Religious warA religious war or a war of religion, sometimes also known as a holy war (sanctum bellum), is a war which is primarily caused or justified by differences in religion and beliefs. In the modern period, there are frequent debates over the extent to which religious, economic, ethnic or other aspects of a conflict are predominant in a given war. The degree to which a war may be considered religious depends on many underlying questions, such as the definition of religion, the definition of 'religious war' (taking religious traditions on violence such as 'holy war' into account), and the applicability of religion to war as opposed to other possible factors.
DawahALA (دعوة, ˈdæʕwæh, "invitation", also spelt dâvah, daawa, dawah, daawah or dakwah) is the act of converting people to Islam. The plural is daʿwāt (دَعْوات) or daʿawāt (دَعَوات). For certain groups within Islam like the Salafis and Jamaat-e-Islami, daʿwah is also considered a political activity. For these groups, the aim of daʿwah outreach is also to engineer a reversal of what they perceive as the decline of Islam in the modern era, through the systematic propagation of Islamist ideology and ultimately enable the establishment of an Islamic state.
Islam and warFrom the time of Muhammad, the final prophet of Islam, many Muslim states and empires have been involved in warfare. The concept of jihad, the religious duty to struggle, has long been associated with struggles for promoting a religion, although some observers refer to such struggle as "the lesser jihad" by comparison with inner spiritual striving. Islamic jurisprudence on war differentiates between illegitimate and legitimate warfare and prescribes proper and improper conduct by combatants.
ShaheedShaheed (شهيد ʃahiːd, () شهيدة ʃahiːdah, () شُهَدَاء ʃuhadaː; ਸ਼ਹੀਦ) denotes a martyr in Islam and Sikhism. The word is used frequently in the Quran in the generic sense of "witness" but only once in the sense of "martyr" (i.e. one who dies for his faith); the latter sense acquires wider usage in the hadith. The term is commonly used as a posthumous title for those who are considered to have accepted or even consciously sought out their own death in order to bear witness to their beliefs.
Mahdist WarThe Mahdist War (ath-Thawra al-Mahdiyya; 1881–1899) was a war between the Mahdist Sudanese of the religious leader Muhammad Ahmad bin Abdullah, who had proclaimed himself the "Mahdi" of Islam (the "Guided One"), and the forces of the Khedivate of Egypt, initially, and later the forces of Britain. Eighteen years of war resulted in the nominally joint-rule state of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan (1899–1956), a de jure condominium of the British Empire and the Kingdom of Egypt in which Britain had de facto control over the Sudan.
Enjoining good and forbidding wrongEnjoining (what is) right and forbidding (what is) evil (al-amr bi-l-maʿrūf wa-n-nahy ʿani-l-munkar) are two important duties imposed by God in Islam, as revealed in the Quran and hadith. This expression is the base of the Islamic institution of hisbah – the individual or collective duty (depending on the Islamic school of law) to intervene and enforce Islamic law. It forms a central part of the Islamic doctrine for all Muslims. The injunctions also constitute two of the ten Ancillaries or Obligatory Acts of Twelver Shia Islam.
Medinan surahThe Madni Surahs (Surah Madaniyah) or Madani chapters of the Quran are the latest 28 Surahs which, according to Islamic tradition, were revealed at Medina after Muhammad's hijrah from Mecca. The community was larger and more developed, in contrast to its minority position in Mecca. The Medinan Surahs occur mostly at the beginning and in the middle of the Qur'an (but are said to be the last revealed surahs chronologically), and typically have more and longer ayat (verses).
RibatA ribāṭ (رِبَـاط; hospice, hostel, base or retreat) is an Arabic term for a small fortification built along a frontier during the first years of the Muslim conquest of the Maghreb to house military volunteers, called murabitun, and shortly after they also appeared along the Byzantine frontier, where they attracted converts from Greater Khorasan, an area that would become known as al-ʻAwāṣim in the ninth century CE. These fortifications later served to protect commercial routes, as caravanserais, and as centers for isolated Muslim communities as well as serving as places of piety.
Ta'ziehTa'zieh (تعزية; تعزیه; ) means comfort, condolence, or expression of grief. It comes from roots aza (عزو and عزى) which means mourning. It commonly refers to passion plays about the battle of Karbala and its prior and subsequent events. Sir Lewis Pelly begins the preface of his book about Ta'ziyeh maintaining that "If the success of a drama is to be measured by the effects which it produces upon the people for whom it is composed, or upon the audiences before whom it is represented, no play has ever surpassed the tragedy known in the Mussulman world as that of Hasan and Husain.
History of the Islamic Republic of IranOne of the most dramatic changes in government in Iran's history was seen with the 1979 Iranian Revolution where Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was overthrown and replaced by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. The authoritarian monarchy was replaced by a long-lasting Shiite Islamic republic based on the principle of guardianship of Islamic jurists, (or "Velayat-e faqih"), where Shiite jurists serve as head of state and in many powerful governmental roles.
