Word: qum
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...been scheduled to see were gone, fired by the Shah. But Talbott found no shortage of political leaders to interview in neighboring Pakistan; they were alarmed by the plight of the beleaguered Shah and the possibility of Soviet intervention. Brelis, meanwhile, went off to the Iranian city of Qum, seat of the restless Shi'ite sect, for talks with rebelling Muslim leaders...
Sharietmadari's headquarters?and thus the heart of Iran's internal Islamic opposition?is Qum, a city of 300,000 that ranks with Najaf in Iraq as one of the world's greatest centers of Shi'ite learning. Located 75 miles south of Tehran, Qum is both a symbol and a model of the Iran that the mullahs yearn to preserve. No television aerials mar the pristine skyline; no public cinemas threaten to seduce the inquisitive; no bars or liquor stores offend the strict life of the observant. All women wear the chador and devote much of their lives...
...mosques of Qum are not simply places of learning and prayer. They have also become centers for political action. Says one dissident lawyer: "We have not been allowed to form political parties. We have no newspapers of our own. But the religious leaders have a built-in communications system. They easily reach the masses through their weekly sermons in the mosques and their network of mullahs throughout the nation. That is why so many nonreligious elements cloak their opposition in the mantle of religion...
...current troubles began early this year when police killed nine people during a demonstration in the mullahs' holy city of Qum (pop. 300,000), a traditional center of Shi'ite learning located 75 miles south of Tehran. After observing the traditional 40-day Muslim mourning period for the victims, demonstrators took to the streets. Again, several people were killed. On May 10, during observances for the death of Fatima, daughter of the Prophet Mohammed, paratroopers entered the Qum headquarters of Shi'ite Leader Sharietmadari, which is considered a religious sanctuary. A theological student was shot and killed...
...incident inflamed Shi'ite feelings as never before. In an interview last week in his spartan house in Qum, Sharietmadari told TIME Correspondent Wilton Wynn: "In the eyes of the nation, this incident is enough to cause a revolution in Iran. [The authorities] stopped cables being sent to me, but still the people came to me asking for the order to make a revolution. I advised them to remain quiet. But an attack on a Shi'ite leader will never be forgotten by the people." The roots of the recent trouble, charged Sharietmadari, lay in "many illegal actions...