Word: koranic
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...prisons. "Islam is a sort of natural religion for underdogs," says Ziauddin Sardar, a British scholar of Islam, "and that's one reason why Afro-Caribbean people have found its message very attractive." Prison authorities have allowed imams to bring literature into the jails-everything from copies of the Koran to anti-American leaflets highlighting the importance of jihad. Only since Reid's arrest has there been any vetting of the publications...
...less threatening, but more scholarly and sophisticated, is Saeed, 54. The charismatic red-bearded Islamic-studies professor is Lashkar-e-Taiba's main ideologue. Born in 1947 during his family's flight from northern India during Partition, Saeed memorized the Koran as a boy. He fought briefly in the Afghan jihad against the U.S.S.R. and in 1986 founded the Markaz Ad-Da'wah Wal Irshad, a religious education and proselytizing organization. Lashkar spun off two years later, attracting veterans of the Afghan war. It has taken responsibility for many hit-and-run operations in Indian-held Kashmir but says...
...university professor Tariq Ramadan - whose grandfather founded Egypt's Islamic revival movement the Muslim Brotherhood in 1928 - begins to speak. "Now more than ever we need to criticize some of our brothers," he tells the packed hall. "My dignity depends on saying, 'You're unjustified if you use the Koran to justify murder.'" The French establishment - with its traditional mistrust of religion - views Ramadan with suspicion, but tonight he sounds like the voice of reason...
...many of Europe's 12.5 million Muslims, now is the time to redefine Islam in the context of their identities as believers who were born and bred in Europe. The result is a kind of Euro-Islam, the traditional Koran-based religion with its prohibitions against alcohol and interest-bearing loans now indelibly marked by the "Western" values of tolerance, democracy and civil liberties. This new vision could well end up influencing the world these young Europeans' grandparents left behind...
...Younger Muslims are far more individualistic in the way they interpret the Koran, but that doesn't necessarily mean they're any less devout," says Mustapha Oukbih, a 36-year-old journalist who lives and works in the Hague. The Dutch website Maghreb.nl, for example, has hosted chat rooms to discuss whether it's okay for Muslim newlyweds to have oral sex. "They want to decide for themselves how to live their lives," Oukbih says. This emphasis on personal choice is providing many Muslims with a new vision of politics...