AWAMI LEAGUE. As one of Bangladesh’s two major political parties, the Awami (“people’s”) League led the country’s war of independence against Pakistan in 1971, under the charismatic Shaikh Mujibur Rahman (1920-1975), affectionately called the Banglabandhu or “Friend of Bengal.” It is a secularly oriented, left-leaning political organization. Its party symbol, the boat, symbolizes the river-based
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AVRUPA MILLI GORUS TESKILATI. In the early 19’70S the first branches of the “National Vision” (Milli GORUS) organization were founded by Turkish labor migrants in Europe. These groups had close connections to the National Salvation Party (Milli Selamet Partisi [MSP]). The name “Milli GORUS” stands for a philosophy as well as for the organization and
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AUTHORITY AND LEGITIMATION. Most Muslim rulers try to legitimize their authority through Islam; however, there are today only two regimes in Sunni Islamic countries in which the king claims a religious title associated with his political authority-Morocco and Saudi Arabia (Tibi 1985). The title of the Moroccan king is amir al-mu’minin (“commander of the faithful”),
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AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND. Although there have been Muslims in Australia and New Zealand for more than a century, the present small but active Muslim communities have developed since 1950. The first Muslims in Australia were camel drivers who helped open up the interior of the country in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries,
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ATATIORK, MUSTAFA KEMAL (1881-1938), founding father of the Turkish Republic. Born of modest Turkish parentage in the cosmopolitan Ottoman port of Selanik (now Thessalonliki in Greece) into a markedly Muslim environment, Ataturk opted for a military education, passing out as an infantry staff-captain in 1905. A participant in the Young Turk movement, his early military
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ATABAT. The Shi`i shrine cities of Iraq, Najaf, Karbala, Kazimayn, and Samarra-comprising the tombs of six of the imams-are important centers of devotion, pilgrimage, scholarship, and political activism known as `atabat (“thresholds”). Primacy among the `atabat is held by Najaf, 15o kilometers to the south of Baghdad; it is generally held to be the site
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ASTRONOMY. One of the greatest astronomers of Islam, al-Battani (the Albatenius, Albategni, or Albategnius of the Latin West, d. c.929 CE), declares that astronomy is the most noble of the sciences, elevated in dignity, and second only to the science of religious law (Sayili, 1960, p. IS). This praise of the discipline is not merely
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ASTROLOGY. To say that a belief in astrology is a feature of the popular culture of the modern Islamic world is to make a trivial statement, for this is true of practically all world cultures. It is a nontrivial exercise, however, to study the distinguishing features of the Islamic astrological tradition, the role it has
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`ASHURA’. The tenth day of the Muslim month of Muharram, `Ashura’ had been considered by early Muslims to be a very auspicious and joyous day, as many important and happy events, such as the landing of Noah’s ark, took place on it. This perception was changed forever on `Ashura’ in the year 680 when Husayn,
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