the 500 most influential muslims - The Royal Islamic Strategic ...

POLITICAL
MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA
ALGERIA
bouteflika, his excellency president abdelaziz
Bouteflika is the incumbent president of Algeria, and a long-term politician in Algeria. He has been
president for close to a decade, since he won elections in 1999. During his ten years of presidency
he has succeeded in ending a civil war that ran throughout the nineties, that was one of the bloodiest
civil unrests in the Muslim world. Peace was reached through a process of reconciliation and
amnesty that was strongly supported by the Islamist and Nationalist belligerents.
haddam, anwar n
Haddam is the president and co-founder of the Movement for Liberty and Social Justice (MLJS).
He was elected to the Algerian parliament under the Islamic Front for Salvation in 1991. A leading
activist, he is an initiator and signatory of the National Contract for a Peaceful and Political Solution
to the Algerian Crisis.
EGYPT
mubarak, his excellency president muhammad hosni
Muhammad Hosni Mubarak is the fourth and current President of the Arab Republic of Egypt.
Trained as a fighter pilot in the 1960s and 1970s, he was appointed by then-president Sadat as vice
president in 1975, becoming the vice chairman of the National Democratic Party (NDP) in 1978.
He has effective control over all aspects of Egyptian government. Egypt is one of the cultural hubs of
the Islamic world, and is host to a number of historically significant institutions, not least of which
is Al Azhar University—the second oldest university in the world, founded in 975 CE—making
Egypt a notable soft power player in the Muslim world. The choice of Cairo for Obama’s speech to
the Muslim world was not accidental.
el zayat, muntasir
Muntasir el Zayat is the secretary general of the Egyptian Bar Association and currently the lawyer
of the exiled Egyptian cleric Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr. He is said to have also been the lawyer
for the Al Qaeda leader Ayman al Zawahiri.
IRAN
ahmadinejad, his excellency president mahmoud
Ahmadinejad is president of Iran and a former University of Science and Industry lecturer in Iran.
He supported the Iranian Islamic Revolution and was a founder of the students’ union that occupied
the US Embassy. He served as governor of Arbadil province and mayor of Tehran. Becoming president
he has enfranchised the politics of the nation’s large conservative, working class population,
which makes him incredibly influential. Doing so, he also marginalized Iran’s rising middle class,
a fact that curtails his actual influence on Iranian society.
jalili, saaed
Jalili is secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council and the chief Iranian nuclear negotiator.
The nuclear issue is central to both Iranian domestic politics—nuclear technology has become
somewhat of a goal for Iran—and international geopolitics, as many countries, particularly Israel
and the US, are wary of further nuclear proliferation. He was brought in after former negotiator Ali
Larajani resigned. His role is pivotal in the future security of the Islamic Republic and the success
of the peaceful use of nuclear power in Iran.
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