (Tatarstan) where Hambardzumyan spent four years
directing the work of the refugee laboratories. In 1939 Ambartsumian was elected a correspondent member of
the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. In 1953 he became a full academician of the Academy. In 1943,
the Armenian Academy of Sciences was founded. Iosif Orbeli was appointed as the president and Hambardzumyan
as the vice president of the Armenian Academy of Sciences.
In 1947 Hambardzumyan was elected as the president of the Armenian SSR Academy and since then he was
invariably re-elected to the position till 1993. In 1993 he became the Honorary President of the Armenian National
Academy. In 1946 the Byurakan Astrophysical Observatory was founded. Hambardzumyan became its first director
and headed the Observatory until 1988. Hambardzumyan was the President of the International Astronomical
Unionfrom 1961 to 1964. He was twice elected the President of the International Council of Scientific Unions (1966–
1972).
Congratulating Hambardzumyan on his eightieth birthday, Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, who won the Nobel Prize
for Physics in 1983, wrote,
The only other astronomer of this century who compares with Academician Ambartsumian in his consistency and
devotion to astronomy is Professor Jan Oort; but they would appear to be dissimilar in every other way. It will be a
worthy theme for a historian of science of the twenty-first century to compare and contrast these two great men of
science. He is an astronomer. There can be no more than two or three astronomers in this century who can look
back on a life so worthily devoted to the progress of astronomy.
Ambartsumian died in August 1996 in Byurakan and is buried next to the Grand Telescope Tower.

Interesting fact:

Victor Hamazaspovich Hambardzumyan born in September 18 1908 and died on 12 August 1996 he was
a Soviet Armenian scientist, and one of the founders of theoretical astrophysics.[1] He worked in the field of physics of
stars and nebulae, stellar astronomy, dynamics of stellar systems and cosmogony of stars and galaxies, and contributed
to mathematical physics.

Hambardzumyan founded the Byurakan Observatory in 1946.[2][3] He was the second and longest-serving president of
the Armenian Academy of Sciences (1947–93) and also served as the president of the International Astronomical
Union from 1961 to 1964 and was twice elected the President of the International Council of Scientific Unions (1966–
72).

He was a foreign member of numerous academies, including the Royal Society,[4] the US National Academy of Sciences,
and the Indian Academy of Sciences. Among his numerous awards are Stalin Prize (1946, 1950), the Hero of Socialist
Labor (1968, 1978), the State Prize of the Russian Federation, the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical
Society,[5] the Bruce Gold Medal,[6] and National Hero of Armenia.
 AZERBAIJAN
Maharram Seyidov
Seyidov was born on September 7, 1952, in the Alyshar village of the Sharur District of Nakhchivan Autonomous
Republic of Azerbaijan. He finished village secondary school named after Nariman Narimanov in 1969. He started
working for Bodies of Internal Affairs in the Kherson city after he was demobilized from the Army. He was awarded a
medal for his distinguished service in the protection of public order during Moscow Olympic Games in 1980. He later
graduated from Special Police School (present Police Academy). He was working as a Head Inspector within the Security
Department of Sharur Internal Affairs Department. He was a police captain.[2]

After occupation of the Karki village on the 16th of January, 1990, Armenian forces started moving towards Sadarak
District. When the Department of Internal Affairs of Sharur region received the news about this, they sent a group of
police officers in order to protect the region and Mahharm Seyidov was also among those policemen. On the January 19,
1990, he was killed when rescuing the commander, Azer Seyidov in the battles for Sadarak.[3]

Maharram Miraziz oglu Seyidov was posthumously awarded the title of the “National Hero of Azerbaijan” by the decree
# 831 of the President of Azerbaijan Republic on the 6th of June, 1992.[1]

He was buried at a Martyrs' Lane cemetery in Sharur city. There is a street and a monument from bronze in Sharur
region after the hero. School # 2 in Sharur region is also named after Maharram Seyidov.

Interesting fact:

Maharram Seyidov (Azerbaijani: Məhərrəm Mirəziz oğlu Seyidov) (7 September 1952 – 19 January 1990) was
the National Hero of Azerbaijan and warrior during the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. He was married and had four
children.

Albert Agarunov
Albert Agarunov was born in a Baku suburb to Mountain Jewish parents,[1][2] Agarun, who was an oil-worker
from Quba and Leah Agarunov. Albert was one of the family's ten children. During his school-years, Albert was
interested in music, and he took trumpet lessons. After obtaining a degree in technology later on, he started working
at a machine building factory, as a metal turner. His brother, Rantik Agarunov, stated that: "The only thing Albert did
not like, was aggression and abusive attitudes towards the vulnerable."[3]

The road to leading to Shusha where the encounter between Avsharian's and Agarunov's tanks took place.

