Word: shari
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Aziz vowed to pursue a non-violent campaign to bring Shari'a to the rest of the country, yet in a press conference held Thursday he defended his actions, and those of his students, in the run-up to the siege, saying that they acted peaceably, and only turned to violence when the military moved in. When asked if he would allow his students to take up arms once again, he responded, "If we are pushed to the wall we would have no option but to defend ourselves...
Nearly two years after the arrest of Abdul Aziz on multiple charges of inciting violence against the state of Pakistan, the firebrand cleric of Islamabad's radical Red Mosque has returned to the pulpit with a promise that he will continue with his struggle to establish Shari'a, or Islamic law, throughout the country...
...allow his people to practice their religion. Moses, considered by Muslims to be a prophet, is a common theme in Islamic sermons, but at the Red Mosque it took on a special significance. In early 2007 students at the Red Mosque's two affiliated seminaries launched a campaign for Shari'a, occupying a nearby children's library and embarking on vigilante raids through the capital to stop what they called "un-Islamic activities," such as DVD vendors, barber shops and a Chinese-run massage parlor that they accused of being a brothel. The siege culminated in a terrifying shootout that...
Aziz's release (the Supreme Court ruled that it had insufficient evidence against him) comes on the heels of another Taliban victory: On April 13 Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari signed an ordinance imposing Shari'a in the Swat Valley and its surrounding district, effectively ceding administrative and judicial control to the Taliban insurgents who have turned the one-time vacation destination into a war zone. The Nizam-e-Adl regulations, as they are known, were part of a controversial peace deal negotiated in February between the provincial government and an influential religious leader affiliated with the Taliban movement...
Governor Owais Ahmed Ghani defended the move to establish Shari'a, saying it was the only way to bring peace in the valley. "Islam is our religion and we are Muslims," he told reporters in Peshawar, the provincial capital. "The state is responding to the aspirations of the people." Yet more than 80,000 of the 1.5 million residents have fled the region. "The Taliban are taking Swat back to the Dark Ages and the Pakistani government is now complicit in their horrific abuses," said Ali Dayan Hasan, senior South Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch. "Tossing out the rights...