Word: caliphs
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...Novelist Morris Renek knows that the bulbous, corrupt Tammany Hall leader was not merely a caricaturist's dream. He was an authentic 19th century figure with plans and desires -- not all of them villainous. Bread and Circus imagines Tweed in his salad days, graduating from modest alderman to urban caliph. The campaigner swiftly learns to deny himself nothing, devouring vast meals, acquiring power at the expense of the citizenry, puffing like a beached whale as he sports in the percales with a period piece named Augusta Cordell, estrous wife of a society figure. Renek never whitewashes the Boss...
Rick's Café Americain is the state of the stateless. Rick sets himself up as a kind of chieftain or caliph in his isolated, autonomous, amoral fiefdom, where he rules absolutely. Victor and Rick are splintered aspects, it may be, of the same man. Ultimately, the ego rises above mere selfish despair and selfish desire. It is reborn in sacrifice and community: "It doesn't take much to see that the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill o' beans in this crazy world." Idealism and its bride ascend into heaven...
...their numbers. . . . The Shi'ites believe that the leadership of Islam should have remained in the Prophet's family. The Sunnis prefer to make such decisions by consensus. The Shi'ites supported Muhammad's cousin and son-in-law All, who became the fourth Caliph, or successor, before his assassination in 661. According to the Shi'ites, Ali and his descendants were Imams, divinely guided leaders and mediators between God and man. The last of twelve Imams disappeared in 940, and is believed to be in hiding, awaiting the right moment to re-emerge...
Commemorating the death of Caliph Ali (A.D. 600-661), who is revered by Iran's 34 million Shi'ite Muslims as the only true successor to Muhammad, is always a solemn occasion. But last week's observances were especially subdued. Tehran was tense and quiet. The Club Discotheque, normally a place of frenzied activity for Iran's newly rich upper middle class, was shuttered. Hotels and restaurants decreed a four-day prohibition of alcoholic beverages. Television stations broadcast readings from the Koran and Islamic sermons in place of Cannon and Police Story...
King Bulan then asked the caliph's representative to pick between Judaism and Christianity. The Arab also selected the Jews because Christians ate pork and knelt before man-made images. The choice was clear: If the two opposing superpowers could agree on the Old Testament god, who was Bulan to argue...