Word: sunni
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...significant to opponents of the Shah; it symbolizes the Shi'ites' struggle against an evil, corrupt leadership in the earliest years of Islam. The mourning, which culminates on Dec. 11, commemorates the death of the 7th century Imam Husain, a grandson of Muhammad who was beheaded by Sunni Muslims from Damascus intent on maintaining their rule over dissident Persians. Muharram is traditionally observed with huge processions through the streets, at which the faithful whip themselves with chains or draw blood with knives and swords in anguished enactments of Husain's suffering...
...major force in politics and the economy. Under the "national covenant," an unwritten agreement with the force of constitutional law, the Lebanese presidency is reserved for a Maronite, while the less powerful posts of Prime Minister and president of the Chamber of Deputies are set aside for, respectively, a Sunni and a Shi'ite Muslim. The precarious balance between religious groups fell apart in 1970, when 15,000 well-armed Palestinian guerrillas were driven out of Jordan by King Hussein's "Black September" offensive. Joining 75,000 Palestinians already in the country, they turned southern Lebanon into...
...Assad does have opposition. Syria is a predominantly Sunni Muslim country. There are complaints that the Alawites, an Islamic sect to which Assad belongs, represent only 10% of the people most top government offices. Some hard-line Baath Party members grumble that Assad is watering down the Marxist policies of previous regimes, while Syrian entrepreneurs think he has moved too slowly away from Baathism's doctrinaire socialism...
...branch of Islam split off from the main Sunni branch during the 7th century; it now predominates in Iran and much of Iraq and Lebanon...
...want to westernize this country as a secular, democratic state," Jumblatt told TIME Correspondent Wilton Wynn. "We can no longer be segregated as Druzes or Sunni Moslems or Maronites. This system makes this country look like a zoo full of different kinds of animals. It's really undignified to be part...