Word: asceticism
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A reader may agree wholeheartedly with such statements and still have an uneasy feeling. Greenberg displays little of the sympathy she expended on the mentally ill in I Never Promised You a Rose Garden (1964) and on the deaf in In This Sign (1972). People in these stories are self...
The dour old man of 79 shuffles in his heelless slippers to the rooftop and waves apathetically to crowds that surround his modest home in the holy city of Qum. The hooded eyes that glare out so balefully from beneath his black turban are often turned upward, as if seeking...
Almost to the very end, the conventional wisdom of Western diplomats and journalists was that the Shah would survive; after all, he had come through earlier troubles seemingly strengthened. In 1953 the Shah had actually fled the country. But he was restored to power by a CIA-inspired coup that...
Arogant and pious. Stubborn and vengeful. Humorless and inflexible. Ascetic and power hungry. These are some of the adjectives that experts on Iran use to describe the Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini.
Khomeini's zeal for theocracy has led to the charge that he is seeking to drag Iran back to the Middle Ages. One scholar argues instead that the Ayatullah is something of an innovator in his application of the Shari'a to contemporary situations. Certainly his justification of the students...