He served in the Soviet Army from 1987 to 1989 in Georgia. Agarunov was a tank commander during his military
service.
In 1991, Albert Agarunov voluntarily enlisted in the Azerbaijani Army in the war against Armenia to defend
the Nagorno-Karabakh region. Agarunov fought in a battalion, led by Elchin Mammadov to retake the town of
Shusha from Armenian control. He became a tank commander in the defense of Shusha in May 1992, when the
Armenians launched the successful assault to take this strategically important town. Agarunov was assigned tank
No.533 and took part in the war with his famous tank engagement against a T-72, commanded by Gagik Avsharian,
disabling the T-72 outside of the town of Shusha. On December 8, 1991, Agarunov along with driver, Agababa
Huseynov, managed to disable nine Armenian tanks and two armored trucks. During another skirmish, Agarunov
managed to disable two tanks by a method called, the "Jewish sandwich" by his comrades.
Armenians allegedly offered 5 million rublуs for his head.
Commander, Haji Azimov, said that Agarunov left his vehicle to remove the bodies of the dead soldiers lying on the
streets, but was hit by sniper fire. Agarunov was killed on the road connecting Shusha to Lachin on 8 May
1992.[5] After his death, Azerbaijani soldiers started to name their tanks, "Albert." Albert Agarunov, was
posthumously awarded the title of National Hero of Azerbaijan and was buried at Martyrs' Lane in Baku in May,
1992, attended by both Mullahs and Rabbis. The school in Baku, from which Albert graduated, was named after
him.[7]
In 2017, a memorial plaque was opened in Albert Akarunov's house in Amirjan settlement of Surakhani district.[8]

Interesting fact:
Albert Agarunovich Agarunov (25 April 1969 – 7 May 1992) was a Starshina of the Azerbaijani Army who died
during the Nagorno-Karabakh War. He was among the last Azerbaijani turks to defend their stronghold at Shusha,
which was occupied by Armenian gangs on May 9, 1992.
 TURKEY
Şerife Bacı
She was born in a village in the Seydiler district of Kastamonu Vilayet. Her birth date is not known for certain.
However, she was sixteen years old when she got married. Two months after her wedding, World War I broke out,
and her husband was recruited. Six months later, she learnt of the death of her husband in the Gallipoli
Campaign (1915–16). The villagers arranged her re-marriage to a wounded war veteran named Topal Yusuf
(literally: Yusuf the Lame), who had lost his left leg and an eye in a bomb explosion at the front. In the third year of
her re-marriage, Şerife Gelin (literally: Bride Şerife) as she was called, gave birth to a daughter named Elif. Şerife
was a helpful person for almost everyone and every work in the village.
In the winter of 1921, the villagers were called to help transport ammunition needed in the Greco-Turkish War. She
was on a trek together with her child and some other women carrying cannonballs on her oxen-
driven tumbrel from İnebolu to Ankara. She was found dead shortly before the Kastamonu Barracks, perished from
cold due to severe winter conditions in December 1921.
In memorial of the 50th anniversary of the foundation of the Republic, the district mayor of Seydiler built 1973 a relief
in her honor. In 1990, a monument by Tankut Öktem depicting Atatürk, Şerife Bacı and the women of Kastamonu in
the War of Independence was placed in the Republic Square of the city. A monument in honor of "Martyr Şerife
Bacı" was erected in the public park on the coast of İnebolu, commissioned by the General Commander of the
Gendarmerie Aytaç Yalman and created by sculptor Metin Yurdanur. Its inauguration took place on December 4,
2001.
Martyr Şerife Bacı is a symbol of the heroic Turkish women in the War of Independence.
Many institutions such as schools and hospitals are named after her in Kastamonu and other cities in Turkey.
In February 2012, twelve of the initially planned forty women from Kastamonu hiked the distance of 105 km (65 mi)
from İnebolu to Kastamonu in three days under winter conditions to commemorate Şerife Bacı's deadly trek 91
years ago.

Interesting fact:
Şerife Bacı (literally: Sister Şerife), aka Şerife Kadın for "Mrs. Şerife", (born 1900 – died December 1921) was
a Turkish folk heroine, who took part in the Turkish War of Independence, and was declared a martyr due to her
death during the war.

Kara Fatma
She was born in Erzurum, in the Erzurum Vilayet of the Ottoman Empire. Her father was Yusuf Ağa. Her husband
died during the Caucasus Campaign in the First World War. In 1919, she travelled to Sivas where a congress was
held by Mustafa Kemal Pasha (later Atatürk). She requested to be enlisted in the army. After Mustafa Kemal
Pasha's approval, she formed a militia group. There were 43 women in addition to 700 men under her command.
She was taken prisoner twice by the Greek Army. According to an interview in the newspaper Tanin, during her
second imprisonment, she was taken to the headquarters of General Nikolaos Trikoupis, where the general spoke to
her. She managed to escape from the prison soon afterwards. She fought at both the İzmit-Bursa and İzmir fronts.
According to the columnist Yılmaz Özdil, her unit was one of the first to enter İzmir during the Liberation of
İzmir from the Greeks on 9 September 1922. Her unit controlled Karşıyaka (north of İzmir bay).
Although female soldiers were unheard of until 1919, Kara Fatma was officially appointed as a soldier, as were
many others (including Halide Edip Adıvar) under Mustafa Kemal Pasha. She began her military career as a
corporal and ended as a first lieutenant. She then retired and donated her pension to the Turkish Red Crescent. She
almost faded away from public memory until 1933, when a journalist found her living in poverty in a former Russian
monastery in Istanbul with her grandchild. In 1944, she published her memoirs. She was given work and honoured
by displaying her medal on military parades in national days.
Kara Fatma died on 2 July 1955 at the Darülaceze a protection house for the poor and old, run by the Municipality of
Istanbul, where she spent the last years of her life.
She was decorated with a Medal of Independence, a medal reserved to those people who majorly contributed to
the Turkish War of Independence.
Interesting fact:
Kara Fatma (full name Fatma Seher Erden; 1888 – 2 July 1955) was a decorated Turkish heroine who
distinguished herself as a militia leader and soldier during the Turkish War of Independence.
 SYRIA
Yusuf al-'Azma
Al-'Azma hailed from a wealthy Damascene landowning family. He became an officer in the Ottoman Army and
fought on multiple fronts in World War I. After the defeated Ottomans withdrew from Damascus, al-‘Azma served
Emir Faisal, the leader of the Arab Revolt, and was appointed minister of war upon the establishment of the Arab
government in Damascus in January 1920. He was tasked with building the nascent Arab Army of Syria. The
country, meanwhile, had been designated as a mandatory territory of France, which did not recognize Faisal's
government. Al-'Azma was among the more vociferous opponents of French rule and as their troops advanced
toward Damascus from Lebanon, he was authorized to confront them. Leading a motley army of civilian volunteers,
ex-Ottoman officers and Bedouin cavalrymen, al-'Azma engaged the French at Maysalun Pass but was killed in
action and his soldiers dispersed, which allowed the French to occupy Damascus on 25 July 1920. Though his army
was defeated, al-'Azma became a national hero in Syria for his insistence on confronting the French despite their
clear military superiority and his ultimate death in the ensuing battle.

