Word: secularized
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
When General Pervez Musharraf made his landmark speech denouncing Islamic extremism last January, there were hopes, even in India, that Musharraf was destined to be Pakistan's Kemal Ataturk - the nationalist general who founded a modern, secular Turkey on the ruins of the Ottoman Empire. But now that terror attacks from militants based in Pakistan-controlled territory have brought the South Asian rivals to the brink of war, there's a growing fear that Musharraf may instead turn out to be Pakistan's Yasser Arafat - a domestically weak leader caught between his obligations to the West and to his neighbors...
...modern and the archaic, nowhere is the archaic more powerful than in the way the country's legal system treats women who accuse men of rape. The problem lies in the so-called Hudood ordinances, a series of Islamic decrees that are enforced in tandem with the country's secular legal system. Human rights activists say these laws blatantly discriminate against women. For a rapist to be convicted, for example, his crime has to be confirmed by four adult male Muslim eyewitnesses, or the rapist must confess. If the court rules that there was consent, the woman can be convicted...
Music has always been a great proselytizing tool, and Christian bands like P.O.D. have learned much from their secular brethren about selling themselves and their message. In look and attitude they are often indistinguishable from secular bands. P.O.D. even played on Saturday Night Live last month. "Kids have so many choices that when they buy something, it has to hit them on numerous levels," says Ron Shapiro, co-president of Atlantic Records, P.O.D.'s distributor. "It's about the music and the message." A typical P.O.D. lyric is pointed but tries to avoid religious cliche: "Commit my life to rebirth...
...site nearby, where Saddam is building the grandiose multidomed Mosque No. 2, bigger than the Mother of All Battles Mosque finished last year but not as grand as No. 3, expected to be completed in 2010, which Saddam claims will be the biggest in the Arab world. The fiercely secular leader has lately switched his building mania from palaces to mosques to co-opt the country's growing religious mood...
...have learned one simple thing from last week: the highest officials of the largest Christian denomination on earth have lower standards with regard to the protection of children and minors than secular criminal law does. The endorsement of "zero tolerance" by Philadelphia's Anthony Cardinal Bevilacq last Saturday (good post-Rome spin) is still not official policy. I can't believe I'm writing this--but they still don't get it. And if they cannot get the enormity of the crimes their clergy have committed, they are even further from acknowledging their own role in enabling them...