Word: islam
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Matisse was intensely interested in Muslim decorative arts, and it was their intrinsic style, not their use as exotic props, that affected him. He had been to Algeria in 1906. In 1910 he was bowled over by an exhibition of the art of Islam in Munich and by a visit to the Moorish monuments of Andalusia. As a result, he recalled, "I felt the passion for color develop in me." This was dramatically confirmed by Morocco, where Matisse's aesthetic of decoration took full hold. Flat pattern, inlaid motifs, sharp conjunctions of highly decorative forms -- as in the wonderful Basket...
Arab alarms are reinforced by the building fear of Islamic fundamentalism in Western capitals and Moscow. As cold war tensions disappear, some intellectuals and politicians have begun to argue that the East-West confrontation will be replaced by North-South hostilities, which is to say a rising conflict between the haves and the have-nots. Islam is a religion that has appeal for the deprived. Moreover, although Tehran has yet to successfully export its revolution, the determination of Iran's fundamentalists to spread their radical brand of Islam raises the specter of subversion throughout the region...
...Islam Dara is a small mujahedin supply base nestled in jagged rocks beneath a circle of mountains, a desert oasis fed by a cold thin stream. Except for the sound of aerial bombing that burns red rings of brush fire above the enclave, Islam Dara seems sheltered. A few canvas tents are pitched amid boulders and mounds of ammunition: RPG-7s, launchers, bazookas. With its cool caves and grassy marshes harboring frogs, Islam Dara is a boy's paradise out of Kipling. But the dozen or so boys who stay there are living an idyll...
...after five years as an Egyptologist, including a year and a half in Cairo studying hieroglyphics, and a thesis on the Old Kingdom, he can spin innumerable tales of the history and lore of the Middle East. Antara, a bastard son and warrior from the Jahaliya, the time before Islam. Akhnaten, who ruled before Tut, and founded the temple of the sun god. But though Egyptology was what originally took him to Egypt, "when I got there I was more interested in modern Egypt...
...besieged with requests from T-shirt hustlers, record producers and concert promoters that they've started a file labeled SHARKS. In California the Mandela Visit Freedom Committee and the Southern California Chapter for the A.N.C. are jockeying over who has final say about his schedule there. And Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan is preening for a summit. "The No. 1 man that Nelson Mandela must talk to and spend time with in America is Louis Farrakhan," declares a Nation of Islam supporter. Laments one A.N.C. organizer: "Mandela's just seen as a commodity...