Interesting fact:
Yusuf al-'Azma (1883 – 24 July 1920) was the Syrian minister of war in the governments of prime ministers Rida al-
Rikabi and Hashim al-Atassi, and the Arab Army's chief of general staff under King Faisal. He served as minister of
war from January 1920 until his death while commanding Syrian forces against a French invasion during the Battle
of Maysalun.

Ibrahim Hananu
Hananu was born in Kafr Takharim, he was born to a wealthy family of Arabic ancestry and raised in Aleppo. There
is dispute on his birth date: one source mentions he was born in 1879, while another mentions he was born in 1869.
He studied at the Imperial High School in Aleppo, and continued his studies at the Ottoman Law Academy of the
prestigious Mülkiye school in Constantinople. As a student, he joined the Committee of Union and Progress, the
political organ that later took stage following the Young Turk Revolution of 1908.
Upon graduation, Hananu briefly taught at the military academy. Later, he joined the bureaucracy of the Ottoman
Empire, only to retire and manage his estates. One Syrian source from the United Arab Republic era indicates that
having embraced nationalism when the Arab Revolt broke out in 1916, Hananu joined the Arab army of Faysal I and
entered Aleppo with the Allies in 1918. Supposedly, he also joined the secret nationalist society al-Fatat, though
there is no corroborating evidence for this. Along with many of the prominent merchants in Aleppo, Hananu became
associated with the League of National Defense and the Arab Club of Aleppo.
Particularly following his French mandate authority trial in March 1922, the Muslim elite of Aleppo coalesced around
Hananu as a patriotic leader of the Muslim resistance to the French that had occurred with Turkish aid prior to the
Franco-Turkish negotiations of 1921. Breaking out in the autumn of 1919 in the countryside surrounding Aleppo,
when the French army had landed on the Syrian coast and was preparing to occupy all of Syria, Hanano launched
his revolt, bringing Aleppo, Idlib and Antioch into a coordinated campaign against French forces. Hananu was
responsible for the disarmament of many French troops, the destruction of railroads and telegraph lines, the
sabotage of tanks, and the foiling of French attacks on Aleppo. He received aid from the Turkish nationalist
movement of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, which was battling the French army of the Levant for control of Cilicia and
southern Anatolia. With the withdrawal of Turkish military assistance following the signing of the Franklin-Bouillon
Agreement in October 1921, Hananu and his men could no longer sustain a revolt, and their struggle collapsed.
Despite the failure of the revolt, the organization of the northern areas of Syria with Turkish help has been
interpreted as a prototype for self-government that Hananu and other Syrians built upon in later years. Much recent
Syrian historiography considers Hananu's rebellion as but the first of a broader series of coordinated revolts,
including the Great Revolt of 1925, against the French occupation of the emerging nation state of Syria.
For Hananu, the Ottoman State, Islam and modernity were not mutually exclusive; like others of his class and
educational background, as a "New Man," his habitus revolved around the successful unification and continued
harmonization of these key concepts in his public and personal life. Hananu's efforts confirm what was at issue for
him and others like him in the fight against the French: it was about political control and a profound sense of
attachment to place, but also his professional dignity, personal ambition, and a sense of modern self.
Hananu was a smart leader; he called out some people from his village that he trust to make the first fighting group
in the north, and they called it "The National Defense Association". The association has made a major impact, so
Hananu decided to add more people.
Hananu was talented speaker and he encouraged many people to fight with him after his famous speech when he
said " to all brave Syrians, to you who refuse injustice, from the top of the mountain i am telling you that our beloved
country is occupied and threatened by colonist, those who attacked the sanctity of our independence and freedom,
to all heroes let's fight.". After that the number of militant in kafr Takharem reached 50 men, as a slimier movement
to recruit in neighboring villages began to reach the total of 400 militants.
On July 23, 1920, when the French army attacked Aleppo, Hananu forced to retreat back to his village kafr
takharem. As a consequence he began to reorganize the revolution movement with Najeb Awad. The rebels
decided to make civilian government based in Armanaz. Furthermore, the government entrusted to organize the
financial and economic issues for the revolution. Hananu traveled to turkey after making the civilian government in
order to ask for help against the French colonialism.
In 1922 Ibrahim Hananu was arrested and presented to the French military criminal court on charges of criminal
acts, and the first sessions was on 15 March 1922 . One of the best lawyers at that time, Fathallah Saqqal defended
Hananu, advocated for Hananu's innocence, and argued that Hananu was a political opponent not a criminal.
When the head of the military council asked Hananu, "the Syrian people didn't ask you for a revolution, why you are
doing that?" Saadallah al-Jabiri stood up and said "We asked him to fight you, and we will not stop fighting, until you
leave our country".
On 25 March 1922 the French Attorney General requested the execution of Hananu, and he said "if Hananu has
seven heads I will cut them all", but the French judge released Hananu after signing a treaty with him, saying his
revolution legitimate political revolution.
After signing the treaty, Hananu was forced to be under house arrest, and his movements were monitored by the
French intelligence. However, Hananu was able to escape from the control after 1925 revolution. Hananu continued
to play an active role in the Syrian national movement. He was one of the founding fathers of the National Bloc,
which emerged from the Beirut conference of October 1927, and which steered the course of the independence
struggle in Syria until its completion nineteen years later. He was a member of the National Bloc's permanent
council and chief of its political bureau. In 1928, Hananu held office on the Constitutional Assembly that drafted the
first republican constitution for Syria. In the 1930s, he affirmed his reputation as a hard-liner, refusing to negotiate
with the French until they pledged complete unconditional independence for Syria.
The most important results of the revolution was forcing the French to recognize the legitimacy of the revolution as
