U.S. Hunt for Baath Members Humiliates, Angers Villagers
Deaths of Teenager and Two Others Spark Talk of Revenge
By Anthony Shadid
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, June 15, 2003; Page A14
THULUYA, Iraq -- Along orange groves and orchards of figs and pears watered by the timeless churn of the Tigris River, Hashim Mohammed Aani often sat before a bird cage he built of scrap wood and a loose lattice of chicken coop wire.
A chubby 15-year-old with a mop of curly black hair and a face still rounded by adolescence, he was quiet, painfully shy. Awkward might be the better word, his family said. For hours every day, outside a house perched near the riverbank, the youngest of six children languidly watched his four canaries and nightingale. Even in silence, they said, the birds were his closest companions.
On Monday morning, after a harrowing raid into this town by U.S. troops that deployed gunships, armored vehicles and soldiers edgy with anticipation, the family found Aani's body, two gunshots to his stomach, next to a bale of hay and a rusted can of vegetable oil. With soldiers occupying a house nearby, his corpse lay undisturbed for hours under a searing sun.
http://www.veteransforpeace.org/US_hunt_for_Baath_061503.htm
Islam in Iraq: Overview
Although members of the ruling Baath Party generally are ideologically committed to secularism, about 95 percent of Iraqis are Muslim and Islam is the officially recognized state religion. Islam came to the region with the victory of the Muslim armies under Caliph Umar over the Sassanians in A.D. 637 at the battle of Al Qadisiyah. The majority of inhabitants soon became Muslim, including the Kurds, although small communities of Christians and Jews remained intact in the area of present-day Iraq.
http://www.geocities.com/iraqinfo/islam/islam.html?20052
The Prophet of Islam - His Biography
IN the annals of men, individuals have not been lacking who conspicuously devoted their lives to the socio-religious reform of their connected peoples. We find them in every epoch and in all lands. In India, there lived those who transmitted to the world the Vedas, and there was also the great Gautama Buddha; China had its Confucius; the Avesta was produced in Iran. Babylonia gave to the world one of the greatest reformers, the Prophet Abraham (not to speak of such of his ancestors as Enoch and Noah about whom we have very scanty information). The Jewish people may rightly be proud of a long series of reformers: Moses, Samuel, David, Solomon, and Jesus among others.
2. Two points are to note: Firstly these reformers claimed in general to be the bearers each of a Divine mission, and they left behind them sacred books incorporating codes of life for the guidance of their peoples. Secondly there followed fratricidal wars, and massacres and genocides became the order of the day, causing more or less a complete loss of these Divine messages. As to the books of Abraham, we know them only by the name; and as for the books of Moses, records tell us how they were repeatedly destroyed and only partly restored.
http://www.geocities.com/iraqinfo/islam/prophet.html?20052
Shi'a Islam or Shi`ism (from the Arabic word شيعة, short for the historic phrase shi`at `Ali شيعة علي, meaning "the followers of Ali") is the second-largest denomination of the religion of Islam. The singular/adjective form of this name is Arabic shi`i شيعي, traditionally translated into English as "Shiite" or "Shi'ite". This is used to refer to a follower of the Ahlul Bayt and in particular a follower of Ali ibn Abi Talib, who was the Islamic prophet Muhammad's cousin, his son-in-law, and the father of Muhammad's only descendants. Ali was the male head of the Ahlul Bayt (Muhammad's household).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shia
The following table analyzes the demographics of Islam as of September 2005.
The exact percentage of the world's Muslim population that adheres to the various Shi'a sects, as opposed to the majority Sunni group, is indeterminate. No Sunni-Shi'a breakdown is available for many countries. The CIA World Factbook gives a Sunni-Shi'a breakdown only for countries where Shi'a are a significant minority. When no breakdown is given, all the country's Muslims have been enrolled, provisionally, in the Sunni column. This is certain to have exaggerated the proportion of Sunni Muslims. Much further work will be required before the Sunni-Shi'a statistics given here can be considered reliable. At present, the figures indicate 88.7% Sunni and 11.13% Shi'a.
At present, the figures indicate 88.7% Sunni and 11.13% Shi'a.
At present, the figures indicate 88.7% Sunni and 11.13% Shi'a.
At present, the figures indicate 88.7% Sunni and 11.13% Shi'a.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Islam
