Word: islam
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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There are no rules of hereditary succession to the feudal throne of the Imam of Yemen, and the reigning Sword of Islam wields it only so long as he can keep his enemies at bay. The enemies are many, the proliferation of pretenders spawned by his multi-wived Moslem relatives. But on his side the Imam has absolute powers : Macbeth's castle and the Borgia palaces were holiday resorts compared with present-day Yemen, where ten of the current Imam's brothers and most of his dozen sons have died violently in family infighting and palace intrigues...
...bearing guards, three of his Queens, 23 concubines (who, according to the Italian Foreign Office, are not genuine harem types, "just slaves"). The Imam spends his time in Rome's Villa Margherita clinic, where a dozen doctors, both Yemeni and Roman, diligently labor to resharpen the Sword of Islam. Meanwhile, the women lounge around a beach hotel near Rome, relishing television, ice cream and high-calorific Italian cooking. They are protected from prying newsmen by dagger-brandishing Yemeni guards on the premises, jittery carabinieri at the portals...
...with loose women. And they are content with low pay." Says Rector Chaltout: "For ten centuries, al-Azhar has interpreted the Koran and taught its language. Now it will widen the Scope and knowledge of its graduates so that they may paint a true picture of Islam wherever they travel...
...three tall, sand-colored towers of the Mosque of al-Azhar dominate the university, which was built in 972, only three years after Cairo was founded. A few years later the mosque became the classroom for Koranic law courses, and thus Islam's most famous center of learning was born. Al-Azhar weathered the crusades, but fell into academic stagnation after the Ottoman Turks occupied Egypt in 1517. For three centuries it knew no other role than to be the official interpreter of the Koran. There was no curriculum; a sheik simply sat by his favorite pillar and waited...
Late last year, Nasser appointed a new rector: Sheik Mahmoud Chaltout, 66, himself a product of al-Azhar and a top Koranic scholar, who has long preached the need for Islam's religious awakening. In weekly radio talks, he demanded reform, urged that Arab countries give women an education. "It is written that women used to argue with the Prophet," he explains. "God heard those arguments and approved them." Long an antiCommunist, Chaltout last month appealed to his vast radio audience "in the name of the religion of Allah, to give serious thought to the danger which threatens...