1944

Abbas Attar
Abbas Attar (Persian: عباس‬‎; full name: عباس عطار‬ ʿAbbās ʿAṭṭār; b. March 29,1944, Khash, Sistan and Baluchestan Province, Iran – d. April 25, 2018, Paris, France), better known by his mononym Abbas, was an Iranian photographer known for his photojournalism in Biafra, Vietnam and South Africa in the 1970s, and for his extensive essays on religions in later years. He was a member of Sipa Press from 1971 to 1973, a member of Gamma from 1974 to 1980, and joined Magnum Photos in 1981.

Attar, an Iranian transplanted to Paris, dedicated his photographic work to the political and social coverage of the developing southern nations. Beginning around 1970, his major works were published in world magazines and included wars and revolutions in Biafra, Bangladesh, Ulster, Vietnam, the Middle East, Chile, Cuba, and South Africa with an essay on apartheid.

From 1978 to 1980, Abbas photographed the revolution in Iran, and returned in 1997 after a 17 year voluntary exile. His book iranDiary 1971-2002 (2002) is a critical interpretation of its history, photographed and written as a personal diary.

From 1983 to 1986, Abbas travelled throughout Mexico, photographing the country as if he were writing a novel. An exhibition and a book, Return to Mexico, journeys beyond the mask (1992), which includes his travel diaries, helped him define his aesthetics in photography.

From 1987 to 1994, Abbas photographed the resurgence of Islam from Xinjiang to Morocco. His book and exhibition Allah O Akbar, a journey through militant Islam (1994) exposes the internal tensions within Muslim societies, torn between a mythical past and a desire for modernization and democracy. The book drew additional attention after the September 11 attacks in 2001.

When the year 2000 became a landmark in the universal calendar, Christianity was the symbol of the strength of Western civilization. Faces of Christianity, a photographic journey (2000) and a touring exhibit, explored this religion as a political, a ritual and a spiritual phenomenon.

From 2000 to 2002 Abbas worked on Animism. In our world defined by science and technology, the work looked at why irrational rituals make a strong come-back. He abandoned this project on the first anniversary of the September 11 attacks.

Abbas' book, In Whose Name? The Islamic World after 9/11 (2009), is a seven year quest within 16 countries.  As set forth in this book, opposed by governments who hunt them mercilessly, the jihadists lose many battles, but they may be winning the war to control the mind of the people, with the "creeping islamisation" of all Muslim societies.

From 2008 to 2010 Abbas travelled the world of Buddhism, photographing with the same sceptical eye for his book Les Enfants du lotus, voyage chez les bouddhistes(2011). In 2011, he began a similar long-term project on Hinduism which he concluded in 2013.

Before his death, Abbas was working on documenting Judaism around the world.

He died in Paris on April 25, 2018.

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Afshar, Haleh

Haleh Afshar (‎b. May 21, 1944, Tehran, Pahlavi Iran – d. May 12, 2022, Heslington, England) was a British life peer in the House of Lords. 

Haleh Afshar was born as the eldest of the four children born to Hassan Afshar and Pouran Khabir on May 21, 1944 in Tehran.  Afshar was a professor of politics and women's studies at the University of York,  England, and a visiting professor of Islamic law at the Faculté internationale de droit comparé (international faculty of comparative law) at Robert Schuman University in Strasbourg, France. Afshar served on several bodies, notably the British Council and the United Nations Association, of which she was honorary president of international services. She was appointed to the board of the Women's National Commission  in September 2008. She served as the chair for the British Society for Middle Eastern Studies.  Afshar was a founding member of the Muslim Women's Network. She served on the Home Office's working groups, on "engaging with women" and "preventing extremism together".

Afshar was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the 2005 Birthday Honours for services to equal opportunities.  On October 18, 2007, it was announced that she would be made a baroness and join the House of Lords as a cross-bench life peer.  She was formally introduced into the House of Lords on December 11, 2007, as Baroness Afshar, of Heslington in the County of North Yorkshire.

In March 2009, Afshar was named as one of the twenty most successful Muslim women in the United Kingdom on the Muslim Women Power List 2009. The list was a collaboration between the Equality and Human Rights Commission, Emel Magazine, and The Times, to celebrate the achievements of Muslim women in the United Kingdom. 

