Encyclopedia of Islam

Further reading: Ralph Russell, Ghalib: The Poet and 

His Age (London: Allen & Unwin, 1972); ———, The 

Oxford India Ghalib: Life, Letters, and Ghazals (New 

Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2003).

Ghannoushi, Rashid al-

 

(1941–  )  leading 

Tunisian activist and founder of the Islamic Tendency 

Movement, now known as the Renaissance Party 

(Hizb al-Nahda)

Rashid al-Ghannoushi advocates a modernist 

interpretation of Islam and the use of nonviolent 

means toward establishing Islamic rule. He is 

also the leading political opposition figure to the 

Tunisian government. Born in 1941 in the village 

of al-Hama in southeastern t

Unisia

, al-Ghan-

noushi was the youngest of eight children. His 

father informally taught the q

Uran

 and sent his 

son to the prestigious Zaytuna University, where 

he received a traditional religious education. 

Later, at the University of d

amascUs

, he earned 

a master’s degree in philosophy and began his 

involvement in politics, briefly joining a secular 

nationalist party. However, any enchantment he 

may have had with these ideas dissipated with the 

Arab defeat by Israel in 1967 and the unfolding 

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