Word: shied
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...days after the referendum, trouble broke out in Qum, where Khomeini, Sharietmadari and most of Iran's top Shi'ite leaders live. Several hundred Khomeini supporters gathered in the bazaar, shouting slogans against Sharietmadari, and then marched on his house. Among them were young men in black shirts, beating themselves with chain flails-the traditional Shi'ite expression of penitence...
Khomeini, refusing all talk of compromise, made repeated broadcasts from the holy city of Qum, whipping his followers into a mass frenzy that culminated in two vast outpourings of support. The first was on Friday, which to Iran's Shi'ite Muslims was Ashura, the holiest day of the year (and the anniversary of the demonstrations that led to the Shah's downfall). The second was on Sunday, when Iranians were to vote on a new constitution that would make Khomeini in effect dictator of the country. With the Imam flatly declaring that it was every Iranian's religious duty...
...military threat happened to coincide with the start of Muharram, a monthlong sacred period for Iran's dominant Shi'ite Muslims, which this year begins the Islamic 15th century. Last year it also marked the start of mass demonstrations that eventually brought down the Shah, and thus it has acquired a revolutionary tinge. Excited by that combination, roaring crowds numbering in the tens of thousands surrounded the embassy. Their frenzy was so great that even the youths occupying the embassy urged the mob through loudspeakers to calm down. Dozens of people fainted in the crush and were passed unconscious over...
During the three days of the siege, the identity of the attackers remained unknown. The first rumor that spread through the Arab world was that the invaders were Iranian Shi'ites who had been influenced by Khomeini's recent calls for a general uprising by Muslim fundamentalists. Others speculated that the terrorists were members of an extreme Mahdist sect aligned with the Shi'ites. Still others said they were not Shi'ites at all but fanatical Sunni purists known as Wahhabis. At week's end, with the Riyadh regime saying nothing publicly, the best guess...
...reaction to our demand." He disclosed that Iran and Libya had agreed to re-establish diplomatic relations after a break of several years. The two countries had been especially at odds for the past year, following the disappearance and alleged assassination in Libya of the leader of Lebanon's Shi'ite community, Imam Moussa Sadr. The reconciliation was interpreted as a victory for the hardline Muslim radicals in the Iranian leadership, who have been arguing for closer ties with Libya in spite of the Moussa Sadr affair...