Word: shied
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...army units pulling out of their positions in central Beirut and returning to the safety of their bases bodes worse than politicians fighting on the airwaves. For the past few days, the army has vainly tried to prevent some of the clashes, which took place mainly in neighborhoods where Shi'a and Sunni districts meet. Because the country's constitution divides power among the largest religious groups, Lebanon's political stand-off has devolved into a sectarian one, with the main action pitting Shi'a Muslim opposition groups - first among them Hizbollah - against Sunni Muslim government supporters. But the army...
...Ahmadiyah are a fringe group who adhere to a spinoff from Islam that arose in India in the late 19th century. Although they consider themselves Muslims, mainstream Sunni and Shi'ite Islam do not recognize them as such, because of a series of Ahmadiyah beliefs deemed contradictory to the basic tenets of Islam - Ahmadiyahs believe, for example, that Muhammad was not Islam's last prophet, and that the sect's founder, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, was the Mahdi or Messiah. The sect is banned in Pakistan, although it has coexisted peacefully with Indonesian Muslims since being established in the country...
More than 1,010 have died in Sadr City since fighting erupted at the end of March, according to Iraqi government figures offered by al-Sheikhly. Another 2,930 have been wounded, he said. Ongoing fighting continues to worsen the crisis in the vast Shi'ite slum, the Baghdad stronghold of the Shi'ite Mahdi Army militia. Mohammed Kamel Hassan, a volunteer organizer in Sadr City for the Iraqi Red Crescent Organization, said up to 500 families have already been displaced from areas around the fighting in recent days. "We have a big movement," said Hassan, whose organization is working...
...remains unclear where U.S. or Iraqi troops may go into Sadr City as part of a new push. But any significant thrust by U.S. and Iraqi troops into the densely populated area is likely to bring intense resistance from guerrilla fighters of the Mahdi Army, which is loyal to Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr...
...piety and modernity. Indeed, Alevi Islam is as layered as the ceremonial dress worshipers sometimes wear, originating in pre-Islamic times when the Turks were nomadic horsemen in Central Asia. Their circular prayer rooms, veneration of horses and participation in sports such as javelin throwing, all predate the quasi-Shi'ite form of Islam they later adopted (Alevi means "follower of Ali," the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad venerated in Shi'ism). They say the Koran is open to interpretation, and temper its teachings with such Alevi dictums as "control your hand, your groin and your tongue...