Word: secularize
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...into the same loathing that motivates the Shi'ite militias and Sunni jihadis. "The air has become poisoned [by sectarianism], and we have all been breathing it," says Abbas Fadhil, a Baghdad physician. "And so now everybody is talking the same language, whether they are educated or illiterate, secular or religious, violent...
Sunnis and Shi'ites are fighting for a secular prize: political domination. The warring sects, says a U.S. official in Baghdad, "are simply communities ... striving to gain or regain power." Without an understanding of the roots of the rage that drives people like Muslawi and Hussein, any plan--American or Iraqi, military or political--to stabilize Iraq is doomed to failure. And that power struggle in Iraq, whether it draws neighboring countries into a wider sectarian conflict or forces a realignment of alliances, has the potential to radically alter the Middle East...
...THEIR OWN terrors, have little time for the angst of the wider Islamic world. Those who can look past the daily horrors see an even more frightening future, in which their children carry today's hatreds into the next generation. With thousands being killed on either side, the nationalist, secular slogans that were long taught in Iraq's schools have lost much of their meaning. And children do not get too many lessons in secularism at home. "When we were kids, my parents taught us that Shi'ites had the wrong idea about Islam but were just misguided...
...book is a testament to the heterogeneity of the American Muslim experience. Not all Muslim females agree with the feminist leanings of Asra Nomani, and, to his credit, Barrett isn’t afraid to document the dissent. But the myriad opinions from American politicians, journalists, religious and secular Muslim leaders, children, and others straddles the fine line between just enough and too much. The barrage of quotations can sometimes be overwhelming, and it is often difficult to keep track of the different voices—including Barrett’s, which is absent for the majority of the book...
...There's a distant cousin of mine, born into a secular family, who decided to start wearing hejab to marry a more religious man she deeply loved. Her mother was mortified, and we all reacted a bit snobbishly at first, but with the passing of time it has become very ordinary. Then take the case of a family acquaintance from a very wealthy and devout family in Mashad, Iran's shrine city; he ended up being snared by a young woman of little religious conviction, who happily assumed greater propriety and more modest dress to cement the match. Most recently...