Word: prophet
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Butt says his goal is nothing less than to restore the rule of "central [Islamic] authority'' over as much of the world as possible, as in the time of the Prophet Muhammad and his successors. There is no way to interpret the Koran other than literally, Butt insists, and therefore no room for "moderation.'' If, in the Koran, he says, "Allah says fight, you fight. How can anyone take a 'moderate' view of this?" And as soon as he gets his passports back, he insists, he will be off to do as Allah commands. To his fellow radicals...
...wanted al-Qaeda terrorist in Iraq, appended a theological message. Berg's murder, the masked man intoned, was sanctioned by Islam's holiest texts. "Has the time not come for you to lift the sword, which the master of the Messengers [Muhammad] was sent with?" al-Zarqawi asked. "The Prophet ... has ordered to cut off the heads of some of the prisoners of Badr ... He is our example...
...does Islam also excuse al-Zarqawi-style atrocity? Well, one verse in the Koran condones beheading, but in the heat of battle. Some accounts of the Prophet Muhammad's life, called hadiths, record the execution--by what method is debated--of a tribe that had lived among Muslims and then betrayed them. Al-Zarqawi's specific bid to sacralize Berg's slaughter rests on an allusion to Muhammad's great victory on the battlefield of Badr. According to some hadiths, Muhammad was left wondering what to do with the resulting prisoners. This, the texts claimed, was the context...
Indeed, most Islamic experts condemn the hostage murders for the same reason that--anti-American sentiment aside--they condemned the Sept. 11 attacks: the Prophet's prohibition on killing noncombatants, or, as he put it, "a woman or a child, or a hermit, a farmer plowing his field, [or] a person who is not carrying a weapon against you." Says Ingrid Mattson, vice president of the Islamic Society of North America: "Other than from the spokesmen for these different terrorist groups, everything I've heard is a complete rejection" of the beheadings. Scholars at Cairo's venerable al-Azhar seminary...
...rock on which Abraham bound Isaac. Christians believe that at its southern end, Jesus overturned the tables of the money changers. And Muslims, who call it Haram al-Sharif (noble sanctuary), believe it is the site of Muhammad's Night Journey, recounted in the Koran, in which the Prophet ascended to heaven. But today this sacred place is battling simple gravity. A section of the Mount's eastern retaining wall - 40 sq m of teetering sandstone, pitted and creased by centuries of dusty desert wind - is bulging away from the great mass of the Temple. The darkness that lies behind...