Encyclopedia of Islam

on Failaka Island off the coast of Kuwait, and in Sri Lanka at Kataragama, Bosra (Syria), Jerusalem, Iraq, and Samarkand (Uzbeki ...

Umayyad period (seventh to eighth centuries), however, it seems that the term kharaj was used to designate land conquered milita ...

Ali and Muawiya’s right to rule. Based on their decision to separate from the community of Mus- lims, this seceding faction came ...

The caliph was the head of the Islamic com- munity in Sunni Islam. Although some believe the office ended with the capture of ba ...

(d. 632) through the seventh Imam, Musa al- Kazim (d. 799). Khomeini’s father was murdered shortly after he was born. He was rai ...

of whom were politically active, and others who felt that they should remain aloof from politics. However, his lectures on ethic ...

history, for no jurist before him had stated that worldly government must be in the hands of one of the Ulama. The shah’s govern ...

Further reading: Ruhallah Khomeini, Islam and Revo- lution: Writings and Declarations of Imam Khomeini. Translated by Hamid Alga ...

Starrett, Putting Islam to Work: Education, Politics and Religious Transformation in Egypt (Berkeley: University of California P ...

439 J:AF Lat, al- See goddess. Latin America According to some scholars, Islam was first estab- lished in Latin America between ...

20th century. The Indonesian identity of some members of the community is visible in specific practices that are linked to those ...

The vast majority of the conflicts confront- ing the world today, including ethnic conflict, religious violence, and the widenin ...

power in the 16th century. Facing oppression by the various conquering forces, marginalized reli- gious groups (for example, Mar ...

Libya (Official name: Great Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya [Peoples’ Republic]) Libya is a North African country with ...

kingdom was plagued by a poor educational system and a weak economy that depended on foreign aid from the United States. High-gr ...

Muhammad was commanded to read (iqra). The scriptural nature of Islam made literacy a primary vehicle for the dissemination of t ...

446 J:AF madhhab See sharia. Madina See medina. madrasa A place of edUcation for Muslim religious lead- ers and scholars. Islami ...

the church, and to reform education to be more relevant in the Industrial Age. A similar debate arose in the Middle East. In Ira ...

among Sunni religious scholars over both the mes- sianic function and the political role of the Mahdi. In fact, in the 18th and ...

Lord Kitchener that conquered the Mahdist state in 1898. Even in defeat, the Mahdists retained widespread popularity. Their desc ...