Word: koran
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...celestial hierarchy. Michael, whose heavenly hosts tumbled Satan and his evil legions into hell, is the holder of the keys to heaven. Gabriel presides over paradise and, according to none other than Mohammed, was the angel who at God's command dictated the Koran. Raphael, who escorted Tobias on his journey to Media, has a host of spiritual assignments: chief of the order of virtues, ruling prince of the second heaven, the guardian angel of science and knowledge, the healer of human disease. Of almost equal importance, says Davidson, is Uriel, archangel of salvation, often credited with warning Noah...
Language is also a vital element of the Moslem religion. Mohammed's one miracle was the Koran's language: the fact that this highly literate and eloquent body of precepts suddenly flowed from the mouth of an illiterate merchant in 7th century Mecca. The book of 77,934 words, memorized by millions for 50 generations, embodies much of Judaism and Christianity, which sprang out of the same awe-inspiring desert. Both simpler and more static, Islam postulates a fixed way of life ordained by God and transmitted to man through a series of mortal messengers (prophets), notably Adam...
...Arabs' empire failed because they lacked the skill of political synthesis. In conquered territory, Arab rulers hewed to the Koran and tended to let the conquered govern themselves. Mohammed designated no successor (caliph); his squabbling heirs split Islam into rival sects. For a time, independent Moslem states retained Mohammed's vigor. While Europe slept, great Arab universities flourished in Cordova, Baghdad and Cairo; in Spain, the Arab philosopher Averroes revitalized Aristotle. After the death of the Caliph Harun al-Rashid in 809, the Baghdad caliphate plunged into civil war; in succeeding centuries, marauding Mongols poured into the Arab...
...revolution began as the most promising event in modern Arab history. Here was a completely secular government devoid of Islamic hobbles, one that stopped barefoot wretches from sleeping in the Cairo streets and moved them into high-rise apartments. Here was a leader who asserted that the Koran could be made compatible with "Arab socialism," who emancipated women, started birth control, planned the Aswan Dam, produced nuclear energy, renounced Egypt's claim to the Sudan, and even sought a Palestine settlement. Yet even Nasser could not resist the temptation of turning from the slow, difficult tasks of true growth...
There are seven suicides in the Bible, from Samson to Judas, and neither the Old Testament nor the New specifically forbids it, as does the Koran, which calls suicide "a much graver crime than homicide." But St. Augustine condemned it as "a detestable and damnable wickedness," perhaps to put a stop to a growing tendency of extremist Christians to seek instant sainthood via self-martyrdom. From the Middle Ages to the end of the 18th century in Europe, self-murder was stigmatized by the full force of church and state-a suicide's property was confiscated, his body...