Word: islam
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...then in 2006, there was an unmistakable pause, a moment of self-examination, even the hint of a great humbling. The most absolutist visionaries found a limit to their certitude. Benedict XVI went in a matter of months from proclaiming an irreducible gulf between Christianity and Islam to visiting a mosque in Turkey with white slippers on his feet. He publicly called for Turkey, a secular state but a Muslim country, to be integrated into the European Union. In the U.S., the religious right saw its most enthusiastic repre sentative in the Senate, Rick Santorum, go down to defeat...
...Within Islam, something also very profound occurred in 2006. Until earlier this year, Islam had found itself represented by essentially one faction in global politics and propaganda: the anti-Western vision of al-Qaeda's Wahhabist ideology. The power of its ability to marshall Arab and Muslim resentment against the West - and against non-Muslims more generally - drowned out milder, more moderate forms of Islam and masked deep divisions within Islam itself...
...civilizational clash, the turning point was the bombing of the Samarra mosque, a site sacred to Shi'ite Muslims. From that horrifying moment onward, what had been a mainly Sunni insurgency against occupying infidel troops became a civil war between Shi'ite and Sunni Muslims. The dynamic within Islam in the Middle East shifted from one that pitted Islam against the West to one that pitted Islam against itself. Evidence emerged of Iranian support for Shi'ite militias, alongside Saudi financing of Sunni terror. Suddenly, the monolith was over - and the old divisions within Islam became as important as Islam...
...There has always been a political dimension to the Sunni-Shi'ite split, which originated in a seventh century dispute over who would succeed the Prophet Muhammad as the leader of Islam's faithful. Over time, the two sects developed their own distinct conception of Islamic teachings and practice, much as Catholicism and Protestantism did in the centuries following their split. Shiites are a minority of 10%-15% of the global Muslim community, but in the geographic arc that runs from Lebanon to Pakistan, they are around half of the Muslim population - some 150 million people in all. They account...
...Combined Arms Center at Fort Leavenworth, Kans. Every U.S. Army major spends a midcareer year going to school there. Most of these officers are headed to Iraq or Afghanistan, and the curriculum has been revised to include intensive language courses in Arabic and Pashtu, the history and culture of Islam, a hefty dose of counterinsurgency strategy and tactics, plus the standard military disciplines. I came away inspired and infuriated: if only the Bush Administration?and the public?took the mission as seriously as the Army does! What a shame that we've inserted these fine people into such a mess...