residuals of the Government of Faysal I, which led them bring the leader to peer negotiation. It came after the
French suffered heavy losses in men, money and arms. The most important result of the revolution, was the
reintegration of the State of Aleppo and Damascus after separating them. The French realized that there is no way
to separate the unity of national cohesion among the inhabitants of these regions.
In September 1933, a person called Nazi Al-Kousa shot Hananu in his village, Kafr Tkharem. However, he shot him
in the legs, as consequences the shooter got arrested in Antioch and sentenced to ten years. Nonetheless, the
French commissioner pardoned him which refer to the French relationship with the assassination attempt.
Hananu died in 1935 in Aleppo. Stressful life and a lot of struggles were the causes of his death, as well as suffering
from Tuberculosis. The mourning began the day after his death for three days, and the newspaper and magazines
published in a black cover for his death. He is considered one of the most celebrated warriors and heroes of the
resistance against the French Mandate. After Hananu's death, his house in Aleppo was used by Syrian nationalists
as a "house of the nation." His nephew, Omar Al Sibai, was one of the communist leaders in Syria.
Interesting fact:
Ibrahim Hananu or Ibrahim Hanano (1869–1935) was an Ottoman municipal official and later a leader of
a revolt against the French presence in northern Syria. He was a Constantinople-educated member of a notable
landholding family of Kurdish origin in northern Syria.
 LEBANON
Youssef Bey Karam
In 1840, Youssef aged 17 years, fought alongside his father and elder brother against the Egyptian armies then
occupying Lebanon in the battles of Houna and Bazoun. Youssef showed remarkable skill as a warrior and leader,
and his reputation and influence in the area steadily grew; so much so that in 1846, when his father died, Youssef
succeeded him as ruler instead of his elder brother. Youssef ruled with fairness, and his credibility and influence as
a soldier and politician continued to grow.
Youssef Karam became the acknowledged leader of the district, and in time one of the most powerful personalities
in Lebanese Politics. And although politically and militarily very powerful, he remained ever loyal to his faith and to
the Church. Karam's loyalty to the Church and to Bkerke, the seat of the Maronite Patriarch, never wavered, and
this loyalty was to have far reaching implications in future years.
In 1858, when Tanyus Shahin and the farmers of the predominantly Maronite Keserwan District staged an uprising
against their Maronite Sheikhs and landlords, the Khazen family, the Maronite Patriarch, conscious of Karam's
influence and his loyalty to the Church, appealed to Karam to save the Sheikhs and restore peace to the area.
Together, they negotiated a settlement to the conflict, but the class division in feudal Kesrawan remained.
Future conflicts however, were not to be so peacefully settled. During that period, when the Ottomans ruled
Lebanon, there existed a certain amount of distrust between the Druze and Maronite Communities.
The Muslim Druze felt threatened by the growing presence of the Christians Maronites in their traditional area
of Mount Lebanon. The suspicion and distrust between the two Communities was allowed to be fueled by petty and
personal conflicts until September 1859 when finally open conflict broke out between the Druze and Maronite
Communities at Beit Mery, a town of different religious denominations. Karam reacted by calling a meeting of
Community leaders at the village of Baan, and concluded an agreement with the Muslim ruler of Tripoli, North
Lebanon, Abed El Hamid Karami, to keep North Lebanon free from any religious conflict.
In May 1860 however, conflict again broke out between the two Communities, and a number of Maronite Monks and
villagers were massacred. This time Karam reacted by raising an army of 500 men to protect the Maronites in the
Mount Lebanon area. On 2 June 1860, Karam and his men marched to Bkerke and offered to the Maronite Patriarch
their protection of Maronites.
In Karam's mind however, there was no doubt that the conflict between the Druze and the Maronites was being
nurtured by Khorshid Pasha, the Ottoman Governor. Khourshid's culpability in the massacres is debated, as he had
previously urged the British to stop arming Druze groups and the French to stop arming the Maronites. Khorshid
Pasha saw Karam's calls for Lebanese self-rule as a threat to Turkish interests in Lebanon and the area, and
convinced the European Ambassadors that Turkish presence in Lebanon was essential to maintain peace between
warring factions in Lebanon. The French Ambassador to Lebanon convinced Karam to halt his march at Bikfaya,
near Keserwan, in return for guarantees of safety for all Christians offered by Khorshid.
Several days later however, Christian villages were attacked by Druzes from Mount Lebanon and the Hawran.
Karam and his men retaliated against Druze and Turkish forces, and succeeded in saving the majority of Christian
towns and villages in the Kisrawan area. Christian presence in the area was therefore established. Eventually,
French ships reached the port of Beirut with supplies and the Turkish sea blockade ended. Peace was then restored
whilst a new constitution was drafted to provide how Lebanon was to be governed. In the interim, two provisional
Governors were appointed to rule Lebanon, one to rule Christians and the other to rule the Muslims. Karam was
appointed the Christian Kaymakamate (Kaymakam) on 17 November 1860 until the 1861 agreement of the
Reglement Organique, which would establish a single governor for the whole mountain. Again, Karam ruled with
distinction, restoring law and order, re-organising public institutions and conducting an honest government. French
occupied Beirut and parts of Mount Lebanon until mid-1861. As Kaymakam, Karam tendered his resignation a
number of times in protest against what the new institutional system devised the Organic Law in 1861 and 1864.
The new statute created a substantial autonomy for Mount Lebanon within the Ottoman Empire. Executive powers
were vested in an Ottoman governor of Catholic religion, nominated by the Sublime Porte and the representatives of
European powers.
Interesting fact:
Youssef Bey Boutros Karam (also Joseph Bey Karam) (May 15, 1823 – April 7, 1889) was a Lebanese Maronite
notable who fought in the 1860 civil war and led a rebellion in 1866-1867 against the Ottoman Empire rule in Mount
Lebanon. His proclamations have been interpreted as an early expression of Lebanese nationalism. Today, Youssef
Bey Karam’s descendants are considered as one of the most noble families in the North Governorate.

