Word: muslims
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...political opposition to the government's leftist ways. According to one U.S. expert in the area, "Islam has proved to be the major unifying theme for the rebels." Many of them have moved to armed camps in Pakistan. Taraki has tried to highlight his own credentials as a good Muslim; recently the government publicized a letter of support from a group of Soviet Muslims across the border. But a number of mullahs have been arrested for speaking out against the government in the mosques, and some Iranian ayatullahs have called for support for the Afghan rebels...
Soviet Union. During a 1977 visit to Moscow by Libyan President Muammar Gaddafi, Soviet Party Chief Leonid Brezhnev proposed opening a Soviet consulate in Benghazi. Fine, said Gaddafi, Libya would like a consulate in Tashkent. "Why Tashkent?" asked Brezhnev. "Because I understand there are a lot of Muslims in that part of Russia," Gaddafi answered, "and I'd like to take care of them." Obviously unwilling to give the fiery Libyan a chance to arouse religious feelings among the Soviet Union's 50 million Muslims, the Kremlin leaders shelved the notion. The Muslims of the U.S.S.R. constitute a demographic time...
Some observers believe that the Muslims have more freedom than any other religious group in the Soviet Union to practice their faith. The mosques are full on Fridays and holy days, and small delegations have been allowed to leave the country to take part in the hajj. Muslim leaders, the muftis, have apparently worked out a kind of modus vivendi with the government; in exchange for being allowed to practice their religion they often support the government on major policy questions. Any kind of Islamic resistance to the Soviet system would probably emerge from a large network of Sufi brotherhoods...
...prescribed daily prayers, a pious Muslim does not beseech God for favors, either material or spiritual, so much as for guidance and mercy. The word Islam means submission, and the true Muslim submits his life to the divine will of a deity who is the Compassionate, the All Knowing, the Strong, the Protector, the All Powerful-to cite only a few of the traditional 99 "most Beautiful Names...
...devout Muslim is also expected to observe the Shari'a, which means "the path to follow." Based on the Koran, the deeds and sayings of Muhammad and the consensus of Islamic scholars, the Shari'a is not just a compilation of criminal and civil law, but a complex, all embracing code of ethics, morality and religious duties. It is a sophisticated system of jurisprudence that summarizes 1,400 years of experience and constantly adapts, in subtle ways, to new circumstances...