Word: islam
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Today the Horn of Africa also arouses keen strategic interest among world powers. Not far from the Red Sea and thus close to Arabia, Ethiopia is a possible conduit for turmoil from the northeast. As Christianity and Islam flowed south to Ethiopia centuries ago, Meles tells TIME, so today "with all sorts of terrorist activities [in the Middle East], we are susceptible to that influence too." Ethiopia's eastern neighbor Somalia is already home to the oldest jihadi bases in Africa and has been a sanctuary, the U.S. believes, for three senior al-Qaeda planners who blew up the American...
...take African instruments and play them with [Western] electric instruments." He describes the music as a patchwork, similar to the hodge-podge clothing worn by members of his Baye Fall religion, a Sufi branch of Islam which subsitutes Koranic studies and piety for hard labor. The group's motto dieuf dieul ("you reap what you sow") impels followers to show their devotion to god through work; in Kane's case, through his music...
...real clout. Being in opposition allows the PJD to build its base without appearing to be doing the monarchy's bidding. It may be true that the Moroccan regime has postponed constitutional reform that would signal clear commitment to democratization. Nonetheless, its strategy of accommodating, rather than attacking, political Islam should be closely followed throughout the Middle East and the West...
...moderate, and Turkey has always been a radically different place from its neighbors to the east. Today's ruling AK Party (AKP) is a democratic movement with roots in the Anatolian heartland, where economic success is valued as highly as piety. Its leaders, Gul among them, have renounced Islamism, or the belief that Islam has a role in guiding affairs of state. Gul himself holds a Ph.D. in economics and spearheaded Turkey's efforts to reform its economy and legal system to bring it in line with European Union norms...
...next day, I attended a concert of Persian classical music at Niyavaran Palace, one of the former Shah's residences in northern Tehran. A decade ago, there were no such concerts to attend in Tehran because the mullahs frowned on music as un-Islamic. This summer there were concerts scheduled across the country, several of them including orchestras with female musicians. At least 3,000 people, among them many women in black chadors, mingled before the candlelit steps of the palace under a velvet sky. The country's preeminent poets and directors sat alongside government officials and their chador-clad...