Word: bab
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Little of the sprawling army complex of Bab al Azaziyeh, in the heart of the Libyan capital of Tripoli, is visible over the high stone-and-concrete wall that encircles it. Red-bereted guards are on duty at the gates, remote-control TV cameras scan the street outside, and the occasional gun of a Soviet tank protrudes through slits in the wall. But Libyans know that their leader, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, uses the barracks as a residence, though for security reasons he often sleeps elsewhere. Thus when gunfire was heard in the vicinity of Bab al Azaziyeh, many Libyans thought...
...Muslim mullahs of Iran regard as blasphemous. An estimated 550 Baha'is are in prison. Thousands more have lost their homes and possessions, and mobs have desecrated Baha'i assembly halls, cemeteries and the faith's holiest shrine in Iran, the House of the Bab in Shiraz...
...Baha'i faith-an offshoot of Shi'ism, which is itself a minority branch of Islam-asserts that two prophets came after Muhammad. To Muslims this constitutes a new, perverted faith. The first prophet was Mirza 'Ali Muhammad, who declared in 1844 that he was the Bab (gate), the pathway to God. He was executed in 1850 as a heretic. When Persian authorities tried to wipe out his disciples, the Babis fought back; as many as 20,000 were slain...
...moment at least, there are no shortages of consumer goods. At Baghdad's sprawling Bab al Shurgy used-car market, demand is so strong that vehicles often sell for many times their original price: $52,000 for a 1981 Chevrolet Caprice and $242,000 for a 1980 Mercedes-Benz 2805. Saddam Hussein admitted to a group of American correspondents last week that he would soon have to impose austerity measures to help...
...around Babs people are crushed by cliches. Her husband, an adman, is worn down by the slogans of his profession, so cut off from reality that he longs to dismiss the product entirely: "A structuralist's dream--advertising for its own sake!" There is a psychological as well as social basis for Bab's paranoia: her mother, whom she locks in the closet and taunts with lines like. "I'm fucking the dog, Mom" comes out and announces. "Children were given to us by you-know-who so that we could make order out of our own lives...