Word: islam
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
This is the dark side of Islam, which shows its face in violence and terrorism intended to overthrow modernizing, more secular regimes and harm the Western nations that support them. Its influence far outweighs its numbers. The Islamic revival that has swept the Middle East is primarily a peaceful movement for a return to religious purity. But where desperation is greatest, a small number of radicals have resorted to military action to impose the Islamic ideology they espouse. For the most part, they are not members of some grand conspiracy sponsored by a state apparatus, but loosely organized, grass- roots...
...Islam recognizes no distinction between mosque and state, theology and politics. Of course, not all Muslims are what Americans call fundamentalists. The term is not used in Islam, which calls the zealots "Islamists" or "activists." Says Mary Jane Deeb, an expert on Islam at the American University in Washington: "The majority of Muslims are secular in the sense that they see that politics and their beliefs can be separate." Nor do all so-called fundamentalists condone the use of violence and terrorism to achieve their goals...
Soika's relationship with her husband began to dissolve when she refused to convert to Islam and provide him with offspring. When Soika became pregnant in 1984, she had an abortion against her husband's will. Soon thereafter, Soika arrived home early after spending nine weeks at a health clinic for treatment of stress. When she opened the door, she found a 21-year-old woman named Marianne Weber staying in the apartment. Abouhalima suggested that the three live together as one happy family, but Soika refused. They divorced in February 1985, after Abouhalima had married Weber in a Muslim...
...Islam's Dark Side: Violence in the name of faith...
...Armstrong's book is her exploration of some relatively unfamiliar pathways to God. She is much taken with a Muslim movement devoted to Falsafah (roughly, philosophy) that emerged in the 9th and 10th centuries. Its advocates, known as Faylasufs, believed that the God of Greek philosophy was identical to Islam's. "Instead of seeing God as a mystery," Armstrong writes, "the Faylasufs believed he was reason itself." But they also acknowledged the chaos and disorder of the universe and recognized that their quest for ultimate meaning was a difficult one. Indirectly, the Faylasufs influenced such medieval thinkers as the Jewish...