Word: fatwas
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...benefit. Iranians seeking an alternative to Ahmadinejad's truculence have latched onto Mousavi with little concern, it seems, over the fact that in the 1980s, the gray-bearded 67-year-old was at the heart of a regime that executed dissidents, took U.S. hostages and launched a fatwa against author Salman Rushdie. New - though notoriously unreliable - polling suggests Mousavi has drawn ahead of Ahmadinejad after a campaign marked by scathing ad hominem attacks and rambunctious rallies. But Western onlookers weary of Ahmadinejad's antagonizing would be wise not to expect a sea change in Iranian policy. Though he has stressed...
...While in office, he severed ties with Great Britain over the U.K.'s refusal to disavow Salman Rushdie, the British author whose The Satanic Verses spurred Ayatollah Khomeini to declare a fatwa calling for Rushdie's death...
...January, the nation's top Islamic body issued a fatwa, or religious edict, banning Muslims from practicing yoga if it involved chanting Hindu mantras. Late last year, Indonesia's parliament passed an anti-pornography bill that could criminalize certain folk dancing or traditional women's outfits. The bill was supported by hard-line Islamic groups, who believed its passage could counter moral degeneracy among Indonesian Muslims. So far, the law hasn't been applied in a significant way, although contemporary artists and others are worried they could be targets of its harsh prison sentences, which include a maximum...
...established élite looked on with mounting anxiety. "The followers multiplied inexorably," says a member of Swat's Wali family, the traditional tribal leader, declining to be identified by name. "We were feeling Fazlullah was a political threat. What we built over 150 years could just go in one fatwa. [The militants] played on the deep religious sentiment of the people, their economic deprivation and sense of neglect...
...council leaders are not alone in targeting yoga as a distracting influence to good Muslims. In neighboring Malaysia, a formal ban on yoga was issued last year and is still in place, a move that many Malaysians worried would heighten religious tension in the country. "I think the fatwa was issued now because of their ties to clerics in Malaysia," suggests Hamid Basyaib of the Liberal Islam Network. Many doubt it will have much effect. "The council is trying to reassert its authority among Muslims as the guardians of Islamic belief," says Azyumardi Azra, director of graduate studies...