Word: hadj
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Last week Sadat was directing the fighting from an office at army headquarters on the edge of Cairo, where he is residing for the duration of the war. A devout Moslem who has made the hadj (pilgrimage) to the holy places of Mecca, Sadat observed the strict Ramadan fast. Most days he napped from 4 until 6 in the afternoon, then worked late into the night holding operations meetings with his staff. He has a reputation for listening closely to his generals and of deferring to their expertise; but he makes the decisions himself...
...death. Nigerian authorities hoped that the crash -and two days later the near crash of a chartered Ethiopian Airlines jet whose pilot, trying to land at Lagos airport, clipped the top of a tree-might dissuade some of the 30,000 Nigerian Moslems who annually make the hadj to Mecca. The shuttle is a drain on the country's foreign currency reserves. Beyond that, the government suspects that some Moslems go on the pilgrimage year after year for a more earthly reason than paying homage to Allah. As well as allowing them to venerate "the place where Abraham stood...
...special meaning for Judaism. For Moslems, Jerusalem invokes deep feelings, and the Dome of the Rock makes the city the third holiest for Moslems after Mecca and Medina. Still, there is no imperative for the devout to visit the Dome as there is for them to make a hadj to Mecca. For Christians, the city will always be a unique place of pilgrimage because of its role in Jesus' life, death and resurrection. But in the churches today spiritual guidance and administration flow from elsewhere; Roman Catholics, for instance, look to Rome and the Pope rather than to Jerusalem...
...Saudi Arabia and the diverse sheikdoms along the Gulf, promised Saudi Arabia a new medical school, complete with professors. He brought along a trade pact that will supply arid Arabia with fresh meat, vegetables and eggs. And he offered the Saudi airline a share of the lucrative annual hadj flights, the trips to Mecca by devout pilgrims from Iran...
...French prisons (with Ben Bella himself). Told that Aït Ahmed was now wearing an Algerian army uniform, Ben Bella laughed: "He never got a chance to wear it during the war. I hope he enjoys it." As for the other rebel chieftain, Colonel Mohand Ou el Hadj, who has a brilliant wartime record against the French, Ben Bella contemptuously blamed his defection on the fact that "we were going to nationalize his restaurant in Algiers...