Muhammad, Elijah orig. Elijah Poole (b. Oct. 7, 1897, Sanders- ville, Ga., U.S.—d. Feb. 25, 1975, Chicago, Ill.) U.S. black separatist and leader of the Nation of Islam. The son of sharecroppers and former slaves, he moved to Detroit in 1923. He joined the Nation of Islam and established its second temple, in Chicago; on the disappearance of its founder, Wallace D. Fard, in 1934, he became head of the movement. He was jailed for advo¬ cating draft evasion during World War II, but he continued to build mem¬ bership of the Black Muslims in the postwar era. His relentless call for a separate nation for African Americans, whom he declared to be Allah’s
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Muhammad ► mule deer I 1307
chosen people, prompted his most famous disciple, Malcolm X, to break with the group in 1964. He moderated his views in his later years.
Muhammad 'Abd al-Ra’uf al-Qudwah al-Husaynl See Yasir 'Arafat
Muhammad 'All (b. 1769, Kavala, Macedonia, Ottoman Empire—d. Aug. 2, 1849, Alexandria, Egypt) Viceroy of Egypt (1805-48) for the Ottoman Empire and founder of the dynasty that ruled Egypt until 1953. He reorganized Egyptian society in the aftermath of the Napoleonic occu¬ pation, eliminating the remnants of the Mamluks (see MamlOk dynasty), restricting native merchants and artisans, and stamping out peasant rebel¬ lions. He nationalized most land, introduced the cultivation of cash crops, and attempted to develop modern industry, but his efforts were under¬ mined by a lack of trained workers, the deleterious effects of excessive taxation, and a common disaffection with peasant conscription. He suc¬ ceeded in securing for his family the hereditary right to rule Egypt and The Sudan (1841), which opened the way to eventual independence from Ottoman domination. See also ‘Abbas I.
Muhammad ibn 'Abd al-Karlm al-Khattabl See Abd el-Krim
Muhammad ibn Tughluq Xmu-'ha-mad-.i-bon-.tog-'bkV (b. c. 1290, Delhi, India—d. March 20, 1351, Sonda) Second sultan (r. 1325-51) of the Tughluq dynasty, who briefly extended the rule of the Delhi sultanate of northern India over most of die subcontinent. He transferred the capi¬ tal from Delhi to Deogir (now Daulatabad) in an attempt to consolidate his hold on southern India; the resultant migration of northerners to the south spread the Urdu language there. He tried to enlist the services of the c ulamd ’ (Muslim clerics) but was rebuffed; his overtures to the Sufis met a similar fate. His agricultural innovations included crop rotation and state farms as well as improvements in irrigation. Though he desired to create a more equitable social order, his harshness undermined his author¬ ity: during his reign he contended with 22 rebellions.
MuhasibI \mu- l ha-se-'be, mu- l ka-se-'be\, al- (b. c. 781, Al-Basrah—d. 857, Baghdad) Sufi theologian. He was reared in Baghdad in a prosper¬ ous family. He evolved a rationalist theology, advancing his ideas in didactic conversations with his pupils and in books written in the form of dialogues. His principal work minimized asceticism and acts of out¬ ward piety in favour of inward self-examination. Near the end of his life, he was persecuted as a heretic, but he was later seen as having anticipated the doctrines of Muslim orthodoxy.
Muhlenberg family Vmui-tan-.berkA English \ , myu-bn- l borg\ Dis¬ tinguished U.S. family associated with the state of Pennsylvania and the Lutheran church. Henry Melchior Muhlenberg (1711-87) emigrated to Pennsylvania from Germany and served as overseer of all the Lutheran churches from New York to Maryland; in 1748 he founded the first Luth¬ eran synod in America. His eldest son, John Peter Gabriel (1746-1807), was a Lutheran minister, a brigadier general in the Continental Army, and a member of Congress. Frederick Augustus Conrad (1750-1801), the sec¬ ond son, was a Lutheran minister who served in the Continental Congress and later became the first Speaker of the House of Representatives. Wil¬ liam Augustus (1796-1877), grandson of Frederick Augustus Conrad, became an Episcopal priest and was the founder of St. Paul’s College on Long Island and St. Luke’s Hospital in New York City. Frederick Augus¬ tus Muhlenberg (1818-1901), nephew of the earlier Frederick Augustus, was a Lutheran clergyman and educator who served as the first president of Muhlenberg College in Allentown.
