Word: clericism
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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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...
...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...
...retreat, the struggle for control of the country is far from over. Resolution of the standoff in Najaf may help boost the legitimacy of the interim U.S.-backed government and its Prime Minister, Iyad Allawi, among Iraqis fed up with al-Sadr's truculence. And yet the renegade cleric still commands thousands of fervent followers willing to take up arms anytime at his order, and his strident defiance of the U.S. has won him an even greater number of noncombat supporters. Even an inconclusive truce boosts his stature: as long as the militant cleric gets away to fight another...
That's the dilemma that vexes the U.S. and its allies as they try to quell the guerrilla campaign across Iraq that shows few signs of abating. U.S. commanders say they have inflicted punishing blows to al-Sadr's army; the military claims that hundreds of the cleric's fighters have been killed in the fighting in Najaf. But the fear of alienating peaceful Shi'ites forced the Allawi government to hold back from its threats to launch a decisive strike against rebels inside the shrine. And so late last week, even as al-Sadr claimed to be handing over...
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...