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Qaddafi, Muammar al-

(Encyclopedia)Qaddafi, Muammar al- mooäm-mär´ äl-käd-dä´f [key], 1942–2011, Libyan army officer and dictator. He graduated from the Univ. of Libya in 1963 and became an army officer in 1965. In 1969 he...

Gadhafi, Moammar El-

(Encyclopedia)Gadhafi, Moammar El-: see Qaddafi, Muammar al-.

Idris I

(Encyclopedia)Idris I, 1890–1983, king of Libya (1951–69). A grandson of the founder of the Sanusi Muslim sect, he became leader of the group in 1917. He was acknowledged (1920) by the Italians as emir of Cyren...

Haftar, Khalifa

(Encyclopedia)Haftar, Khalifa, 1943–, Libyan military officer. He participated in the 1969 coup that brought Colonel Muammar al-Qaddafi to power and then held a variety of posts in the military. In the 1980s he w...

Sanusi

(Encyclopedia)Sanusi or Senussiboth: snoo´s [key], Arabic Sanusiyya, a political-religious organization in Libya and Sudan founded in Mecca in 1837 by Muhammad bin Ali al-Sanusi (1791–1859), known as the G...

Maghreb

(Encyclopedia)Maghreb or Magribboth: mä´grb [key] [Arab.,=the West], Arabic term for NW Africa. It is generally applied to all of Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia but actually pertains only to the area of the thre...

Carlos the Jackal

(Encyclopedia)Carlos the Jackal, pseud. of the revolutionary and international terrorist Ilich Ramírez Sánchez, 1949–, b. Caracas, Venezuela. Son of an affluent Marxist lawyer, he joined the Communist party at ...

Tripoli

(Encyclopedia)Tripoli trp´l [key], ancient Oea, Arab. Tarabulus, city (1984 pop. 990,697), capital of Libya and of Tripoli dist., NW Libya, a port on the Mediterranean Sea. It is a commercial, industrial, ad...

Farabi, al-

(Encyclopedia)Farabi, al- äl-färä´b [key], d. 950, Islamic philosopher. He studied in Baghdad and later flourished in Aleppo as a sufi mystic (see Sufism). He died in Damascus. Al-Farabi was the author of an ...