Word: ayatullah
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...down. The cleric has little widespread support among mainstream Shi'ites. But al-Sadr's rise has alarmed senior Shi'ite clerics, who view him as an upstart demagogue. Al-Sadr's troops have regularly clashed with the more powerful Shi'ite militia known as the Badr Brigade. Grand Ayatullah Ali Husaini Sistani, the most prominent Shi'ite leader in Iraq, has ordered all Shi'ite factions to avoid further confrontation with al-Sadr's men, fearing it would lead to fratricidal Shi'ite violence, but, Iraqi intelligence sources say, Thulfiqar could be a splinter faction of the Badr Brigade...
...student revolutionary during the Shah's reign, Kadivar enrolled in the Shi'ite seminary in the holy city of Qum after Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini came to power, spending 17 years there as a student and teacher. To the dismay of hard-line clerics, his most important work presents a devastating critique of velayat-e faqih, the Shi'ite Muslim doctrine expounded by Khomeini that effectively grants the power of dictatorship to a top Shi'ite cleric. Kadivar argues that because the concept was conceived by clerics rather than by Allah, it cannot be considered sacred or infallible. And if clerics...
...fashion himself as the defender of Iraqi rights while exercising influence over the future shape of the country. He was born in Mashhad, Iran, to a prominent family of Islamic scholars; indeed, his story has parallels to that of another Iranian cleric from Najaf who rose to power--Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini. But Sistani is no Khomeini. He has long preached that the Shi'ite clergy stay out of politics to avoid being sullied by deals and compromise. His vision is of a Shi'ite orthodoxy that exercises influence over Shi'ite lives--much as the Vatican does over Catholic ones...
...followers have never heard his voice. He rarely leaves his small, dusty Najaf house other than to travel down a dirt path to his religious seminary. He shuns all interviews with the press and refuses to meet with Iraq's American occupiers. Yet with one call last November, Grand Ayatullah Ali Husaini Sistani brought plans for an American transfer of power to a grinding halt. Since the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime last April, Sistani has gone from being a relatively unknown "quietist" in Najaf's Hawza seminary, preaching that Shi'ite clerics must stay out of politics...
...Shah's era, Ebadi had been one of Iran's first woman judges. A devout Muslim, she supported Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini's revolution against the Pahlavi dynasty, only to find herself out of a job under the Islamic regime. That sparked a long battle against Iran's clerics for women's equality and rights for children, workers, artists and others. Though Ebadi is careful to push for change within the law, that has not kept her out of trouble. In 2000 she spent 23 days in prison, and she has received regular death threats...