Word: islam
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Under glasnost, ordinary Soviets are only now learning how deeply Islam is rooted in their federation, which contains some 55 million Muslims, overwhelmingly located in the five Central Asian republics and Azerbaijan. Among some anxious citizens, the discovery has touched off premonitions of disaster, as republic after republic is shaken by unrest, often with religious overtones. After Soviet troops were called in last January to quell bloody rioting in Azerbaijan, Igor Belyaev, a prominent Soviet commentator on Muslim affairs, warned that "Iran has threatened the Soviet Union with an Islamic conflagration." President Mikhail Gorbachev argued that "Islamic fundamentalism...
Neither Gorbachev nor Belyaev is exactly on target in Azerbaijan. Fundamentalist Islam had very little to do with the rapid growth of the republic's Popular Front before the crushing intervention of the Soviet army in mid-January; the main issues were autonomy from Moscow and an end to the Communist Party monopoly of power. But elsewhere, profound Islamic forces -- some of them violent -- have begun to shake up the status quo in response to Gorbachev's decision to allow freedom of conscience throughout the Soviet Empire. Examples...
...Dushanbe protesters last month demanded that Islam be declared the official religion of Tadzhikistan...
...with malice against the religion that I expose Judaism for what it is; indeed, no other historic religion--not Catholicism, not Hinduism, not Islam--even remotely comes close to meeting liberal standards of tolerance and concern for human rights...
...Islamic art exhibit at the Sackler Museum opens the door to a fairy-tale world of noble kings, evil demons and enchanted forests. Paintings for Princes: The Art of the Book in Islam is an unusually vivid and fascinating exhibit...