Bio
Karen Armstrong
Contemporary and historical religion's most prolific author, Karen Armstrong is a highly sought-after lecturer around the world, and is called upon by governments, universities, and church and secular organizations alike to educate about the world's religions and to inform regarding their place in the modern world. A former Roman Catholic nun, she was educated at Oxford and has taught at London University and London's Leo Baeck College for the Study of Judaism.
Her writings include A History of God: From Abraham to the Present, the 4000 Year Quest for God; Jerusalem: One City, Three Faiths; The Battle for God: Fundamentalism in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam; Islam: A Short History; The Great Transformation: The Beginning of Our Religious Traditions; and Muhammad: A Prophet For Our Time. She has been honored around the world especially as a bridge-builder between the Abrahamic Faiths of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Her most recent works are A History of the Bible, The Case for God, and 12 Steps to a Compassionate Life.
One of the 2008 winners of the TED Prize, chosen for her world-changing work and continuing potential to inspire others to do something great for the world, in November of 2009 the TED community helped Armstrong to launch her Charter for Compassion to help to restore the Golden Rule as the central global religious doctrine.
Encyclopædia Britannica Articles
- Khomeini, Ruhollah
(born May 17, 1900?, Khomeyn, Iran—died June 3, 1989, Tehran) Shi'ite cleric and leader of Iran (1979–89). He received a traditional religious education and settled in Qom c. 1922, where he became a Shi'ite scholar of some repute and an outspoken opponent first of Iran's ruler, Reza Shah Pahlavi (r. 1926–41), and then of his son, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi (r. 1941–79). Popularly recognized as a grand ayatollah in the early 1960s, he was imprisoned and then exiled (1964) for his criticism of the government. He settled first in Iraq—where he taught at the shrine city of Al-Najaf for some years—and then, in 1978, near Paris, where he continued to speak out against the shah. During that time he also refined his theory of velayat-e faqih (“government of the jurist”), in which the Shi'ite clergy—traditionally politically quiescent in Iran—would govern the state. Iranian unrest increased until the shah fled in 1979; Khomeini returned shortly thereafter and was eventually named Iran's political and religious leader (rahbar). He ruled over a system in which the clergy dominated the government, and his foreign policies were both anti-Western and anticommunist. During the first year of his leadership, Iranian militants seized the U.S. embassy in Tehran—greatly exacerbating tensions with the U.S.—and the devastating Iran-Iraq War (1980–88) began.
- Khomeini, Ruhollah on britannica.com
- Shi'ite
Member of the Shi'ite branch of Islam, which resulted from the first fitnah, or split, within the religion over leadership. Members of the political faction that supported 'Ali, Muhammad's son-in-law, as the Prophet's heir after the murder of the third caliph, 'Uthman, the Shi'ites gradually became a religious movement after the murder of 'Ali. 'Ali's followers insisted that a caliph, or imam, be a lineal descendant of 'Ali and his wife, Fatimah. Shi'ite legal tradition is distinct from the four major schools of thought in Sunnite Islam and is generally regarded as the most conservative. Though Shi'ites represent only about 10% of Muslims in the world, they are a majority in Iran and Iraq, and there are sizable populations in Yemen, Syria, Lebanon, East Africa, Pakistan, and northern India. The largest subdivision is the Ithna 'Ashariyyah, or Twelvers, who recognized 12 historical imams (including 'Ali); other subsects include the Isma'iliyyah and the Zaydiyyah.
- Shi'ite on britannica.com
© 2010 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
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