Word: shiing
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Although it is not yet clear who shot Neda (a soldier? a pro-government militant? an accidental misfiring?), her death may have changed everything. The cycles of mourning in Shi'ite Islam actually provide a schedule for political combat - a way to generate or revive momentum. Shi'ite Muslims mourn their dead on the third, seventh and 40th days after a death, and these commemorations are a pivotal part of Iran's rich history. During the revolution, the pattern of confrontations between the Shah's security forces and the revolutionaries often played out in 40-day cycles. (See pictures...
...Shi'ite mourning is not simply a time to react with sadness. Particularly in times of conflict, it is also an opportunity for renewal. The commemorations for Neda and the others killed this weekend are still to come. And the 40th-day events are usually the largest and most important...
...failed to intimidate Mousavi and his supporters. But while it would almost certainly empty the streets, the "nuclear option" of a Tiananmen Square-style crackdown would be a potentially fatal injury to the regime's sources of legitimacy: its limited but lively democracy and the backing of Shi'ite clergy. Discord among the mullahs is growing, with some senior clerics, like the esteemed house-arrested dissident Ayatullah Hossein-Ali Montazeri, publicly condemning Khamenei's handling of the election and warning ordinary soldiers and police officers that they would "answer to God" for any violence against the people. A crackdown would...
...Earlier this week, I received an e-mail from a Lebanese who was present at the creation of the country's Iranian-backed, Shi'ite militia Hizballah in 1982 and on familiar terms with its most radical and violent members. He wrote: "Are you people crazy backing Mousavi, a patron of Hizballah's terrorist wing?" (See behind-the-scenes pictures of Mir-Hossein Mousavi...
...Ahmadinejad's victory is a vindication of his pro-poor policies," says a Sadr spokesman. "It is a lesson for leaders everywhere: look after the poor, and they will support you." Sadr's own support, as it happens, comes mainly from poor Shi'ites. (See pictures of Iranian society...