Word: koran
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...Then came a day in mid-1994 when Omar, around 35 and preaching at a mosque in his native village of Singhesar, near the religious center of Kandahar, put down his Koran to act. Like so many saints and tyrants before him, Omar says he discovered his destiny in a dream: God was calling him to save his country from the warlords. He had already given his right eye as a young mujahedin to Soviet shrapnel. Now, according to Taliban lore, he gathered together 30 like-minded men to avenge the abduction and rape of two young women; the guilty...
...simple, sober message printed in Arabic and English greets visitors at the front door: ALLAH IS THE BEST PROVIDER OF ALL. Inside, the drab walls are devoid of decoration, bare but for a calendar. There is no television on the TV stand, but in its place sits a Koran wrapped lovingly in an embroidered shawl. The women are sequestered, and a peaceful silence prevails...
...shambles. An explosion of religious seminaries has filled the vacuum caused by a deficient government education system; a million children are enrolled in medressas and emerge qualified only for religious work. Housewives and grandmothers who used to spend their mornings gossiping and getting manicures are diligently attending Koran study groups...
...young Muslim, Nadeem, Aslam's bespectacled son, is coping with the apparent contradictions of modern life. He likes to surf the Internet for Urdu translations of the Koran, and says it would be a tragedy if people were forced to get rid of their computers. But he sold the family's un-Islamic TV a year or two back. He admits to listening to pop music, very quietly, on headphones, but says he feels guilty about it. "Listening to music is wrong," he says, "but I still do it." He and the family deposit their money at an Islamic bank...
...residents, Kashmir is as distant as the moon. "We feel sad for what is happening there," says one, "but we don't have the commitment to fight." Attiya and Aslam come from a long line of religious scholars, going back at least seven generations. Their forefathers all memorized the Koran, and the house where they were born in Larik, on the left bank of the river Indus, was on Mullah Street, so called because of their family's traditional profession. But their father, a poet, rebelled. He threw off his religious mantle and started a school for girls...