Word: allah
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...Jews seem to have retreated from the idea of sacred conquest to an ethic of self-defense, early Islam moved the other way. When his group was still small in the early years at Medina, Mohammed preached a doctrine of self-defense. "Fight against those who fight against you," Allah warns in the Koran's second sura. "But begin not hostilities. Allah loves not aggressors...
Holy War. The very word jihad is ambiguous. In some parts of the Koran, it means any "struggle" or "striving" in the cause of Allah-such as leading a righteous life. But in other sections of the holy book, revealed to the Prophet after he and his followers had begun the successful conquest of their Arab neighbors, jihad takes on a military tone. Small wonder: Mohammed is said to have led 26 or 27 battles...
...with Moslems scattered among many, often rivalrous nation-states and among a number of sects, such monolithic holy war is impossible. Some Moslem scholars insist that the obligation to wage it, once one of Islam's most sacred tasks, has also passed, and that "striving" for Allah these days should be through persuasion alone...
...toyed with the idea of calling it Tote the Weary Load. Her heroine at one time was named Pansy O'Hara. Vivien Leigh got the part in the movie only after David O. Selznick had already burned down the massive sets from King Kong and The Garden of Allah to effect the destruction of Atlanta. Selznick's brother Myron, slightly drunk, pulled up to the glowing ruins and triumphantly presented the young English actress: "I want you to meet your Scarlett O'Hara." Leigh remembered that when she got into Scarlett's costume for the test...
...lived during the '20s and '30s by translating and scholarship. Stalin's purges, which saw the jailing of her own 20-year-old son, sent her into a new creative cycle. The poems of this period scarcely disguised her bitterness. Shah of the Shahs,/ blessed in Allah's eyes,/ how well did you feast?/ You hold the world in your hand/ as if it were a cold bright bead . . ./ But what about my boy,/ did you enjoy his taste? Although the poem was titled "Imitation from the Armenian," there is little doubt who the "Shah...