Word: muhammad
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...more dazzlingly splendid, and strangely forgotten, than The Adventures of Amir Hamza. Although it is some 10 centuries old, the work's first major English translation was published only at the end of last month, finally bringing to the world the legend of the reputed uncle of the Prophet Muhammad. A radiant warrior who saved kingdoms, wooed princesses and journeyed to fantastical realms, Amir Hamza was cherished in the courts of India's Mughal emperors and celebrated in places as far flung as present-day Georgia and Malaysia. But of late, his memory has been in desperate need of rescuing...
...Though their roots are in Persia and Arabia, the stories of Amir Hamza blossomed most fully on the Indian subcontinent - a crossroads of religions, languages and narrative styles. "When it entered India, the sky was clearly the limit," says Muhammad Memon, professor of literature and Islamic studies at the University of Wisconsin. The richness of India's modes of cultural expression - particularly its blending of Sufi Islam and the mythological repertoire of the older strains of Hinduism - prompted opulent embellishments of the epic, deepening its playful world of myriad magical creatures and warlords riding rhinoceroses...
...course, the two worlds can meet. Afghan Shah Muhammad Rais claimed that his betrayal as a domestic tyrant in the global best-seller The Bookseller of Kabul, by Norwegian journalist Asne Seierstad, exposed him to dishonor. So Rais did a very Western thing, launching a lawsuit against Seierstad for defamation in Norway. Then he went one better: Rais now has a deal with a Norwegian publisher for a book of his own. A spot on Oprah has to be next...
...MUHAMMAD AYUD, Afghan sharecropper, on growing cannabis after a government campaign wiped out his opium poppies...
...many neutral observers would say the latter), the Administration has known for some months that its horse was heading for the knacker's yard: Musharraf's popularity at home has plummeted since March, when he suspended the independent-minded Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry. That sparked massive protests by moderate Pakistanis, the people who had once backed the general against al-Qaeda terrorists and Taliban militants. With a general election looming in Pakistan, the Bush Administration began to write a new cover story, giving its hero an unlikely sidekick: exiled opposition leader and former Prime Minister...