Word: islamics
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...among Muslims has become so fierce that some clergymen post bodyguards at their mosques to guard against bomb throwers speeding by on motorcycles. In Karachi, kidnappings of clergymen have become routine; their mosques are then seized by adversaries who try to convert the prayergoers to a harsher vision of Islam...
...Sharif's countrymen think it could send Pakistan into terminal decline. According to the well-respected Karachi newspaper Dawn, people "just want a little improvement in their lives from the tyranny and callousness of Pakistani officialdom." Political opponents, including, of course, ex-Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, say the new Islamic bill is likely to increase that tyranny. One interpretation holds that this amendment will anoint Nawaz Sharif as a religious dictator, a supreme arbiter of what is considered good and evil under Islam. Nawaz Sharif, though, contends that only a strict adherence to Shari'a--which relies on the Koran...
...politics, are displeased with the Prime Minister, and some analysts fear that Nawaz Sharif's actions may increase friction between the pro-Western secularists and religious extremists within the ranks. Warns Maleeha Lodi, a newspaper editor and former ambassador to Washington: "Nawaz Sharif is trying to wrap himself in Islam. Perhaps he doesn't know that this will drive deeper wedges into a society that's already badly fragmented...
Faced with protests from opposition parties, human rights advocates and Islamic scholars, Nawaz Sharif may back down. If he insists on unleashing religious fervor in Pakistan, he could end up one of its first victims, because not all Islamic radicals trust his credentials. Says Maulana Fazl ul Rehman, leader of the militant Jamiat-Ulema-Islami party: "Nawaz Sharif's government is part of the same corrupt system he hopes to overthrow. Only we are the true devotees who will enforce Islam...
Iran and Afghanistan, two of the most profoundly fundamentalist Muslim countries, sit side by side, but common faith doesn't make them friendly. In fact, each despises the other's brand of Islam. Now Iran's Shi'ite leaders and the Sunni Taliban militia that has nearly succeeded in imposing its rule over most of Afghanistan are threatening to turn an ancient theological schism into a fighting...