Ahmad Abd al-Ghafur Attar

Ahmad Abd al-Ghafur Attar was a Saudi Arabian writer, journalist and poet, best known for his works about 20th-century Islamic challenges. Born in Mecca, capital city of Hejazi Hashemite Kingdom. He received a basic education and graduated from the Saudi Scientific Institute in 1937, took a scholarship for higher studies in Cairo University, then returned to his country and worked in some government offices before devoting himself to literature and research. Attar wrote many works about Arabic linguistic and Islamic studies, and gained fame as a Muslim apologist, anti-communist and anti-Zionist, he who believed in flexibility of Islamic jurisprudence for modern era. Praised by Abbas Mahmoud al-Aqqad, he was also noted for his defense of Modern Standard Arabic against colloquial or spoken Arabic. In the 1960s, he established the famous Okaz newspaper and then the Kalimat al-Haqq magazine, which lasted only about eight months. He died at the age of 74 in Jeddah.

11 October 1916

Born on the same birth date (11 October 1916): Nanaji Deshmukh

Born on the same birth day (11 October): Arthur Phillip • Brett Salisbury • C. Gordon Fullerton • Claude Lapointe • Dawn French • Elinor Goodman • François Mauriac • Frederick IV of Denmark • George Williams (philanthropist) • Gio Urshela • Jane Krakowski • Jim Prior • Kristian Welhaven • LaVell Edwards • Marcus Bai • Mauricio Victorino • Mike Conley Jr. • Ricochet (wrestler) • Sergio Hellings • Thomas Boswell • Ty Wigginton • Volodymyr Horilyi • Yang Cheng (born 1985)

Born in the same month (October 1916): Boyd Wagner • Chiang Wei-kuo • Emil Gilels • François Mitterrand • George Sidney • George Turner (writer) • James Herriot • Jan Murray • Jean Dausset • José López Rega • Ken Wood (manufacturer) • Leon Day • Lock Martin • Nanaji Deshmukh • Pearl Hackney • Stetson Kennedy • Vitaly Ginzburg