Word: mecca
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...March 3 when al-Banna's brother Ahmed received a call on his cell phone from a man identifying himself as "one of your brothers from the Arab peninsula"--the term radical Islamists use to signify the core of the Muslim world, centered on the holy city of Mecca. Al-Banna's family says that as far as they knew, Ra'ed was in Saudi Arabia working at a new job. But the voice on the other end sounded Iraqi, Ahmed says. "Congratulations," the caller told him. "Your brother has fallen a martyr...
...worshippers face Mecca. "Allahu akbar." Hands lift heavenward. "God is great." They bow as a voice leads them through the litany. "Alhamdulillah." From the familiar words to the leader's call and the 100-strong congregation's murmured response, the prayers sound much as they always do. "Praise be to God." Except that the voice leading them is a woman...
...York City's Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine because no major mosque would play host to it. "There are still men who believe women are not allowed to be leaders. They're bullies," says organizer Asra Nomani, author of the new book Standing Alone in Mecca: An American Woman's Struggle for the Soul of Islam. "It's time that women take their rightful place alongside...
Nomani's fight began on her return to Morgantown, W.Va., from a pilgrimage to Mecca. "I experienced full and unfettered access to the holy mosque in Mecca," she says. Back in Morgantown, she decided to defy a ban that forbade women to use the front entrance and pray in the main hall with the men. Mosque leaders are considering banishing her for such disruptive behavior, but she feels she's making progress. She prays in the main hall now and says, "They just pretend I'm not there...
With its kilometers of flashing neon and monster casinos that look like billion-dollar monuments to kitsch, the Las Vegas Strip might seem impossible?not to mention inadvisable?to replicate. But Sheldon Adelson, the CEO of Las Vegas Sands and the city's richest developer, thinks America's gambling mecca is ripe for cloning. Last week he flew to Macau, the only place in China where casinos are legal, to unveil a glittering scale model of the Cotai Strip, a $12-15 billion development modeled on Las Vegas' famed stretch of luxury hotels and gaming dens...