Word: amirate
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...hard to think of an epic more dazzlingly splendid, and strangely forgotten, than The Adventures of Amir Hamza. Although it is some 10 centuries old, the work's first major English translation was published only at the end of last month, finally bringing to the world the legend of the reputed uncle of the Prophet Muhammad. A radiant warrior who saved kingdoms, wooed princesses and journeyed to fantastical realms, Amir Hamza was cherished in the courts of India's Mughal emperors and celebrated in places as far flung as present-day Georgia and Malaysia. But of late, his memory...
...Musharraf Farooqi, the 39-year-old translator, is an unlikely savior. Growing up in Pakistan, he read of Amir Hamza's exploits in abridged Urdu versions adapted for children - virtually the sole form in which the epic survived into the 20th century. Farooqi, who admits to not being the most diligent student, would drift into daydreams inspired by the stories in class, imagining, he says, that he was a demon "running around with a tree trunk and clobbering humans with it." In university, he frequently shirked his prescribed engineering curriculum for a pile of dog-eared folk tales scrounged from...
...known as the dastan, which includes popular stories generated, modified and passed down by village elders and royal poets alike. Dastan fables were subject to endless revision, shimmering and shifting depending on who was telling them and who was listening. When a few unnamed storytellers recited their dastan of Amir Hamza to an Indian publisher in 1883, the transcription yielded 46 volumes, each some 1,500 pages in length...
...black-suited lawyers, united by a demand for rule of law, have lead a national campaign for the restoration of democracy that has proved far stronger than any opposition party. "The political parties have fractured over mud-slinging and power games," says 22-year-old university student Alia Amir Ali, outside the Supreme Court. "The only people left with any credibility are the lawyers. They are the only ones taking a stand, and they will win in the end." The court decision was a setback, she says, but she has not lost hope...
...made a pre-game pact to split the profits from the sale of the ball, 51%-49%, with your friend Amir Kamal, who attended the game with you. Are you really going to stick with that...