He served as President of Iran from 1989 to 1997, losing on the second ballot to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the 2005 election on his attempt for a third term in office. After this, he has tried to use his position in the Expediency Council to denounce President Ahmadinejad's administration. He said he would do some privatizations and change foreign policy. However, President Ahmadinejad has noted Rafsanjani's failure to make a difference between privatization and self takeover of government-owned companies. Ahmadinejad has also commmented on the foreign policies of Rafsanjani's administration which lead to sanctions against Iran in 1995 and 1996.
Currently, one of his sons has been accused of receiving a bribe. Analysts expect that his son will not be put on trial, however.
Rafsanjani died on January 8, 2017 in Tehran from a heart attack, aged 82.
Evander Holyfield
Evander Holyfield (born October 19, 1962) is an American boxer. He held both the world heavyweight championship and the world cruiserweight championship. He also won a bronze medal at the 1984 Summer Olympics.
Holyfield was born in Atmore, Alabama. He became a professional boxer in 1984 and won the cruiserweight championship from Dwight Muhammad Qawi in 1986. He moved to the heavyweight division in 1988 and won the world championship from James "Buster" Douglas in 1990. He defended the title three times, including fights against former champions Larry Holmes and George Foreman. He lost the title to Riddick Bowe in 1992 but won it back the next year. In 1994 he lost to Michael Moorer and briefly retired. He soon fought again, however, and surprised many by knocking out Mike Tyson in 1996. He had a draw against Lennox Lewis in 1998 and then lost a rematch to him in 1999.
In 2005, Holyfield was a contestant on season 1 of "Dancing with the Stars". He was a housemate in the January 2014 series of Celebrity Big Brother (UK).
Porthmadog F.C.
Porthmadog Football Club is a football team, playing in the League of Wales. The club was started in 1884.
Sharia
Sharia, Sharia law or Islamic law is a set of religious principles which form part of the Islamic culture. The Arabic word "sharīʿah" () refers to the revealed law of God and originally meant "way" or "path".
Classical sharia deals with many aspects of public and private life, including religious rituals, family life, business, crimes, and warfare. In former times, sharia was interpreted by independent jurists, who based their legal opinions on Qur'an, Hadith and centuries of debate, interpretation and precedent. Some parts of sharia can be described as "law" in the usual sense of that word, while other parts are better understood as rules for living life in accordance with God's will.
Modern countries in the Muslim world all have their own laws. In most of them only a small part of the legal system is based on classical sharia. Muslims disagree on how sharia should be applied in the modern world.
Some classic Sharia practices include serious human rights violations. (see, Apostasy in Islam)
People of different religions who speak Arabic use the word "sharīʿah" to describe a religious tradition that comes from teachings of prophets. Christians and Jews in the Middle East have used it to describe their own religion. For many Muslims the word "sharia" means simply "justice". They will say that any law agrees with sharia as long as it helps to build a more fair and prosperous society.
Most Muslims think that sharia should be interpreted by experts in Islamic law. In Arabic, the word "sharīʿah" refers to God's revelation, which does not change. In contrast, the rules of behavior created by scholars as they try to understand God's revelation are called "fiqh". These rules can change and Islamic scholars have often disagreed about them.
Scholars disagree about the origins of the word "sharia". Some say that "sharia" comes from the old Arabic word meaning "pathway to be followed". This would make it similar to "halakha" (the way to go), the Hebrew word for Jewish law. Other scholars think that the word "sharia" originally meant "path to the water hole". They say that knowing the way to a water hole could save a man's life in the dry deserts where many Arabs lived in ancient times, and that is why this word came to refer to God's guidance to man.
Islamic scholars who lived during the first centuries of Islam developed different methods for interpreting sharia. Most of them came to agree that sharia rules should be derived from the following main sources:
The process of deriving sharia rules from the Qur'an and hadith is called "ijtihad". Sharia rules classify actions into one of the following categories:
Sharia in Islam is viewed as the revealed law of God, which cannot be altered. On the other hand, its interpretation, called "fiqh", is the work of legal scholars, who have frequently differed in their legal opinions. Some parts of sharia are similar to what people in the West call "law", while other parts are better understood as rules for living life in accordance with God's will.
There are several schools of legal thought in Islam, of which the most important are the Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi'i and Hanbali schools of Sunni Islam and the Ja'fari school of Shia Islam.
The divisions of sharia are called "branches" ("furu") in Arabic. The main branches are "ibadat" (rituals or acts of worship) and "mu'amalat" (human interactions or social relations). These branches are divided into many smaller branches, some of which are listed bellow:
The Five Pillars of Islam are:
There are two festivals that are considered Sunnah.
There are some special rituals used during these festivals:
Islamic law lists only some specific foods and drinks that are not allowed.
While Islamic law prohibits already-dead meat, this does not apply to fish and locusts. Also, hadith literature prohibits beasts having sharp canine teeth, birds having claws and talons in their feet, tamed donkeys, and any piece cut from a living animal.
There are some specific rules regarding the killing of animals in Islam.
Sharia recognises three categories of crime:
Although there is some disagreement about which crimes are "hudud" crimes, they usually include theft, highway robbery, zina (sex with forbidden partners), falsely accusing someone of "zina", and drinking alcohol. The prescribed punishments for these crimes range from 80 lashes to death. However, classical jurists developed very strict rules which restrict when these punishments could be applied, so that in many cases it became almost impossible to convict anyone under these rules. For example, there must be four adult male Muslim witnesses to a hudud crime or a confession repeated four times, before someone can be punished. If a criminal could not be convicted of a "hudud" crime, they could still receive a "tazir" punishment.
Murder, bodily injury and property damage - intentional or unintentional - is considered a civil dispute under sharia law. The victim, victim's heir(s) or guardian is given the option to either forgive the offender, demand Qisas (equal retaliation) or accept a compensation (Diyya). Under sharia law, the Diyya compensation received by the victim or victim's family is in cash.
Apostasy is punished by death unless the apostate agreed to return to Islam.
During the Islamic Golden Age, sharia was interpreted by experts in Islamic law ("muftis"), most of whom were independent religious scholars. Anyone could ask them a question about law, and they were expected to give an answer for free. Their legal opinions were called "fatwas".