Word: sectarianism
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Meanwhile, Ecevit's government is still grappling with an outbreak of violence that has claimed more than 1,500 lives in the past 18 months. The worst incident occurred in December, when 111 people were killed in a sectarian clash between the generally right-wing Sunni Muslims and the often left-leaning Shi'ite Muslims. An ardent civil libertarian, Ecevit reluctantly imposed martial law in 13 of Turkey's 67 provinces. Martial law was later extended to six eastern provinces to head off potential Kurdish unrest stimulated by the revolution in Iran...
Islam is not a collection of individual souls but a spiritual community; its sectarian divisions, as well as the man-made barriers of race and class that Islam opposes, dissolve dramatically at the hajj. Once a pilgrimage made mostly by Muslims of the Middle East and North Africa, the hajj has become a universal and unifying ritual. For those who have taken part in it, the hajj acts as a constant testament to Islam's vision of a divine power that transcends all human frailties...
...this year. There are signs that the terrorists will now turn to selective assassination of moderate targets like Abdi Ipekçi, the influential editor of Istanbul's daily Milliyet, whose unsolved murder early this month shocked the country. At the same time, sectarian clashes have broken out between Sunni Muslims, who tend to be right-wingers, and Shi'ite Muslims, who tend toward the left. Last December at Maras in central Turkey, the Sunnis went on a rampage. In retaliation for a street clash, they killed more than 100 Shi'ites and burned hundreds of others...
Americans generally agree that many laws with religious origins (like Sunday closing laws) are entirely proper, while the government ought not to legislate the sectarian views of, say, Christian Scientists on medicine. But the issues of abortion and its public funding would appear to fall between these poles. The brief filed by the 15 organizations in McRae contends that "the majority of Americans" do not consider abortion immoral. Yet poll data indicate that about half the population agrees with the Catholic belief that human life begins at conception, and that only a minority of Americans are as liberal...
...million people. The Alevis are regarded as left-leaning and generally support Ecevit's Republican People's Party. The other is the country's Sunni Muslim majority (72%), who consider the Shi'ites to be heretics. Extremists have exploited the traditional enmity, inciting violence where sectarian tension is high. Over the past year, there have been nearly 800 deaths, excluding the Maraş, toll...