Libya: King Idris, b. Sayyid Muhammad Idris bin Muhammad al-Mahdi as-Senussi (1889–1983), the first and...

Idris as-Senussi proclaimed an independent Emirate of Cyrenaica in 1949. He was also invited to become Emir of Tripolitania, another of the three traditional regions that now constitute modern Libya (the third being Fezzan). By accepting he began the process of uniting Libya under a single monarchy, A constitution was enacted in 1949 and adopted in October 1951. A National Congress elected Idris as King of Libya, and as Idris I he proclaimed the independence of the United Kingdom of Libya as a sovereign state on 24 December 1951. On 1 September 1969, while Idris was in Turkey for medical treatment, he was deposed in a coup by a group of Libyan army officers under the leadership of Muammar al-Gaddafi. The monarchy was abolished and a republic proclaimed. Idris died at the Sultan Palace in Dokki, Cairo in 1983, aged 94.