ISRAEL
Emmanuel Landau
He was born on November 10, 1928 in Warsaw, Poland. He and his younger sister fled from Poland to the Soviet
Union on the eve of the outbreak of World War II. His father fell ill during his service in the Red Army, and died
before the end of the war. His mother Fania handed him and his sister Elina (later Ilana) to a Christian orphanage,
because she could not support them. A few months later, an emissary from Youth Aliyah arrived at the orphanage to
take the Jewish children. This was the result of an agreement signed in 1942 between the Polish government-in-
exile and the Soviet government, in which 24,000 Polish soldiers and refugees from the Soviet Union were allowed
to transfer to British-controlled Tehran. Emil and Elina were among approximately 1,000 Jewish children who were
taken by train to Tehran. The children, most of whom arrived with no parents, were housed in an orphanage set up
for them.
In 1943, Emmanuel and his sister immigrated to Mandatory Palestine among a group of Jewish children in Tehran.
After spending a short time at the Youth Aliyah camp in Jerusalem, Emil and Elina moved to the kibbutz Ginegar.
During his stay at the Kibbutz, Emmanuel was discovered to be a great talent and a leader. His love for agriculture
led him to study at the Kadouri Agricultural School and upon graduating with honors he joined the Palmach and
went to the training center in Ramat Yohanan.
At the beginning of March 1948 news reached about an Arab convoy loaded with weapons leaving
from Beirut for Haifa, in order to transfer it to Arab militias in the city, which would give the Arabs of Haifa a great
advantage in the battles against the forces of the Yishuv. There were three trucks loaded with two tons of
explosives, 550 rifles, submachine guns, about 120,000 rounds, and 1,000 hand grenades.
The first attempt to stop the convoy was carried out near Nahariya by the 21st Battalion of the Carmeli Brigade and
failed. In the meantime, an additional force of 10 fighters from the First Battalion of the Palmach from the Ramat
Yohanan was organized.
The rapid action did not allow for orderly organization or obtaining permits. The squad commanded by Noam
Pasmanik set up an ambush on the side of the main road north of Kiryat Motzkin. When the caravan arrived, it
encountered a barrel checkpoint on the road. The men of the force stormed the convoy, Abraham Avigdorov took
control of the two Bren machine guns in the convoy. Passmanik threw a grenade at the caravan and an explosive
charge in one of the cars blew up and caused his death. In the explosion, the commander of the Arab force was also
killed. As Landau jumped on one of the two remaining weapons trucks to retrieve the loot and transfer it to the
Palmach, one of the bullets caused the explosives to explode in the truck, and as a result of the explosion,
Emmanuel Landau was killed and Avigdor was seriously injured.
The liquidation of the convoy caused a decline in morale among the Arabs in Haifa and an increase in the flight of
Arab residents of the city, including members of the Arab Higher Committee.
Landau and Avigdorov were awarded the Hero of Israel for their heroism during the battle. IDF's stated reason for
awarding Landau:
On March 17, 1948 , in Kiryat Motzkin, in an attack on an enemy convoy of weapons and ammunition, Private
Emanuel Landau was among the unit members who stormed the enemy cars, and as a driver jumped onto one of
the cars loaded with weapons to remove her from the battlefield He crashed in an explosion that went off and fell.
Emmanuel's younger sister, Ilana (Landau-Karniel), was the last remnant of the family. In his name he received the
"Hero of Israel" medal in a ceremony held on July 17, 1949.

