Word: koranic
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Prophet Muhammad taught that all men are equal. Over the centuries Islam has nourished scientists, philosophers, architects and writers. But the last phrase of the Koran's injunction to "obey Allah, the messenger and those of you who are in authority" is a boon to autocrats. Saddam pretends devotion when it suits his purposes. He has gone from murdering clerics to proclaiming a jihad and televising his prayers during...
They surrendered all along what was supposed to be the mighty "Saddam line," in squads, then platoons. Many waved tattered pieces of white cloth. Some held aloft the Koran...
...light!" They have conjured a moment, and smiled, and passed, and then, poof! they are back on a miserable street among the pariah dogs. If people are poor and live in the desert, language may be their richest possession: Why not? It opens miraculously onto other worlds. The Koran, with its bursts of sonority and light, describes a paradise that has everything the desert does not: the sweetest water, cool shade, silken couches, wines that one can endlessly drink without getting drunk...
...North Yemen to retrieve his journals, buried for safekeeping on the island. It is not much of a payoff, though along the way Hansen delivers a lush portrait of a society that has managed to survive even though there seems to be a Kalashnikov for every copy of the Koran...
During the century after Muhammad's death in 632, Muslim conquerors established sway from Spain to the borders of India. Islamic scholars of the era emphasized militaristic verses of the Koran over those that counsel peacemaking. Muslims spoke of the earth as being divided between the dar ul- Islam (realm of Islam) and the dar ul-harb (realm of war), implying a need for ongoing combat to extend the faith's domain. In succeeding centuries, as Muslims consolidated a multinational empire, the language of militant jihad faded...