Word: caliphate
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...city's name means "the Noble Tomb." Thousands have died there since 1997. But until then it was untouched by Afghanistan's two decades of war. The city takes its name from the Blue Mosque there, where Ali--Muhammad's son-in-law and the fourth Caliph--is said to be buried. Alexander the Great slept in Mazar. Genghis Khan and Silk Road traders passed through. Only 35 miles from Uzbekistan's border, the city was a valuable supply depot for the Soviets, who left it in Dostum's hands...
Since the death in July of Faisal Husseini, the revered Palestinian figurehead of East Jerusalem, Nusseibeh has gradually assumed that leadership role. The scion of a family that came to Jerusalem with the Caliph Omar 1,300 years ago, Nusseibeh, 52, stands out among the city?s remaining political leaders. He carries intellectual heft as the head of Al-Quds University and wields political clout as the organizer of Jerusalem?s 1987-93 intifadeh, which helped spur Israeli leaders to negotiate with the Palestinians. Nusseibeh is using his position to push a dovish line at a time when extremists have...
...infidels have been expelled from the land of Islam, bin Laden, like other Islamic radicals, foresees the overthrow of current regimes across the Muslim world and the establishment of one united government strictly enforcing Shari'a, or Islamic law. This vision harks back to the age of the caliphs, the successors to Muhammad who ruled Islam's domain from the 7th century to the 13th. What might a caliphate look like today? In bin Laden's view, it would look something like the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, which he has praised as "among the keenest to fulfill [Allah's] laws...
Respect for other faiths was manifest in Islamic Jerusalem. When Caliph Umar, one of Muhammad's successors, conquered the Jerusalem of the Christian Byzantines in 638, he insisted that the three faiths of Abraham coexist. He refused to pray in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher when he was escorted around the city by the Greek Orthodox Patriarch. Had he done so, he explained, the Muslims would have wanted to build a mosque there to commemorate the first Islamic prayer in Jerusalem...
...these enticements may be insufficient considering that when Arafat thinks of Jerusalem, he ceases to see himself as a politician. Instead he envisions himself emblazoned across the pages of history with the only two Islamic leaders to stride victorious into Jerusalem, securing the holy city for the Muslim faithful. Caliph Omar bin Khattab won the city for Islam in the seventh century. Saladin liberated it from Christian Crusaders 550 years later. The Palestinian leader can compromise on refugees, on territory, even on the parameters of statehood. But Arafat sees Jerusalem as his chance to transcend politics and enter the pantheon...