Word: ite
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...still grappling with an outbreak of violence that has claimed more than 1,500 lives in the past 18 months. The worst incident occurred in December, when 111 people were killed in a sectarian clash between the generally right-wing Sunni Muslims and the often left-leaning Shi'ite Muslims. An ardent civil libertarian, Ecevit reluctantly imposed martial law in 13 of Turkey's 67 provinces. Martial law was later extended to six eastern provinces to head off potential Kurdish unrest stimulated by the revolution in Iran...
Khomeini's reprieve could spare many of the 1,500 political prisoners now awaiting trial at Tehran's Qasr prison. It might also mollify some Shi'ite leaders, including Ayatullah Sharietmadari, who believe that the tribunals should be more selective in their pursuit of revenge against the followers of the toppled Shah. But there will be no mercy for the Shah himself. Speaking at a pro-Palestinian rally, Ayatullah Sadegh Khalkhali, head of Tehran's revolutionary court, issued a worldwide murder contract for the exiled monarch, several members of his family and his closest advisers. "Anyone...
...government, for its part, said that the assassination was an attack on the very heart of the revolution-and some blamed the Communists. Motahari was the author of several theological textbooks widely used in Iran, and like most Shi'ite leaders he shared Khomeini's views of Islam as a political religion. A day of mourning was proclaimed, and he was honored as a martyr. After a huge funeral procession in the holy city of Qum, where Motahari had taught at the Faizieh School, one of Iran's leading theological colleges, Khomeini mourned...
...dismiss as the work of outside agitators the most serious challenge yet posed to his mastery over the country. "Mysterious hands are sowing disunity. Satanic plans are under way by America and its agents," he declared. His outburst had been provoked by the disaffection of a fellow Shi'ite leader, Ayatullah Mahmoud Taleghani, who touched off a new round of violent clashes and demonstrations by withdrawing from politics as a protest against the mysterious arrests of two of his sons and a daughter-in-law by Islamic militiamen. By week's end the threat of escalation had grown...
Both Sunni and Shi'ite Islam include Sufism, a mystical movement whose adherents seek to serve God not simply through obedience to the law but by striving for union with him through meditation and ritual. Sufism is considered suspect by fundamentalist Muslims like the puritanical Wahhabis of Saudi Arabia, because it allows for the veneration of awliya-roughly the equivalent of Christianity's saints. Islam also has spawned a number of heretical offshoots. One is the Alawi sect, a Shi'ite minority group to which most of Syria's leaders belong. The Alawis believe...