“... us,’ he answered, as though the Taliban were doing foreigners a great favour. Mullah Muhammad Hassan Rahmani, the governor of Kandahar and a close associate of Mullah Omar, the Taliban leader, was happy to receive us for two hours as soon as our translator contacted his office. An unhurried and genial figure, he planted ...”

“... Christians met Muslims. The possible dangers of such encounters were made apparent by figures like Hassan Aga, eunuch and treasurer to Hassan Bassa, king of Algier. Aga was better known to the English as Samson Rowlie, a merchant from Great ...”

“... competitive and hire themselves out on a basis of keen but friendly rivalry. My own selection of Hassan, a lad of no more than twelve summers, proved especially fortunate. After judicious study of my game, he proffered advice on my swing which helped correct a lifelong tendency to slice. He also demonstrated resource and ...”

“... ingenue, Georgina Rizk, who brought some bikini glamour to progressive politics by marrying Ali Hassan Salameh, the PLO’s security chief. Throw in the spies and journalists swapping rumours at the St George Hotel bar (Kim Philby had been a regular), and you had a city that was never dull.Younger Lebanese, in that era of ...”

“... slithered on the slick roads, and soft dates, knocked from the palm-trees, made walking dangerous. Hassan, our driver, turned up in a black suit with stripes like railway lines, to mark the end of summer. It clashed badly with his plastic sandals and his brown tie. I looked out of my hotel window and watched the rain with a ...”

“... one admirer wrote, signing himself: ‘Your brother on the other side of the earth, Mohammed Hassan’. ‘Every person that I have come across,’ another follower said, ‘who has already listened to the talk of Imam Anwar, would like to be close to him and ask more questions or learn more about Islam. Is this not a ...”

“... they are doing and why. On 26 January I went to see Abu Marouf, whose full name is Karim Ismail Hassan al-Zubai, the leader of 13,000 al-Sahwa fighters between Fallujah and Abu Ghraib to the west of Baghdad, a strategically important area that has seen the heaviest fighting of the war. I counted 27 checkpoints between ...”

“... years later he shot and severely wounded his uncle Watban.Saddam was, according to his cousin Ali Hassan al-Majid, ‘so cruel you could not imagine’. Given that al-Majid – aka Chemical Ali – was himself a mass murderer, this was saying something. Yet Coll also shows that Saddam was more than just a tyrannical ...”

“... portrait of Napoleon’s white charger Marengo, the mounts in Combat between the Giaour and Hassan – Delacroix’s illustration of Byron’s poem (its first owner was Dumas himself, who bought it in 1827, shortly after it was painted) – are potent symbols of vitality. You understand why young men would be ...”

“... which gave the programme its full support. Drawing on the recollections of former decision-makers, Hassan Abbas offers the most complete account yet of how the programme worked, and what it meant: a source of national pride, and a source of cash. The story begins with Iran in the mid-1980s. In the face of repeated Iraqi ...”

“... such as land ownership and dowries have not been forgiven. While I was in Kabul, my Hazara driver Hassan and I were given a tour of the old city by an elderly shopkeeper called Haj Suleyman. He had never left the place of his birth, and refrained from speaking badly of any regime in case it might come back. Photographs from ...”

“... of innocent suffering. Israeli bombs had murdered girls just like her, he said. A mention of Hassan Nasrallah roused the congregation to chant: ‘Labayka ya Nasrallah!’ (‘We serve you Nasrallah!’) The phrase appears on many car window stickers; the formulation is the same as that used by Shias to pledge their ...”

“... include taking decisions after broad consultation and discussion aimed at finding consensus. Hassan Abbas, a former police officer in north-west Pakistan, also objects to those who see the Pashtuns as ferocious tribesmen with traditions and attitudes at odds with the modern world. In The Taliban Revival, he offers ...”

“... his ambition or cramp his ability to promote his disciples, including the current president, Hassan Rouhani. They belong to the political wing that, while wanting to preserve the revolution and the regime it produced, sees the value of opening Iran up to the outside world – an approach Khamenei fears will be the ...”

“... organisation’ over a period of nearly twenty years. The mastermind behind the fraud was Agha Hassan Abedi. Abedi had what is known inside banks as charisma and outside banks as a nice line in drivel. He ‘inspired’ his staff to work hard by writing them homilies about God and loyalty. ‘It is in the medium of ...”