Word: ayatullah
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...businessmen who had held no official positions in the Shah's regime. At the same time, the conflict between the ruling Islamic conservatives and the angry left grew wider, as government and religious leaders blamed the Communists for the assassination on May 1 of Morteza Motahari, a prominent Ayatullah and a member of the Revolutionary Council...
...conviction of Elghanian caused concern among some Jewish businessmen in Iran, who feared that they too could be charged with contributing money to Israel. But most Jews did not believe that their community, which now numbers about 65,000, was being targeted for abuse. Muslim leaders, including Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini, have repeatedly stressed that the rights of religious minorities would be protected. "We are uneasy," conceded a Jewish intellectual in Tehran, "but there is no room for panic." And a Jewish university student noted that former Premier Amir Abbas Hoveida, who was executed last month, was also accused of espionage...
...briefly under the revolutionary government, had been shot down outside his home by three unknown attackers. But Motahari's killing was especially ominous, since he was a member of the Revolutionary Council, a group of clergymen and other figures who report to the revolution's spiritual leader, Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini, and the provisional government of Prime Minister Bazargan. The names of the members of the Revolutionary Council have never been revealed for fear of endangering their lives...
Next day an obscure group called Forghan sent a letter to a Tehran newspaper saying it had killed the Ayatullah. Government officials later confirmed that Motahari had been a council member. Although little was known about Forghan, a Persian word that is both a synonym for the Koran and a term for something that separates right from wrong, the group purports to oppose the growing power of the Islamic clergy. Post-assassination leaflets distributed by the group deplored the rise of "akhoundism," a term meaning government by the mullahs...
...known variously as "the Ayatullah," "St. Jane" and "Attila the Nun," a reference to the six months she once spent in a Berkeley, Calif., convent. As those sour nicknames show, the rise of Jane Cahill Pfeiffer, 46, chairman of NBC, has produced a predictable mix of envy, admiration, fear and resentment, laced with a dollop of old-fashioned male chauvinism...