Word: jihad
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...excuse for its own failures, confusions and periodic collapses into incoherence. It is more convenient morally to blame the West than to gaze steadily at the Islamic dilemma, easier to devise revenge for the past than ideas for the future. Khomeini, with his absolutist pretensions and aggressive fantasies of jihad (holy war) against the West, demeans Islam; he gives it the aspect of a bizarre, dangerous but spiritually trivial cult. To the extent that Muslims support Khomeini, they share in the image of Islam that he has created...
There's an awesomely prophetic account of the Moslem Jihad of revenge that swept through Europe (Jihad! April in Paris!") in the late '80s world. ("4/7/87--Sheik Ali Fayadh Mahim was arrested in Beverly Hills today for trying to pass a bad emerald at Gucci's.") China, racked by hard rock, LSD and "un-Confucian sexual attitudes" among its youth, places none other than Richard Nixon at the helm in order to crush "The Great Trip Forward" with "The Great Clamp Downward: And tension persists in that area of the world: "4/4/83--In pre-emptive strikes on Hanoi ammo dumps, the Chinese...
...enough of a political "position" to infuriate the Soviet authorities, who kicked Voinovich out the Writers' Union in 1974. He's no fiery dissident like Solzhenitsyn, waving a flag of traditional Christian values over the atheist Soviet state. His dissatisfaction with Soviet life comes across less as an ideological jihad than as truculent skirmishing. In some ways, it's more effective for just that reason--we know Voinovich has neither icon to worship nor axe to grind...
...cried the Afghan immigration official, as he dived for cover into a pile of crumpled visa forms. Outside, border guards with flapping puttees, braying donkeys, and assorted smugglers and baggage handlers churned about in confusion. Quiet soon returned, but the rebels had made their point. "Very, very bad this jihad [holy war]," a local tea vendor muttered. "The mujahidin are everywhere...
...month in Islam's lunar calendar;* and 5) making the hajj, or pilgrimage, to Mecca at least once in an individual's lifetime-if he or she is financially and physically able. Some Muslims argue that there is a sixth pillar of the faith, namely jihad. The word is frequently translated as "holy war"; in fact, it can refer to many forms of striving for the faith, such as an inner struggle for purification or spreading Islamic observance and justice by whatever means...