Muir VmyurV John (b. April 21,
1838, Dunbar, East Lothian,
Scot.—d. Dec. 24, 1914, Los Ange¬ les, Calif., U.S.) U.S. naturalist and conservationist. Muir emigrated from Scotland with his family to Wisconsin in 1849. An 1867 accident caused him to abandon an industrial career and devote himself to nature.
He began his efforts to establish a federal forest conservation policy in
His writings swung public opinion in favour of Pres. Grover Cleve¬ land’s proposal for national forest reservations and influenced Pres. The¬ odore Roosevelt’s conservation program, and he was largely responsible for establishing Sequoia and Yosemite national parks (1890). He was the chief founder and first president of the Sierra Club (1892-1914). In 1908 the U.S. government established the Muir Woods National Monument in Marin Co., California.
Muir Woods National Monument National woodland, northern California, U.S. A virgin stand of coastal redwoods, it covers an area of 554 acres (224 hectares) near the Pacific coast, northwest of San Fran¬ cisco. Some of the trees are more than 300 ft (90 m) high, 15 ft (5 m) in diameter, and 2,000 years old. The park, established in 1908, was named in honour of the naturalist John Muir.
Muisca See Chibcha
mujahideen \mu-ja-hi-'den\ Arabic mujahidun ("those engaged in jihad") In its broadest sense, those Muslims who pro¬ claim themselves warriors for the faith. Its Arabic singular, mujahid, was not an uncommon personal name from the early Islamic period onward. However, the term did not gain popular currency as a collective or plural noun referring to “holy warriors” until the 18th century in India, where it became associated with Muslim revivalism. In the 20th century the term was used most commonly in Iran and Afghanistan. In Iran the Mojahedin-e Khalq (“Mujahideen of the People”), a group combining Islamic and Marxist ideologies, engaged in a long-term guerrilla war against the leadership of the Islamic republic. The name was most closely associated, however, with members of a number of guerrilla groups oper¬ ating in Afghanistan that opposed invading Soviet forces and eventually toppled the Afghan communist government during the Afghan War (1979-92). Rival factions thereafter fell out among themselves precipi¬ tating the rise of one faction, the Taliban. Like the term jihad —to which it is lexicographically connected—the name has been used rather freely, both in the press and by Islamic militants themselves, and often has been used to refer to any Muslim groups engaged in hostilities with non- Muslims or even with secularized Muslim regimes.
Mukden See Shenyang
Mukden Incident Vmuk-dsnX (1931) Seizure of the Manchurian city of Mukden (now Shenyang, China). Responding to Russian pressure from the north and to the increasingly successful unification of China by Chiang Kai-shek, the Japanese garrison in Manchuria used the pretext of an explo¬ sion along its railway to occupy Mukden. With reinforcements from the Japanese colony of Korea, its army had occupied all of Manchuria within three months. The Chinese withdrew and allowed the Japanese to estab¬ lish the state of Manchuguo.
mulberry family Family Moraceae, composed of about 1,000 species of deciduous or evergreen trees in about 40 genera, found mostly in tropi¬ cal and subtropical regions. Plants of the family contain a milky latex and produce multiple fused fruits. Edible fruits grow on the common mul¬ berry (genus Morns), fig (in the largest genus. Ficus), and breadfruit. Silk¬ worms (see silkworm moth) feed almost exclusively on the leaves of the white mulberry (M. alba). Among the ornamentals in the family are the paper mulberry and the Osage orange ( Maclura pomifera). Other species include the India rubber tree, which is often placed in office lobbies, and the wide-spreading banyan tree.