Word: clerical
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Where in the world is Moqtada al-Sadr? He hasn't been seen in public in several weeks, and he has not kept up his usual practice of leading Friday prayers at the Great Mosque in Kufa. Now U.S. officials are claiming the firebrand anti-American cleric fled to Iran two or three weeks ago, along with several commanders of his dreaded Mahdi Army militia. But senior Sadr officials in Baghdad have dismissed those claims as propaganda, and maintain he is still in his Najaf headquarters...
...Abdel-Hadi al-Mohamedawi, one of Sadr's spokesmen, told TIME that the cleric hasn?t gone anywhere. ?This is just a rumor, planted by the Americans to coincide with their security plan,? he said. ?They want to stir up things up, to make trouble...
...Some clerics in Najaf told TIME that Sadr has left quietly, and that his office there is still keeping up the pretense that he is in town. ?When you ask for a meeting with Moqtada, they say, 'He's busy,'? said one cleric, who asked not to be identified for fear of reprisals from Sadr's supporters. ?After they did that a few times, it became clear that he was no longer in Najaf...
...concern," said Abu Firas al-Saedi, a senior Dawa leader. "But the real question is: 'Why are the Arab states allowing terrorists to enter Iraq through their borders, and why are they financing them?'" That sentiment was echoed by parliamentarian Falah Shansal, from the Shi'a bloc of radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. "There are groups in Saudi Arabia who finance terrorism in Iraq," he said. "Why are the Americans not talking about this...
Women, explained the elegantly dressed Indonesian cleric, are like jewels. TIME's Indonesia stringer, Tatap Loebis, and I smiled. We are both women. Being compared to jewels is nice. Muhamad Ikhwan, who runs a conservative Wahhabi-style Islamic boarding school in the eastern Indonesian city of Makassar, continued. "Westerners treat women like flowers. They bloom, and everyone can see they are beautiful. But then they fade quickly and die." The Wahhabi treatment was different: "Women are like precious jewels," Ikhwan repeated. "They should be kept in a box, where only a special few can see them and cherish them. Then...