Word: qur'an
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Though it is a solidly rooted Washington tradition, the National Prayer Breakfast does have its critics. Some Fundamentalists thought interfaith amity was stretched too far last year, when Saudi Arabia's Ambassador recited from the Qur'an. Hatfield complains that the breakfast has become a status symbol and "a ceremony of civil religion." He has introduced a Senate motion to abolish the affair. Many foreign observers find the whole phenomenon of Potomac piety somewhat disconcerting. "It is incomprehensible to most Europeans," sniffs a British diplomat. "It's almost as bad as Freemasonry...
...Astronaut Abdul Ahad Mohmand, 29, an Afghan air force pilot who rocketed from Baikonur space center in Soviet Central Asia to a midweek space-station rendezvous, accompanied by two Soviet cosmonauts; the first pictures beamed by Soviet television of an Afghan orbiting the earth while reading passages from the Qur...
...Everything is done to break our spirit," says Mutawakel Taha, 30, a journalist from Khalkilya. "We are completely isolated from everyone," says Raji Saalim, 28, who used to live in the Jabalia refugee camp in Gaza. Newspapers are rare at Ansar 3, books -- except the Qur'an -- and radios are unavailable. Few of the prisoners at Ansar 3 have seen any relatives, not even those who are detained in another section of the camp. The army responds that family visits to the prison have been prevented by "activist Palestinians," who intimidate relatives. The families complain about the cost, the long...
...three, the answer was Islam, a choice that until recently might have seemed highly peculiar. Despite 800 million adherents around the world, the faith of the Prophet Muhammad and the Qur'an, the Muslim scriptures, has long been all but invisible in the U.S. More than that, it has been an object of misunderstanding and contempt. "Traditionally, there has always been a rather bad image of Islam in the West," says Ninian Smart, religion professor at the University of California at Santa Barbara. "In recent years," he adds, "that has been accentuated by the revolution in Iran and terrorism." Insists...
Islam in America is not without its problems. "Hold fast to the rope of Allah and be not divided," urges the Qur'an, but in the U.S. that injunction has gone largely unheeded. American Islam is gravely weakened by divisions among nationalities: Egyptians worship with Egyptians, Lebanese with Lebanese. In some locations, separate congregations that use different languages share a building but have no joint activities. "There is no unified, strong Islamic movement in America," complains Muzammil Siddiqi, director of the Islamic Society of Orange County, Calif. Coordination among U.S. Muslims is lacking even on something as fundamental...