Word: east
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...European powers saw their colonial empires collapse one by one. Strong nationalist leaders who were also Muslims, like Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser, rose to power; by the early '60s there was a belt of independent, predominantly Islamic states stretching from Morocco to Indonesia. For Muslims of the Middle East, one event in the past decade stands out as a modern landmark in the history of the faith. On the afternoon of Oct. 6, 1973, the cry of "Allahu Akbar!" (God is great) rose from the throats of Egyptian soldiers as they stormed across the Suez Canal and overran...
...doubt that Iran's revolution will have far-reaching effects, though it seems unlikely to be repeated. In many ways, the situation in Iran was a unique phenomenon in the Middle East. The Shah had a more limited base of support than the remaining monarchies in the Islamic world apparently have. Most Iranians belong to the Shi'ite branch of Islam, which predominates in Iran, Iraq and Kuwait. The holy men of Iran have a long history of political activism. As one religious leader toting a gun in post-revolutionary Tehran put it, "Politics is a part of life...
Egypt. Despite his personal piety, President Sadat is the pariah of the Middle East; he has now followed up his fearless offer of sanctuary to the Shah by signing a peace treaty with Israel. Some officials in Tehran have said that they expect Egypt to be the first country to feel the shock waves of their revolution. Sensing the potential for trouble, the government censored news of Iran's turmoil in the Egyptian press. Islamic fundamentalists, including the Muslim Brotherhood, are a growing force in the country. Islam is Egypt's state religion, but most of the ulama tend...
...young man, Muhammad was exposed to the currents of religious debate then swirling through the Middle East. He would listen avidly as Jews and Christians argued over their faiths. Those discussions may have fed his dissatisfaction with the traditional polytheistic religion of the Arabs, who believed in a panoply of tribal gods and jinn, headed by a deity known as Allah, Says Muhammad's French biographer, Maxime Rodinson: "Both Jews and Christians despised the Arabs, regarding them as savages who did not even possess an organized church...
Islam is not a collection of individual souls but a spiritual community; its sectarian divisions, as well as the man-made barriers of race and class that Islam opposes, dissolve dramatically at the hajj. Once a pilgrimage made mostly by Muslims of the Middle East and North Africa, the hajj has become a universal and unifying ritual. For those who have taken part in it, the hajj acts as a constant testament to Islam's vision of a divine power that transcends all human frailties...