Interesting fact:
Emmanuel (Emil) Landau (1928–1948) was a Palmach fighter who was rewarded with the Hero of Israel. Received
the medal for capturing an enemy supply truck.
Avraham Avigdorov
Avigdorov was born in 1929 in Mitzpa, a moshava near Tiberias in Mandatory Palestine. His father Gad, a member
of HaShomer, was killed in the 1936 Arab Revolt. After finishing his agriculture studies in Mikve Israel, Avraham
joined the Palmach in July 1947 and was assigned to the Yiftach Brigade.
On March 18, 1948, in the 1947–1948 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine, shortly before the establishment
of Israel and the outbreak of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, he was part of an ambush of an Arab weapons convoy in
the Kiryat Motzkin area. Avigdorov killed two Bren machine gunners defending the convoy and damaged their
vehicle, thus turning the tide of the battle in the Palmach's favor. The vehicle he damaged exploded, seriously
injuring Avigdorov. According to Avigdorov, he was placed in the morgue in the Rothschild Hospital in Haifa after
being proclaimed dead by a local doctor. He was taken out after showing signs of life and stayed in a hospital with
burns and a broken jaw until 1949. In that year he was operated on by South American plastic surgeons and
released.
In July 1949 he was awarded the Hero of Israel citation, and in April 1973 he received the Medal of
Valor automatically. Following the Yom Kippur War of 1973, Avigdorov visited bereaved families, as well as
wounded veterans, to show them that one could live with an injury.
Avigdorov married Aliza and they had three children. In civilian life, he worked for the Ministry of Agriculture in
testing pesticides.
Interesting fact:
Avraham Avigdorov (July 2, 1929 – September 4, 2012) was an Israeli soldier and recipient of the Hero of
Israel award (today the Medal of Valor), the highest Israeli military decoration. Avigdorov received the award for
destroying two Bren machine gun positions on March 17, 1948, in the 1947–1948 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine.
 JORDAN
Hussein bin Ali, Sharif of Mecca
He was said to be a 37th-generation direct descendant of Muhammad as he belongs to the Hashemite family.
A member of the Awn clan of the Qatadid emirs of Mecca, he was perceived to have rebellious inclinations and in
1893 was summoned to Constantinople where he was kept on the Council of State. In 1908, in the aftermath of
the Young Turk Revolution, he was appointed Emir of Mecca by Sultan Abdul Hamid II. In 1916, with the promise of
British support for Arab independence, he proclaimed the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire, accusing
the Committee of Union and Progress of violating tenets of Islam and limiting the power of the sultan-caliph. Shortly
after the outbreak of the revolt, Hussein declared himself 'King of the Arab Countries'. However, his pan-Arab
aspirations were not accepted by the Allies, who recognised him only as King of the Hejaz.
After World War I Hussein refused to ratify the Treaty of Versailles, in protest at the Balfour Declaration and the
establishment of British and French mandates in Syria, Iraq, and Palestine. He later refused to sign the Anglo-
Hashemite Treaty and thus deprived himself of British support when his kingdom was invaded by Ibn Saud. In
March 1924, when the Ottoman Caliphate was abolished, Hussein proclaimed himself Caliph of all Muslims. In
October 1924, facing defeat by Ibn Saud, he abdicated and was succeeded as king by his eldest son Ali. His
sons Faisal and Abdullah were made rulers of Iraq and Transjordan respectively in 1921.
Interesting fact:
Hussein ibn Ali al-Hashimi (1853/1854 – 4 June 1931) was a Hashemite Arab leader who was the Sharif and Emir
of Meccafrom 1908 and, after proclaiming the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire, King of the Hejaz from 1916
to 1924. At the end of his reign he also briefly laid claim to the office of Caliph. He was said to be a 37th-generation
direct descendant of Muhammad as he belongs to the Hashemite family.

Abdullah I of Jordan
Born in Mecca, Hejaz, Ottoman Empire, Abdullah was the second of three sons of Hussein bin Ali, Sharif of
Mecca and his first wife Abdiyya bint Abdullah. He was educated in Istanbuland Hejaz. From 1909 to 1914, Abdullah
sat in the Ottoman legislature, as deputy for Mecca, but allied with Britain during World War I. Between 1916 and
1918, he played a key role as architect and planner of the Great Arab Revolt against Ottoman rule that was led by
his father Sharif Hussein. Abdullah personally lead guerrilla raids on garrisons.[3]
Abdullah became emir to the Emirate of Transjordan in April 1921, which he established by his own initiative, and
became king to its successor state, Jordan, after it gained its independence in 1948. Abdullah ruled until 1951 when
he was assassinated in Jerusalem while attending Friday prayers at the entrance of the Al-Aqsa mosque by a
Palestinian who feared that the King was going to make peace with Israel.[4] He was succeeded by his eldest
son Talal.

