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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Libya
Index
A mosque in Tripoli
Courtesy United Nations
Nearly all Libyans adhere to the Sunni branch of Islam, which
provides both a spiritual guide for individuals and a keystone for
government policy. Its tenets stress a unity of religion and state
rather than a separation or distinction between the two, and even
those Muslims who have ceased to believe fully in Islam retain
Islamic habits and attitudes. Since the 1969 coup, the Qadhafi
regime has explicitly endeavored to reaffirm Islamic values,
enhance appreciation of Islamic culture, elevate the status of
Quranic law and, to a considerable degree, emphasize Quranic
practice in everyday Libyan life.
In A.D. 610, Muhammad (the Prophet), a prosperous merchant of
the town of Mecca, began to preach the first of a series of
revelations said to have been granted him by God (Allah) through
the agency of the archangel Gabriel. The divine messages, received
during solitary visits into the desert, continued during the
remainder of his life.
Muhammad denounced the polytheistic paganism of his fellow
Meccans, his vigorous and continuing censure ultimately earning him
their bitter enmity. In 622 he and a group of his followers were
forced to flee to Yathrib, which became known as Medina (the city)
through its association with him. The hijra (flight: known in the
West as the hegira) marked the beginning of the Islamic era and of
Islam as a powerful historical force; the Muslim calendar begins
with the year 622. In Medina Muhammad continued his preaching,
ultimately defeated his detractors in battle, and had consolidated
the temporal as well as spiritual leadership of most Arabs in his
person before his death in 632.
After Muhammad's death, his followers compiled his words that
were regarded as coming directly from God in a document known as
the Quran, the holy scripture of Islam. Other sayings and teachings
of the Prophet, as well as the precedents of his personal behavior
as recalled by those who had known him, became the hadith
("sayings"). From these sources, the faithful have constructed the
Prophet's customary practice, or sunna, which they endeavor
to emulate. Together, these documents form a comprehensive guide to
the spiritual, ethical, and social life of the faithful in most
Muslim countries.
In a short time, Islam was transformed from a small religious
community into a dynamic political and military authority. During
the seventh century, Muslim conquerors reached Libya, and by the
eighth century most of the resistance mounted by the indigenous
Berbers had ended. The urban centers soon became substantially
Islamic, but widespread conversion of the nomads of the desert did
not come until after large-scale invasions in the eleventh century
by beduin tribes from Arabia and Egypt.
A residue of pre-Islamic beliefs blended with the pure Islam of
the Arabs. Hence, popular Islam became an overlay of Quranic ritual
and principles upon the vestiges of earlier beliefs--prevalent
throughout North Africa--in jinns (spirits), the evil eye, rites to
ensure good fortune, and cult veneration of local saints. The
educated of the cities and towns served as the primary bearers and
guardians of the more austere brand of orthodox Islam.
Data as of 1987
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