Word: islamics
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...journalists, freed early on Sunday, claimed their captors had treated them well but forced them to convert to Islam at gunpoint...
...dawning that unless an entire national community and the reasons for the conflict were understood, and a political solution devised, there could never be an end to the armed struggle. Now that message has been ignored - there is a completely baffling and frightening failure to understand what motivates political Islam. So you see parallels with the current situation? Speaking to one of the Guildford Four recently, his reaction is: "Those poor guys, those Muslims - that's exactly what happened to us. Has nobody learned?" The Guildford Four's story was the subject of a film, In the Name...
...that it reflects the religious extremism of the officials he has appointed throughout national and provincial government. Others argue that hardliners throughout the system, not necessarily presidential appointees, have been emboldened by Hizballah's success in Lebanon; they consider the militia's feat a major victory for political Islam, and a validation of their radical mentality. Such hardliners have criticized Ahmadinejad's administration for being Hizballahi (religiously extreme) in appearance, but not in practice. "The president has shown he's not after imposing social or cultural pressures on people," says Amir Mohebbian, a prominent conservative analyst. "But when the atmosphere...
...because he is younger, and belongs to a generation for whom such devotional piety is commonplace. Such mysticism was forged in the trenches of the Iran-Iraq War, a war that was fought on the Iranian side by poor young men indoctrinated to believe they were fighting for Islam; legends developed at the front of the Twelfth Imam riding past on horseback, and when the fighting stopped, such myths found their way into popular culture. Ahmadinejad fought in this war, and absorbed its sensibilities. What matters is that this mysticism is much like saint worship; it does not insist...
...more popular reference to Iranians' loose relationship with the truth is the Islamic and especially Shi'ite principle of taqiyya, the practice of hiding one's religious faith under life threatening circumstances. Taqiyya evolved during the early centuries of Islam, when Shi'ite Muslims faced persecution for their minority status at the hands of majority Sunnis. The concept is not, as sometimes described, carte blanche for telling lies or promoting one's interests, but rather a moral pass to tell one very specific lie (?I am not a Shi'ite') expressly to avoid being killed. From this ancient practice that...