Interesting fact:
Abdullah I bin Al-Hussein (February 1882 – 20 July 1951) was the ruler of Jordan and its predecessor
state, Transjordan, from 1921 until his assassination in 1951. He was Emir of Transjordan from 21 April 1921 to 25
May 1946 under a British mandate, and was king of an independent nation from 25 May 1946 until his
assassination. According to Abdullah, he was a 38th-generation direct descendant of Muhammad as he belongs to
the Hashemite family.
 IRAN
Mohammad Mosaddegh
An author, administrator, lawyer and prominent parliamentarian, his administration introduced a range of social and
political measures such as social security, land reforms and higher taxes including the introduction of taxation of the
rent on land. His government's most significant policy, however, was the nationalization of the Iranian oil industry,
which had been built by the British on Persian lands since 1913 through the Anglo-Persian Oil
Company (APOC/AIOC) (later British Petroleum and BP).
Many Iranians regard Mosaddegh as the leading champion of secular democracy and resistance to foreign
domination in Iran's modern history. Following an initial, failed coup attempt by the CIA/MI6-backed
General Fazlollah Zahedi, Mosaddegh was successfully deposed four days later on 19 August 1953, with Zahedi
succeeding him as prime minister.
While the coup is at times referred to in the West as Operation Ajax after its CIA cryptonym, in Iran it is referred to
as the 28 Mordad 1332 Coup d'état, after its date on the Iranian calendar Mosaddegh was imprisoned for three
years, then put under house arrest until his death and was buried in his own home so as to prevent a political
furor. In 2013, the U.S. government formally acknowledged the U.S. role in the coup, as a part of its foreign policy
initiatives.
Interesting fact:

Mohammad Mosaddegh (16 June 1882 – 5 March 1967) was the 35th prime minister of Iran, holding office from 1951
until 1953, when his government was overthrown in a coup d'état orchestrated by the United States' Central Intelligence
Agency and the United Kingdom's MI6. Today Mohammad Mosaddegh is considered a national hero of Iran by many for
his efforts in nationalizing the country’s oil industry.

Ferdowsi
Ferdowsi was born into a family of Iranian landowners (dehqans) in 940 in the village of Paj, near the city of Tus, in
the Khorasan region of the Samanid Empire, which is located in the present-day Razavi Khorasan Province of
northeastern Iran.[6] Little is known about Ferdowsi's early life. The poet had a wife, who was probably literate and
came from the same dehqan class. He had a son, who died at the age of 37, and was mourned by the poet in an
elegy which he inserted into the Shahnameh.
Ferdowsi belonged to the class of dehqans. These were landowning Iranian aristocrats who had flourished under
the Sassanid dynasty (the last pre-Islamic dynasty to rule Iran) and whose power, though diminished, had survived
into the Islamic era which followed the Islamic conquests of the 7th century. The dehqans were attached to the pre-
Islamic literary heritage, as their status was associated with it (so much so that dehqan is sometimes used as a
synonym for "Iranian" in the Shahnameh). Thus they saw it as their task to preserve the pre-Islamic cultural
traditions, including tales of legendary kings.
The Islamic conquests of the 7th century brought gradual linguistic and cultural changes to the Iranian Plateau. By
the late 9th century, as the power of the caliphate had weakened, several local dynasties emerged in Greater
Iran.[6]Ferdowsi grew up in Tus, a city under the control of one of these dynasties, the Samanids, who claimed
descent from the Sassanid general Bahram Chobin (whose story Ferdowsi recounts in one of the later sections of
the Shahnameh).[7] The Samanid bureaucracy used the New Persian language, which had been used to bring Islam
to the Eastern regions of the Iranian world and supplanted local languages, and commissioned translations of
Pahlavi (Middle Persian) texts into New Persian. Abu Mansur Muhammad, a dehqan and governor of Tus, had
ordered his minister Abu Mansur Mamari to invite several local scholars to compile a prose Shahnameh ("Book of
Kings"), which was completed in 1010. Although it no longer survives, Ferdowsi used it as one of the sources of his
epic. Samanid rulers were patrons of such important Persian poets as Rudaki and Daqiqi, and Ferdowsi followed in
the footsteps of these writers.
Details about Ferdowsi's education are lacking. Judging by the Shahnameh, there is no evidence he knew either
Arabic or Pahlavi.
It is possible that Ferdowsi wrote some early poems which have not survived. He began work on
the Shahnameh around 977, intending it as a continuation of the work of his fellow poet Daqiqi, who had been
assassinated by a slave. Like Daqiqi, Ferdowsi employed the prose Shahnameh of ʿAbd-al-Razzāq as a source. He
received generous patronage from the Samanid prince Mansur and completed the first version of the Shahnameh in
994.[5] When the Turkic Ghaznavids overthrew the Samanids in the late 990s, Ferdowsi continued to work on the
poem, rewriting sections to praise the Ghaznavid Sultan Mahmud. Mahmud's attitude to Ferdowsi and how well he
rewarded the poet are matters which have long been subject to dispute and have formed the basis of legends about
the poet and his patron (see below). The Turkic Mahmud may have been less interested in tales from Iranian history
than the Samanids. The later sections of the Shahnameh have passages which reveal Ferdowsi's fluctuating
moods: in some he complains about old age, poverty, illness and the death of his son; in others, he appears
happier. Ferdowsi finally completed his epic on 8 March 1010. Virtually nothing is known with any certainty about the
last decade of his life.
Ferdowsi was buried in his own garden, burial in the cemetery of Tus having been forbidden by a local cleric. A
Ghaznavid governor of Khorasan constructed a mausoleum over the grave and it became a revered site. The tomb,
which had fallen into decay, was rebuilt between 1928 and 1934 by the Society for the National Heritage of Iran on
the orders of Rezā Shāh, and has now become the equivalent of a national shrine.
According to legend, Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni offered Ferdowsi a gold piece for every couplet of
the Shahnameh he wrote. The poet agreed to receive the money as a lump sum when he had completed the epic.
He planned to use it to rebuild the dykes in his native Tus. After thirty years of work, Ferdowsi finished his
masterpiece. The sultan prepared to give him 60,000 gold pieces, one for every couplet, as agreed. However, the
courtier whom Mahmud had entrusted with the money despised Ferdowsi, regarding him as a heretic, and he
replaced the gold coins with silver. Ferdowsi was in the bath house when he received the reward. Finding it was
silver and not gold, he gave the money away to the bathkeeper, a refreshment seller, and the slave who had carried
the coins. When the courtier told the sultan about Ferdowsi's behaviour, he was furious and threatened to execute
him. Ferdowsi fled Khorasan, having first written a satire on Mahmud, and spent most of the remainder of his life in
exile. Mahmud eventually learned the truth about the courtier's deception and had him either banished or executed.
By this time, the aged Ferdowsi had returned to Tus. The sultan sent him a new gift of 60,000 gold pieces, but just
as the caravan bearing the money entered the gates of Tus, a funeral procession exited the gates on the opposite
side: the poet had died from a heart attack.

