The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions (766 page)

The ‘opening
s
ra
’ of the
Qur'
n
, also sometimes called Umm al-Kit
b (‘mother of the book’), since it is said to contain the essentials of the entire Qur'
n.

 
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Fatima
.

Shrine of the Virgin
Mary
in central Portugal. It was the scene of six appearances of Mary to three shepherd children from 13 May to 13 Oct. 1917. At the last of these, the Virgin revealed that she was Our Lady of the
Rosary
. In 1982
John Paul II
visited the shrine to give thanks for his surviving the attempt on his life. The reported ‘secret’ made known in the apparitions has not been disclosed publicly, despite many accounts of what it is.

 
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F
ima
.

Daughter of
Mu
ammad
and
Khad
ja
who married Mu
ammad's nephew
‘Al
b. Ab
lib
. She bore him two sons,
al-
usayn
and
al-
asan
, and two daughters. Al-
usayn, the younger son, was killed at the battle of
Karbal
’
(680), and this defeat, the ‘martyrdom’ of al-
usayn and his companions, marked the real beginning of the
Sh
‘a
party and sect. Numerous legends have grown up around the person of F