Word: imam
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...become sealed during his decade-long xenophobic rule. The main question was which direction Tehran would look in first. Last week Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the powerful Speaker of Iran's parliament, provided the answer. Interrupting his observance of a 40-day period of national mourning for the late Imam, Rafsanjani arrived in Moscow to an elaborate reception. The visit was the beginning of a thaw between neighbors whose relations had been frosty for most of Khomeini's rule. Said Rafsanjani after his first day: "I already feel almost at home...
Some managed to surge past a force of Revolutionary Guards, clambering into the casket to plant kisses on the Imam's face. The corpse spilled to the ground, bare feet protruding from beneath the white shroud. As the Guards beat back the crowds, firing shots in the air and spraying fire hoses, other soldiers shoved the body and coffin back into the chopper. It lifted off with the casket hanging precariously out the door...
WORLD: As the Imam is buried, his heirs close ranks...
...Last February he prompted a worldwide outcry when he demanded the death of Salman Rushdie, the Indian-born, British author of The Satanic Verses, a book many regard as blasphemous to Islam. "It is incumbent on every Muslim to do everything possible to send him to hell," declared the Imam. An angry Britain broke off diplomatic relations with Iran, and many Western ambassadors were temporarily recalled from Tehran...
...place in the world of Shi'ite theology gave him a platform. Unlike Sunni Muslims, members of Islam's other, much larger branch, Shi'ites believe in an intermediary between God and man. In Shi'ism's first centuries, this role of mediator was played by the Twelve Imams, who were thought to be the rightful successors to the Prophet Muhammad and who combined religious and secular authority. Most Shi'ites continue to believe that the Twelfth Imam, who disappeared in A.D. 940, will one day emerge from hiding to establish a purified Islamic state. Some Iranians hailed Khomeini...