camp for the night after standing at Arafat and
where they gather the pebbles that they will throw
at three pillars in Mina on the way back to Mecca
to conclude the hajj rituals. The plain of Arafat is
today criss-crossed by paved roads and modern
facilities to meet the needs of the more than 2 mil-
lion pilgrims who gather there each year.
Further reading: Laleh Bakhtiar, Encyclopedia of Islamic
Law: A Compendium of the Major Schools (Chicago: ABC
International Group, 1996); F. E. Peters, The Hajj: The
Muslim Pilgrimage to Mecca and the Holy Places (Prince-
ton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1994).
Arafat, Yasir (1929–2004) controversial leader
of the Palestinian nationalist movement from the
1960s and the first president and prime minister of
the Palestinian National Authority
Yasir Arafat was the foremost political leader
of the Palestinian people, an arab population
that identifies its homeland with palestine (the
West Bank, Gaza, and israel). Educated as a civil
engineer, he was a cofounder of the Fatah orga-
nization in 1959 (the core unit of the palestine
liberation organization [PLO]) and served as
chairman of the PLO from 1969 until his death.
In 1994, he became president and prime minister
of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), an
interim government created in anticipation of the
establishment of a legitimate Palestinian nation-
state in the West Bank and Gaza. Though many
Israelis regarded Arafat as a terrorist because of
his involvement in the Palestinian armed struggle
for national self-determination, he was also rec-
ognized internationally as the legitimate leader
of the Palestinian people. He shared the 1994
Nobel Peace Prize with then Israeli prime min-
ister Yitzhak Rabin (1922–95) and Israeli foreign
minister Shimon Peres (b. 1923) for his role in
negotiating the 1993 Palestinian-Israeli interim
peace agreement in Oslo, Norway. He was a con-
troversial figure throughout his career, considered
a hero and freedom fighter by some (especially
Palestinians), a corrupt dictator by others (includ-
ing some Palestinians), and a terrorist (especially
by Israelis and many supporters of Israel in the
United States).
Arafat was one of the most prominent fig-
ures on the Middle Eastern political scene for
nearly 40 years. A certain amount of mystery and
paradox has surrounded his private and pub-
lic life, due partly to the mythology that Arafat
himself advanced. Although he claimed to have
been born in JerUsalem, he was actually born to
Palestinian parents in cairo, egypt, where he
spent much of his early life. His given name was
Muhammad Abd al-Rahman Abd al-Rauf Arafat
al-Qudwa al-Husayni, but he chose the aliases
Yasir (also written as Yasser) and Abu Ammar
in honor of Yasir Abu Ammar, one of the heroic
companions of mUhammad, the Islamic prophet.
A Sunni Muslim, Arafat often quoted the qUran
in his speeches, abstained from pork and alcohol,
and followed an ascetic lifestyle. Although he was
affiliated with the radical mUslim brotherhood
in the 1940s and 1950s, the PLO he headed is a
nonreligious entity that favors the creation of a
secular state where Muslims, Jews, and Christians
alike will have citizenship. The successes that he
achieved in his life were matched by serious rever-
sals and failures that have led to the loss of life
of many Palestinians and Israelis. After the sign-
ing the oslo accords, winning the Nobel Peace
Prize, and returning to Gaza in triumph in 1994,
Arafat’s fortunes declined significantly in the face
of an internal struggle against the militant Islamic
organization hamas and the hard-line tactics of
an Israeli government headed by his long-time
enemy, Ariel Sharon. The United States also chal-
lenged Arafat’s leadership of the PNA, especially
after it launched its global war on terrorism in the
aftermath of the September 11th attacks on the
World Trade Center and the Pentagon in 2001,
with which neither Arafat nor the PLO had any
connection whatsoever. In his last years, Arafat’s
movements were restricted by Israeli armed forces
to his compound in Ramallah on the West Bank.K 58 Arafat, Yasir