Word: sects
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Those who have the most to lose are the millions of Indonesians who are either non-Muslim or belong to heterodox Islamic sects. In 2005, the nation's ruling clerics prohibited interfaith marriage and prayer. The Indonesia Ulema Council also renewed an edict deeming heretical the Islamic sect Ahmadiyah, which claims up to 500,000 members. In the past year, several Ahmadiyah mosques have been forcibly closed or destroyed by mobs, as have dozens of Christian house churches. Separately, a Muslim cleric in East Java was jailed for preaching in Indonesian, as opposed to the normal Arabic. In West Java...
...important tenets of the faith, like the infallibility of the Koran, and they venerate the Prophet Muhammad. Despite the claims by some Arab commentators, there is no evidence that Iraq's Shi'ite extremists are trying to convert Sunnis, or vice versa. For Iraqi fighters on both sides, "their sect is nothing more than a uniform, a convenient way to tell friend from enemy," says Ghanim Hashem Kudhir, who teaches modern Islamic history at Baghdad's Mustansiriya University. "What binds them is not religion but common historical experience: Shi'ites see themselves as the oppressed, and they see Sunnis...
...Averted sectioning reassignments aside, teacher and pupil both agree that the class is more than just a glorified pre-game pep talk. Introductory Psychology or special permission from Baltzell was a prerequisite for the course, but for the small sect of non-concentrators or the athletically-impaired, Baltzell claims that there’s still much to be offered...
...monks’ attire was noteworthy for its many changes during the performance: A variety of shawls were put on and taken off, and the crested yellow hats of the special Galug-pa sect were donned, then doffed with the changing of the chants. These transitions were an expression of the deeply ritualistic nature of the rites, and a constant reminder of the fact that the performance was not a concert so much as the active practice of an extremely sacred and increasingly esoteric religious tradition...
...that the battle is over and Yamani is dead, the Iraqi government is claiming that unspeakable and impious things went on in the compound, though it is difficult to untangle reality from stories designed to make the defeated sect look bad. The government now says that it found a pool underneath a large tent where sect members engaged in orgies - in the apparent belief that immoral behavior would hasten the advent of the Mahdi...