Interesting fact:
Abu ʾl-Qasim Firdowsi Tusi ( 940–1020), or Ferdows was a Persian poet and the author of Shahnameh ("Book of
Kings"), which is the world's longest epic poem created by a single poet, and the national epic of Greater Iran.
Ferdowsi is celebrated as the most influential figure in Persian literature and one of the greatest in the history of
literature.
 SAUDI ARABIA
Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud
Abdullah, like Fahd, was one of the many sons of Ibn Saud, the founder of modern Saudi Arabia. Abdullah held
important political posts throughout most of his adult life. In 1961 he became mayor of Mecca, his first public
office. The following year, he was appointed commander of the Saudi Arabian National Guard, a post he was still
holding when he became king. He also served as deputy defense minister and was named crown prince when Fahd
took the throne in 1982. After King Fahd suffered a serious stroke in 1995, Abdullah became the de facto ruler of
Saudi Arabia until ascending the throne a decade later.
During his reign he maintained close relations with United States and United Kingdom and bought billions of dollars
worth of defense equipment from both states. He also gave women the right to vote for municipal councils and to
compete in the Olympics Furthermore, Abdullah maintained the status quo when there were waves of protest in the
kingdom during the Arab Spring In November 2013, a BBC report claimed that, due to the close relations it had
with Pakistan, Saudi Arabia could obtain nuclear weapons at will from that country.The King also had a longstanding
relationship with Pakistan, and brokered a compromise between ousted Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and
General Pervez Musharraf, whom he had requested to be exiled to Saudi Arabia for a 10-year exile, following his
ouster in the 1999 Pakistani coup d'état.
The King outlived two of his crown princes. Conservative Interior Minister Nayef bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud was named
heir to the throne on the death of Sultan bin Abdulaziz in October 2011, but Nayef himself died in June 2012.
Abdullah then named 76-year-old defense minister, Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, as crown prince. According to
various reports, Abdullah married up to 30 times and had more than 35 children. The king had a personal fortune
estimated at US$18 billion, making him the third wealthiest head of state in the world. He died on 23 January 2015,
at the age of 90, three weeks after being hospitalized for pneumonia, and was succeeded as king by his half-
brother Salman of Saudi Arabia.
Interesting fact:
Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud (1 August 1924 – 23 January 2015) was King of Saudi Arabia and Custodian of
the Two Holy Mosques from 2005 to his death in 2015. He ascended to the throne on 1 August 2005 upon the death
of his half-brother, King Fahd.

Fahd bin Abdulaziz Al Saud

Fahd was appointed Crown Prince when his half-brother Khalid succeeded another half-brother King Faisal, who
was assassinated in 1975. Fahd was viewed as the de facto Prime Minister during King Khalid's reign in part due to
the latter's ill health. Fahd ascended to the throne on the death of King Khalid on 13 June 1982.
King Fahd is credited for having introduced the Basic Law of Saudi Arabia in 1992. He suffered a
debilitating stroke in 1995, after which he was unable to continue performing his full official duties. His half-brother
Abdullah, the country's Crown Prince, served as de facto regent of the kingdom, and succeeded Fahd as monarch
upon his death in August 2005.
Interesting fact:
Fahd bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques (1921 – 1 August 2005) was King of Saudi
Arabiafrom 1982 to 2005. He was one of 45 sons of Saudi founder Ibn Saud and the fourth of his six sons who were
kings (Saud, Faisal, Khalid, Fahd, Abdullah and Salman).