A Merger of Mosque and State: Is suicide bombing allowed? The meaning of the Quran can depend more on politics than on scholarship.(Special Report)(Brief Article)

Publication: Newsweek

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Sheik Muhammad Rafaat Othman is a lonely man. Though he teaches Islamic law at the most prestigious Islamic school in the Middle East, Cairo's Al-Azhar University, he has no congregation to preach to. The soft-spoken professor, who wears thick, dark glasses, is one of the few clerics in Egypt who insist that the Quran unconditionally bans suicide, even as a tactic in a legitimate holy war. "As I interpret our religion, I don't see any evidence of exceptions to this rule," he says. "You can expose yourself to a situation...

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