In April 2009, she was appointed an academician of the Academy of Social Sciences. 

Afshar died from kidney failure at her home in Heslington on May 12, 2022 at the age of 77.

In 2011, Afshar received an honorary doctorate from the University of Essex.  

In January 2013, Afshar was nominated for the Services to Education award at the British Muslim Awards. 

In 2017, Afshar received an honorary doctorate from the University of Bradford.  

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Chalabi, Ahmed

Ahmed Abdel Hadi Chalabi (Arabic: أحمد عبد الهادي الجلبي‎‎; October 30, 1944 –  November 3, 2015) was an Iraqi politician.

He was interim Minister of Oil in Iraq in April–May 2005 and December 2005 – January 2006 and Deputy Prime Minister from May 2005 to May 2006. Chalabi failed to win a seat in parliament in the December 2005 elections, and when the new Iraqi cabinet was announced in May 2006, he was not given a post. Once dubbed the "George Washington of Iraq" by American supporters, he later fell out of favor and came under investigation by several United States government sources. He was also the subject of a 2008 biography by investigative journalist Aram Roston: The Man Who Pushed America to War: The Extraordinary Life, Adventures, And Obsessions of Ahmad Chalabi and a 2011 biography by 60 Minutes producer Richard Bonin, Arrows of the Night: Ahmad Chalabi's Long Journey to Triumph in Iraq.

Chalabi was a controversial figure, especially in the United States, for many reasons. In the lead-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the Iraqi National Congress (INC), with the assistance of lobbying powerhouse BKSH & Associates, provided a major portion of the information on which United States Intelligence based its condemnation of the Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, including reports of weapons of mass destruction and alleged ties to al-Qaeda. Most, if not all, of this information has turned out to be false and Chalabi has been called a fabricator. That, combined with the fact that Chalabi subsequently boasted, in an interview with the British Sunday Telegraph, about the impact that their alleged falsifications had on American policy, led to a falling out between him and the United States government. Furthermore, Chalabi was found guilty in the Petra banking scandal in Jordan. In January 2012, a French intelligence official stated that they believed Chalabi to be an Iranian agent.

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Farocki, Harun

Harun Farocki (January 9, 1944 – July 30, 2014) was a German filmmaker.

Farocki was born as Harun El Usman Faroqhi in Neutitschein, Sudetenland.  His father, Abdul Qudus Faroqhi, had immigrated to Germany from India in the 1920s; his German mother had been evacuated from Berlin due to the Allied bombing of Germany.  Farockii simplified the spelling of his surname as a young man. After World War II, Farocki grew up in India and Indonesia before resettling in West Germany.

Farocki, who was deeply influenced by Bertolt Brecht and Jean-Luc Godard,  studied at the German Film and Television Academy in West Berlin. He began making films — from the very beginning, they were non-narrative essays on the politics of imagery — in the mid-1960s.

From 1993 to 1999, Farocki taught at the University of California, Berkeley.  He later was a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. 

Farocki made over 90 films, the vast majority of them short experimental documentaries.  Farocki attended the Deutsche Film-und Fernsehakademie Berlin from 1966 to 1968.

Farocki's work was included in the 2004-05 Carnegie International at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. 

The filmography of Harun Farocki includes the following:

(D = Director, E = Editor, S = Screenplay, P = Production)

