Word: koran
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...makes two references to my country, which has been subjected to a campaign by the Western press to tarnish its image and reputation. In Iran, stoning is not a form of torture but a punishment officially sanctioned by Iran's new penal code based on the holy Koran and Islamic Sharia. It is not used against political offenders but against ordinary criminals guilty of serious offenses like adultery and pederasty...
...like saying if the city put a cross on the lawn of its City Hall and surrounded it with candy canes, reindeer and polar bears, the cross would no longer signify any real religious endorsement. What if the symbol had been a Star of David or a Koran...
...they have nonetheless systematically eliminated every group that does not conform to their beliefs. Last May they forced the Tudeh Communist Party to denounce itself publicly and disband. In August they suspended the Hojjatieh Society, an esoteric Shi'ite Muslim splinter group that refuses to interpret the Koran in the fashion approved by the mullahs. During the past five years the regime has also incited mobs to desecrate the shrines of the Baha'i faith, drive thousands of adherents out of their homes and kill at least 150Baha...
...moment, however, authorities may be less unsettled by such external threats than by their own internal divisions. The Ayatullah has established 20 different agencies for intelligence and security. All of them jockey for position by twisting Khomeini's proclamations, as well as the Koran, to their own advantage. According to Dr. Ardeshir San'ati, a former full colonel and key medical officer in the Army, who recently fled to the U.S., "The Islamic Guards see Iran as their personal fiefdom and treat all others, especially the armed forces, as their serfs." Since a system of Islamic justice superseded...
...income, nationalization of foreign trade and land reform. "We please the middle and lower classes," said President Seyed Ali Khamene'i, 44, last summer, "and let big landlords, big factory owners and the wealthy seethe in discontent." Opposing them are the ultrarightist clerics who insist that the Koran unequivocally condemns such socialistic practices. The Prophet Muhammad, they point out, was once a merchant, who said, "The merchant is among God's favorites." The leftists were rebuffed 16 months ago when the social reform bills they proposed were vetoed by the Guardian Council. But last summer they made...