also spelled Rāshid al-Ghannūshī
born с 1941, Tunisia
Tunisian political activist and cofounder of Ḥizb al- Nahdah (Renaissance Party).
After studying philosophy in Damascus and at the Sorbonne in Paris, he returned to Tunisia and joined the Qurʾānic Preservation Society (1970). In 1981 he helped organize the Islamic Tendency Movement, which later became Ḥizb al-Nahḍah; this action resulted in his imprisonment (1981–84, 1987–88). In 1993 Britain granted him political asylum.