Word: imam
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...destruction) would not ward off confrontation between a nuclear-armed Iran and its foes. This misunderstands both the role of Shi'ite mysticism in Iranian culture, and Ahmadinejad's real political motivations. Like the majority of Shi'ite Muslims around the world, Ahmadinejad believes that Shi'ism's Twelfth Imam will emerge near the end of time to do apocalyptic battle against the forces of evil. This is pedestrian Shi'ite piety, not a cause for international alarm. The majority of Shi'ites believe this, and such views are not unique to Islam; other prophetic religions have their own messiahs...
...Iranian patron, about to be subject to sanctions by the West for its nuclear ambitions. Those ambitions, in turn, are meant to serve Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's even larger Islamist vision of a cataclysmic showdown with the infidel West as a harbinger of the return of the 12th Imam and the End of Days...
...with the politics of aiding Islamic militant groups. Mehdi Sedaghat, 27, a clothing-store clerk, speaks between bites of his bologna sandwich. "It's our religious duty to aid Muslims who are being killed," says Sedaghat, whose car bears a sticker on the rear window that reads INSURED BY IMAM REZA (Shi'ite Islam's revered figure). "But reality is reality, and we can't afford it." He quotes a Persian proverb: "If the lantern is needed at home, donating it to the mosque is haram [forbidden...
...invasion in March 2003. In the chaotic days after the fall of Saddam, al-Zarqawi began to build a terrorist network by luring foreign jihadis to Iraq. He pulled off his first two spectacular attacks with the August 2003 bombings of the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad and the Imam Ali shrine in Najaf...
...August: Zarqawi's al-Tawhid wal-Jihad ("Monotheism and Jihad") launches a suicide bombing campaign in Iraq. The group bombs the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad, killing 22 people, and the Imam Ali mosque in Najaf, killing about...