Word: sects
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...Balance Sheet. In a nation with a 25% literacy rate, the Parsis can boast that more than 90% of the sect's members can read and write. Despite the widespread hunger and poverty of India, the Parsi poor rarely starve; in the city of Bombay alone, one trust established by wealthy members of the sect provides low-income housing for more than 6,000 Parsi families and welfare payments for the unemployed...
Tireless as proselytizers and tiresome as preachers, Jehovah's Witnesses often make more enemies than converts. Currently, the made-in-America sect is facing a high degree of hostility in Greece. The Witnesses' doctrinal refusal to bear arms defies Greece's universal-conscription law, which has no provision for conscientious objection. Within the past three months, two young Greek Witnesses have been condemned to death for refusing military service...
...Sassanid dynasty during the 3rd century A.D., Zoroastrianism died out once again when Persia was conquered by the Moslem caliphs 400 years later. Rather than submit to Islam, the ancestors of today's Parsis took refuge in India during the 8th century; to this day, the sect's name bespeaks its Persian origin...
Although accustomed to being a hidden remnant of the true faith, Parsis today are seriously worried that their ancient religion may die out. Traditionally opposed to proselytizing, the Parsis still excommunicate a woman who marries outside the sect, refuse to accept her children into the faith. Not only is intermarriage more common today, but younger Parsis are growing indifferent to the elaborate rituals and obscure doctrines of the faith. Relatively few Parsis can even read the three extant volumes containing Zoroaster's teachings, which are written in an ancient Persian dialect. Although proud of their history, many Parsis increasingly...
...member of the family escaped. The British overlooked the youngest of the prophet's twelve sons, who kept his father's sect alive, founded a cotton empire, and had six sons of his own. Today, El Mahdi's descendants again rule the Sudan. His grandson, Imam Hadi el Mahdi, is the stiff, unyielding religious leader of the sect to which most Sudanese Moslems belong. A great-grandson, Sadik el Mahdi, is a young British-educated economist who led the Mahdists' Umma Party to victory in last year's election...