Word: nur
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...town of Takrit, Islam was a confusion of squabbling warlords living under a Christian shadow. A generation before, European Crusaders had conquered Jerusalem, massacring its Muslim and Jewish inhabitants. The Franks, as they were called, then occupied four militarily aggressive states in the Holy Land. The great Syrian leader Nur al-Din predicted that expelling the invaders would require a holy war of the sort that had propelled Islam's first great wave half a millennium earlier, but given the treacherous regional crosscurrents, such a united front seemed unlikely...
Saladin got his chance with the death, in 1169, of his uncle Shirkuh, a one-eyed, overweight brawler in Nur al-Din's service who had become the de facto leader of Egypt. A seasoned warrior despite his small stature and frailty, Saladin still had a tough hand to play. He was a Kurd (even then a drawback in Middle Eastern politics), and he was from Syria, a Sunni state, trying to rule Egypt, a Shi'ite country. But a masterly 17-year campaign employing diplomacy, the sword and great good fortune made him lord of Egypt, Syria and much...
...event's organizer Nur O. Yalman, professor of social anthropology and Middle Eastern studies, said the chair represents the culmination of years of effort...
...Their goal is to get far enough inside to explore the staircases and lower level. Weeks estimates that it will take at least five years to study and map the entire tomb, protect the decorations, install climate controls and electricity and shore up the precarious sections. Says Abdel Halim Nur el Din, secretary-general of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities: "We're in no hurry to open this tomb to the public. We already have 10 or 12 that they can visit." It is more important to preserve the tombs that have already been excavated, say the Egyptians, than...
...test, at Lop Nur in the northwestern Gobi Desert region of China, was a sign that Beijing too is irritated, specifically with what hard-liners in the regime consider blackmail, interference and pressure from the West. Amid intensified maneuvering to succeed ailing senior leader Deng Xiaoping, the conservatives have gained influence in the top echelons of government. Last May, President Jiang Zemin told the Politburo, in reference to U.S. human- rights pressures, that "we will not yield to hegemonism and power politics. For the motherland's sovereignty, independence and dignity, we are ready to pay a price." At the same...