Colleges (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1981);
Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Islamic Science (London: World
of Islam Festival Publishing Co., 1976); Joseph S. Szyli-
owicz, Education and Modernization in the Middle East
(Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1973).
urf See customary law.
urs See mawlid.
Usama bin Ladin (Osama Binladen,
Usama Binladin, Ussamah Bin Ladin,
Oussama Ben Laden, Ussamah Bin
Ladin) (1957– ) Islamic militant, head of
al-Qaida network that attacked the New York
World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September
11, 2001
Usama bin Muhammad bin Awad bin Ladin became
involved in the Afghan Jihad after the Soviet Union
(USSR) invaded aFghanistan in 1979. In 1988,
with a group of other jihadists, he founded the
al-qaida network to train soldiers for an ongoing
jihad after the end of the fighting in Afghanistan.
It is believed that bin Ladin has funded or master-
minded a number of terrorist attacks around the
world, including the September 11, 2001, attacks
on the World Trade Building in New York and the
Pentagon in Washington, D.C.
Bin Ladin was born in Riyadh, saUdi arabia,
one of 54 children of Muhammad Awad bin Ladin
(1906–1967), a businessman who had made a
fortune in the construction business. Muhammad
had come to Saudi Arabia in the 1920s as a poor
immigrant from yemen and was hired as a laborer
by the Arabian American Oil Company (Aramco,
now known as Saudi Aramco) in the 1930s, rising
to become an independent contractor for Aramco
and eventually developing close ties to the Saudi
royal family. His construction company, known
as the Muhammad Bin Ladin Organization (now
known as the Saudi Binladin Group), was respon-
sible for building many of the kingdom’s first
roads and renovating the holy sites in mecca and
medina. Usama’s mother, Alia, came from a Syrian
family that may have belonged to that country’s
alaWi community. Usama’s parents divorced when
Usama was four or five years old and his mother
then married Muhammad al-Attas; the couple had
four children, raising Usama in Jeddah with his
stepbrothers and stepsister. He frequently joined in
family gatherings with half-siblings on his father’s
side of the family, and was included in the list of
heirs to the Bin Ladin family fortune. Among his
favorite pastimes was raising and riding horses.
Usama attended Al-Thaghr Model School, an
elite secondary school in Jeddah, and is remem-
bered by his teachers as having been an averageUsama bin Ladin, leader of al-Qaida (AP Photos)Usama bin Ladin 697 J