Word: muhammad
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...whole world is a mosque, the Prophet Muhammad once said. With pious intent, a faithful Muslim can conjure a mosque almost anywhere, transforming a desert sand dune, airport departure lounge or city pavement into a sacred space simply by stopping to pray. The first mosque was Muhammad's mud-brick house in Medina, where a portico of palm-tree branches provided shade for prayer and theological discussion. As the young religion spread, Arabs - and later Asians and Africans - developed their own ideas of what made a building a mosque. But that innovative spirit has slowed in recent decades, leaving most...
...charred remains of Joan of Arc; a Sri Lankan tour guide who makes his living at the Temple of the Holy Tooth; a Syrian boy whose playground includes the al-Jami al-Kabir mosque in Damascus; and a Pakistani man who, when asked if he felt closer to Muhammad after beholding the Prophet's purported whiskers, simply replied, "Close? I cannot be close. I come to remind me how far it is I must...
...power of relics: "When the Taliban first attempted to take control of Afghanistan in 1996, they knew where to begin. The Taliban leader Mullah Omar demanded to be let into a shrine containing relics of Prophet Muhammad: hair from his beard, and a cloak he is said to have worn. Seizing the cloak, Mullah Omar went to the roof of the shrine and slid his hands into the sleeves, holding the garment before him for everyone to see. To the crowd watching it looked like he had gone into the relic chamber and come out transformed into the Prophet himself...
After all, as Manseau concludes, "how can we begin to consider the meaning of whatever is left of Francis, Joan, Ella, the Buddha, Jesus, Muhammad, or anyone dead but not forgotten, unless we acknowledge, with sadness, with wonder, that they began as small and perfect as the rest of us? These bones - fragile, mortal, beautiful - are where belief begins. Faith, at least according to Saint Paul's definition, is trust in things unseen. What, then, to make of relics? The point of them is to be seen, meditated on, keened over. Are they signs of weak faith, or strong? After...
...help to consider the experience of SEED student Mansur Muhammad, 17. When he arrived seven years ago, the first few weeks were tough. He'd often call his mother and write his dad. Friendships he had in his old neighborhood frayed. But Muhammad, now an honor-roll senior who hopes to become his family's first college graduate, hasn't looked back. He maintains a 3.2 GPA and reshelves books in the school's library for $160 every couple of days, when he's not in his room listening to rap or classical music and writing poetry. Inspired...