Word: jamaat
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Pakistan's roster of chief suspects includes operatives of Jaish-e-Muhammad and Pir Mubarak Ali Shah Gilani, the leader of Jamaat al-Fuqra, an obscure extremist group that has branches in the U.S. The group is thought to have cultivated the shoe bomber Richard Reid's incipient fanaticism while he studied Islam in Pakistan. Pearl, it turns out, had hoped to interview Gilani for a story he was developing about Reid. Last week police raided the home of Pearl's liaison to Gilani, a man who goes by the alias "Arif." But inside they found his relatives mourning...
...girls, aged 7 and 11, wear T shirts, jeans and short, sleeveless dresses and read Enid Blyton novels and the Guinness Book of World Records. But when they get a rare visit from Aslam and his family, things become tense. Aslam is a zealous member of Pakistan's Tableeghi Jamaat, a massive, well-organized Islamic proselytizing movement. His forehead bears a permanent mark from touching the ground in prayer. His wife, like most Pakistani women, does not work, and keeps her head and face covered by a veil. At Attiya's home, she complains that there is nowhere to pray...
...even smashes its television sets in Taliban-style protest. Attiya believes that such pockets of extreme piousness and intolerance will spread more widely. "In a few years, Pakistan and Afghanistan will be the same," she says. Karachi has just brought in a rabidly conservative mayor from the Jamaat-e-Islami, the country's largest and most powerful religious party. The white-bearded, temperamental Naimatullah Khan, who was indirectly elected in August, said his first priority would be to impose Islamic Shari'a law on Pakistan's biggest city (pop. 14 million), although observers tend to regard that as unlikely...
...Aslam grew older, though, religion became more important. The preachers he followed were his own sons. He had always prayed five times a day but became more devout seven years ago when his youngest son, Masood, then 16, asked permission to grow a beard and join the Tableeghi Jamaat. Nadeem had already done so. Motivated by their example, Aslam entered the movement, which emphasizes the importance of preaching and bringing others into the Muslim fold. "It is in my blood," he declares. He says his increased commitment to Islam makes him feel more at peace, more comfortable with the world...