Word: islam
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Ayatullah Khomeini is a unique, three-in-one figure: revolutionary, de facto head of state, and spiritual leader. He has made much of his religious role and his rejection of the ways and means of the secular and corrupt Western world. Islam requires the truly dedicated to follow a most detailed ethical system. For Muslims, the present crisis in Iran has raised some perplexing questions. Are good Muslims permitted to indulge in hostage taking? In peacetime, during a jihad (holy war), or not at all? And, depending on the answer, how good a Muslim is the Ayatullah Khomeini...
...Iranians understand the Koran, states Sri Lanka's ascetic M.R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen, a teacher in the mystical Sufi movement, now living in Philadelphia, "they will release the hostages immediately." Muhaiyaddeen has sent Khomeini three fervent epistles, urging him to free the captives and repent of his vengeance lest Islam be further disgraced before the world. Even in Iran, the Ayatullah Kazem Sharietmadari, second only to Khomeini in popularity, privately considers the embassy seizure an "abuse of Islam" and has told a confidant: "I have never been so worried in my life -not only about Iran but also about Islam...
...Islamic tradition has always extended charity to diplomats and wayfarers. According to the Mishkat-ul-Mas-abih, a standard Hadith text, an enemy courier named Abu Rafi converted to Islam, but Muhammad insisted he return to his tribe so that the Prophet might avoid even a faint suspicion that he had taken Rafi as a hostage. Muhammad declared flatly, "I do not break treaties, nor do I make prisoners of envoys." The Koran 9:6 insists that even a religious enemy be granted asylum and conveyed to safety...
...Arab world," in the words of U.S. Executive Producer David Fanning, But within hours of the broadcast, Saudi Arabia reacted with a howl of protest. The Saudi embassy in London denounced the film as a "sensation-seeking piece of fiction" and "an unprincipled attack on the religion of Islam." What seems to have particularly offended the Saudis, besides the vivid re-enactment of the executions, was a series of scenes depicting the royal princesses as bored and vacuous vixens who spend most of their time watching TV or looking for easy...
Their antagonism is based less on personality than on principle. Despite his Sorbonne education, Banisadr is a devout Muslim layman who believes that the answers to all of Iran's problems can be found in Islam. Despite his clerical robes and title, Beheshti is a wily political pragmatist who uses ideology as a means to power. Twenty years ago, Beheshti was a writer of religious texts for public schools in Iran. A university professor who knew him then recalls that "he never argued with anyone. He seemed to believe that everyone is right. " Beheshti has apparently retained that ability...