Word: najaf
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...women. He called a proposal to permit American servicemen based in Iran to be tried in U.S. military courts "a document for Iran's enslavement." In 1964 he was banished by the Shah to Turkey, then was permitted to relocate in the Shi'ite holy city of An Najaf in Iraq. But the Shah erred in thinking Khomeini would be forgotten. In An Najaf, he received Iranians of every station and sent home tape cassettes of sermons to be peddled in the bazaars. In exile, Khomeini became the acknowledged leader of the opposition...
...Najaf, Khomeini also shaped a revolutionary doctrine. Shi'ism, historically, demanded of the state only that it keep itself open to clerical guidance. Though relations between clergy and state were often tense, they were rarely belligerent. Khomeini, condemning the Shah's servility to America and his secularism, deviated from accepted tenets to attack the regime's legitimacy, calling for a clerical state, which had no Islamic precedent...
...steel gate in front of the stucco house in the Iraqi city of Najaf swings open and a bearded man appears, flanked by two armed policemen. "Go away -- please," says the middle-aged son of Ayatullah Sayyid Abul Qasim al-Khoei, spiritual leader of the world's Shi'ite Muslims. The son trembles and speaks in whispers. Had not other journalists spoken to the Ayatullah? "Yes, and after they left the police came -- and it was worse," he says. "Please go away, and don't come back. Ten of our family and dozens of my father's followers...
During the March uprising against Saddam Hussein's regime, the Ayatullah pleaded with Iraq's Shi'ites to exercise moderation. The old man, who is over 90, even traveled from Najaf to Baghdad to speak with Saddam. According to diplomats in the capital, the government promised to release six members of Khoei's family if the Ayatullah would condemn the rebellion on Iraqi television. He did so, but rather than deliver on his promise, Saddam double- crossed him, putting even more of his relatives behind bars...
...stories they recount in the refugee camps in the Iraqi town of Safwan are appalling. "Iraqi troops sent a tank to knock down the door of the holy shrine of Najaf," recalls Hajj Hattin. "Then they began looting all the deserted homes. They shot people at random in front of the crowds." Hajj Mohammed remembers a helicopter gunship shooting at civilians in the streets of Najaf. Iraqi soldiers "went into schools to threaten small children into giving the names of relatives they could accuse of being rebels," he says. "If the child did not answer, they shot...