Word: clerical
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...religion has assumed many forms. Indonesia has fiery Wahhabi evangelists and Jakarta sophisticates who drink cocktails during Ramadan. The vast majority of Indonesian Muslims fall somewhere in between, practicing a form of the religion distinguished by its "peacefulness and tolerance," says Masdar Mas'udi, an influential progressive cleric based in Jakarta. That tolerance includes an acceptance of widely differing interpretations of what it means to be a good Muslim. Islam in Indonesia incorporates traditional mysticism and animism?particularly in farming communities, where some two-thirds of the country's population lives...
...siege of the holy city of Najaf brought to a quiet close. Calling on thousands of faithful followers, Sistani made a momentous arrival from London, where he had been undergoing heart treatment, setting the stage for a face-to-face showdown with Muqtada al-Sadr, the rebellious junior cleric leading the uprising that had subjected the city to 21 days of relentless bombardment by U.S. and Iraqi forces...
Hours later, al-Sadr accepted a deal that would empty the shrine of his fighters, and in return U.S. forces would withdraw from the city, turning over responsibility for keeping the peace to Iraqi police. But uncertainty lingered over how long the truce would last. The upstart cleric, whose Mahdi Army was allowed to withdraw intact, has reneged on agreements before, and this latest tactical retreat, after hundreds of his men had been killed, left him and his surviving militiamen free to fight another day. The interim Iraqi government led by Prime Minister Iyad Allawi had repeatedly vowed to crush...
...executed Italian journalist Enzo Baldoni last month after Italy failed to meet demands to pull its troops from Iraq - to free the hostages. Even Hamas, which earlier in the week claimed responsibility for a deadly double bus bombing in Israel, and an aide to Iraq's rebel Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr called for the men's release. The reporters were on their way to Najaf to cover clashes between al-Sadr's Mahdi army and Iraqi government and American forces when they were captured on Aug. 20. Over the past five months, more than 100 hostages from nearly...
Just by hanging tough, the young cleric muscled his way--without even being there--into the national conference that met last week to name an interim legislature. Delegates who were supposed to focus on participation in the democratic process found their business eclipsed by the crisis in Najaf. A conference delegation trooped there hoping to talk al-Sadr into leaving the shrine and transforming his militia into a political movement, only to be refused an audience with the cleric. The next day, he said he might be willing to comply, then said he would seek "victory or martyrdom," then turned...