Hassan al-Banna, a schoolteacher in Ismailia, founds the Muslim Brotherhood – to campaign for a society based on the Qu'ran with the sharia as its legal system

Arabs in the Palestinian town of Hebron turn on their Jewish neighbours and murder sixty-seven

Wallace D. Fard founds the Nation of Islam as a black separatist movement in the USA

Sectarian hostilities increase in Kashmir, with the Muslim majority resenting the favours shown by the British to the Sikh and Hindu elite

Elijah Muhammad takes control of the Nation of Islam, or Black Muslims, and leads the movement for more than 40 years

Mohammed Ali Jinnah becomes president of the Muslim League in India

Mohammed Ali Jinnah puts forward the concept of independent Muslim states within India

In granting independence to India, Britain partitions the subcontinent along sectarian lines into Pakistan and the republic of India

Muslims proclaim an independent state in west Kashmir, defying the wishes of the maharaja

The Muslim Brotherhood carries out acts of terrorism against the Egyptian authorities and British troops

Black American Malcolm Little, who has joined the Nation of Islam while in prison, adopts the surname X to symbolize his rejection of his slave name

Nasser escapes an assassination attempt by the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood

Civil war breaks out in Sudan between the Muslim north and the Christian south

Ruhollah Khomeini, a leading ayatollah in Qom, denounces the Shah of Iran and declares a fatwa against his regime

Ayatollah Khomeini is arrested in Qom, and imprisoned for eight months in Tehran, after instigating riots against the Shah

Black activist and convert to Islam Malcolm X is assassinated when giving a speech in the Audubon Ballroom in New York

Demonstrations take place throughout Iran, demanding Islamic rule under the leadership of Ayatollah Khomeini

An Islamic revolution forces the Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, to flee from Iran

Ayatollah Khomeini receives a rapturous welcome on his return to Iran to head the Islamic Revolutionary Committee

Communist measures in Afghanistan provoke a Muslim jihad and the murder of more than 100 Russians in Herat

Supporters of Ayatollah Khomeini seize the US embassy in Tehran, taking hostage 66 US citizens

Muslim terrorists assassinate Anwar el-Sadat, in response to his peace agreement with Israel

Christian militiamen massacre Palestinian refugees in the Sabra and Chatila camps in Lebanon

Hezbollah emerges in Lebanon as an Iranian-sponsored resistance movement against the Israeli occupation of the southern part of the country

Government imposition of Islamic law (sharia) triggers renewed civil war in Sudan between the Muslim north and Christian south