• 1969: Die Worte des Vorsitzenden (The Words of The Chairman)
• 1969: Nicht löschbares Feuer  (Inextinguishable Fire) (D)
• 1970: Die Teilung aller Tage (The Division of All Days) (D, E, S)
• 1971: Eine Sache, die sich versteht (D, S, P)
• 1975: Auf Biegen oder Brechen (S)
• 1978: Zwischen zwei Kriegen (Between Two Wars) (D, E, S, P)
• 1981: Etwas wird sichtbar (Before Your Eyes Vietnam) (D, S, P)
• 1983: Ein Bild (An Image)
• 1983: Jean-Marie Straub and Daniele Huillet at work on Franz Kafka's "Amerika"
• 1985: Betrogen (Betrayed) (D, S)
• 1986: Wie man sieht (As You See) (D, S, P)
• 1987: Bilderkrieg (D)
• 1987: Die Schulung
• 1989: Bilder der Welt und Inschrift des Krieges (Images of the World and the Inscription of War) (D, S, P)
• 1990: Leben: BRD (How to live in the Federal Republic of Germany) (D, S, P)
• 1991: Videogramme einer Revolution (Videograms of a Revolution) (D, S, P)
• 1993: Was ist los? (What's up?) (D, S)
• 1994: Die Umschulung
• 1995: Arbeiter verlassen die Fabrik (Workers Leaving the Factory)
• 1995: Schnittstelle
• 1996: Die Bewerbung (The Interview) (TV) (D, S)
• 1996: Der Auftritt (The Appearance)
• 1997: Stilleben (Still Life) (D, S)
• 1997: Nach dem Spiel (P)
• 1998: Worte und Spiele
• 2000: Die innere Sicherheit
• 2000: Gefängnisbilder (Prison Images) (D, S)
• 2001: Auge/Maschine
• 2001: Die Schöpfer der Einkaufswelten (The Creators of the Shopping Worlds) (D, S)
• 2003: Erkennen und Verfolgen (D, S, P)
• 2004: Nicht ohne Risiko (D, S, P)
• 2005: Die Hochzeitsfabrik (P)
• 2005: Ghosts (S)
• 2006: Am Rand der Städte (P)
• 2007: Aufschub
• 2007: Respite - first episode of Memories (Jeonju Digital Project 2007)
• 2009: Zum Vergleich (D, S)
• 2009/2010: Serious Games I-IV, Video series
• 2012 Barbara (S)
• 2014: Phoenix (S)

Farocki's first wife, Ursula Lefkes, whom he married in 1966, died in 1996.  His survivors included his second wife, Antje Ehmann, whom he married in 2001; his twin daughters from his first marriage, Annabel Lee and Larissa Lu; and eight grandchildren. 

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ʿAbbas II, also called ʿAbbas Ḥilmi II (b. July 14, 1874, Alexandria, Egypt - d. December 20, 1944, Geneva, Switzerland), was the last khedive (viceroy) of Egypt, from January 8, 1892 to December 19, 1914, when British hegemony was established. His opposition to British power in Egypt made him prominent in the nationalist movement.

ʿAbbas became khedive following the sudden death of his father, Tawfiq Pasha, in 1892, while ʿAbbas was enrolled at the Theresianum in Vienna. At the beginning of his reign, ʿAbbas attempted to rule independently of Lord Cromer, the British agent and consul general in Egypt (1883–1907). Encouraged by popular discontent with the increasing British influence over Egypt and by the enthusiastic support of the nationalists, ʿAbbas appointed a prime minister who was well-known for his opposition to the British. When, in 1894, he criticized the military efficiency of the British troops, Lord Cromer took steps to curb the khedive’s independence of action.

After 1894, although ʿAbbas no longer headed the nationalist movement, he provided financial assistance to the pan-Islamic and anti-British daily newspaper Al-Muʿayyad (“The Supporter”). However, when, in 1906, the nationalists demanded constitutional government for Egypt, ʿAbbas, by then reconciled with the British, rejected their demands. The following year, he agreed to the formation of the National Party, headed by Mustafa Kamil, to counter the Ummah Party of the moderate nationalists, which was supported by the British. With the appointment of Lord Kitchener as consul general (1912–14), the leaders of the National Party were exiled or imprisoned, and ʿAbbas’ authority was curtailed.

At the beginning of World War I, ʿAbbas issued an appeal to the Egyptians and the Sudanese to support the Central Powers and to fight the British. On December 18, 1914, Britain declared Egypt its protectorate and deposed ʿAbbas the following day. His uncle Ḥusayn Kamil (reigned 1914–17) replaced him and assumed the title of sultan. In 1922, when Egypt was declared independent, ʿAbbas lost all rights to the throne. He passed the rest of his life in exile, mainly in Switzerland.

Alternative names include:

'Abbas II
'Abbas II of Egypt
'Abbas Hilmi II
'Abbas Hilmi II Bey
'Abbas Hilmi II Pasha
Hilmi, 'Abbas II