title: Sinhagad

text: This fort saw attacks by Mughals in 1662, 1663, and 1665. In 1664, Shaista Khan, a Mughal general, tried to bribe the people of the fort to hand it over to him but was unsuccessful.Through the Treaty of Purandar in 1665, that Shivaji entered into with Mughal general Mirza Raja Jai Singh I the fort passed into the Mughal hands.


title: Sinhagad

text: In 1670, Shivaji reconquered the fort for the third time through his Koli Subedar, Tanaji Malusare in Battle of Sinhagad, and the fort came and stayed under the Maratha rule till 1689 A.D.


title: Sinhagad

text: A steep cliff leading to the fort was scaled in the dead of the night with the help of a tamed monitor lizard named "Yashwant", colloquially known as a Ghorpad. Thereafter, A fierce battle ensued between Tanaji and his men versus the Mughal army headed by Udaybhan Singh Rathod, a Rajput Sardar who had control of the fort. Tanaji Malusare lost his life, but his brother Suryaji took over and captured the Kondana fort, now known as Sinhagad.


title: Sinhagad

text: There is an anecdote that upon hearing of Tanaji's death, Shivaji expressed his remorse with the words, ""Gad ala, pan Sinha gela"" - ""The Fort is conquered, but the Lion was lost"".According to some, the name Sinhagad predates this event. A bust of Tanaji Malusare was established on the fort in memory of his contribution to the battle.


title: Sinhagad

text: After the death of Sambhaji, the Mughals regained control of the fort. The Marathas headed by "Sardar Balkawade", recaptured it in 1693. Rajaram I took asylum in this fort during a Mogul raid on Satara. He died at the Fort on 3 March 1700 A.D.


title: Sinhagad

text: In 1703, Aurangzeb conquered the fort. In 1706, it once again went into the hands of the Maratha's. Panaji Shivdev of Sangola, Visaji Chafer, and Shankar Narayan,the Pant Sachiv played a key role in this battle.


title: Sinhagad

text: The fort remained under Maratha's rule till the year 1817.The more than one century of the Peshwa rule saw the fort serving as a refuge from hostile forces attacking Pune, or as a place of confinement for rebels. In 1817 the East India Company, general Pritzler laid siege to the fort on the orders of Mountstuart Elphinstone, the company resident in Pune at the end of Third Anglo-Maratha War and it passed into the British hands.


title: Sinhagad

text: The Fort is a popular weekend destination for many residents of Pune, including trekking enthusiasts with access to the top of the fort from the base of the Sinhagad village. The trek involves a one-way walk of 2.7 km (1.6 miles) over which the walker gains about 600 m (1950 feet) in elevation.


title: Sinhagad

text: Parts of the once extensive fortification are in ruins. The fort houses a memorial to Tanaji as well as the tomb of Rajaram I. Visitors can see the military stables, a brewery and a temple of the goddess Kali (goddess) along with a Hanuman statue to the right side of the temple, as well as the historic gates. The original commemorative memorial of Tanaji Malusare has been unearthed by the restoration workers at Sinhagad Fort in Feb 2019. The stone structure was found buried under cement, concrete, and layers of oil paint and is believed to be around 350 years old.


title: Sinhagad

text: Sinhagad Fort has played a vital role in India's freedom struggle. Bal Gangadhar Tilak also known as 'The Father of Indian Unrest', used the fort as a summer retreat. It is here where Mahatma Gandhi after his return from South Africa had a historic meeting with Tilak. The bungalow has his bust at the entrance.


title: Sinhagad

text: The fort also houses a television tower for broadcasting local TV signals. Currently, Non-Vegetarian food, Partying including alcoholic beverages and smoking is banned on the fort.


title: Sinhagad

text: Pune Mahanagar Parivahan Mahamandal Limited (PMPML) runs a bus service (bus number 50) from Shaniwar Wada to the Sinhagad foothills (Sinhagad Payatha). The climbing route from either side of the fort can be covered in an hour. Shared taxi services to the base as well as the top of the fort are also available.


title: Wendell Willkie

text: Wendell Lewis Willkie (born Lewis Wendell Willkie; February 18, 1892 – October 8, 1944) was an American lawyer, corporate executive and the 1940 Republican nominee for President. Willkie appealed to many convention delegates as the Republican field's only interventionist: although the U.S. remained neutral prior to Pearl Harbor, he favored greater U.S. involvement in World War II to support Britain and other Allies. His Democratic opponent, incumbent President Franklin D. Roosevelt, won the 1940 election with about 55% of the popular vote and took the electoral college vote by a wide margin.


title: Wendell Willkie

text: Willkie was born in Elwood, Indiana, in 1892; both his parents were lawyers, and he also became one. He served in World War I but was not sent to France until the final days of the war, and saw no action. Willkie settled in Akron, Ohio, where he was initially employed by Firestone, but left for a law firm, becoming one of the leaders of the Akron Bar Association. Much of his work was representing electric utilities, and in 1929 Willkie accepted a job in New York City as counsel for Commonwealth & Southern Corporation (C&S), a utility holding company. He was rapidly promoted, and became corporate president in 1933. Roosevelt was sworn in as U.S. president soon after Willkie became head of C&S, and announced plans for a Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) that would supply power in competition with C&S. Between 1933 and 1939, Willkie fought against the TVA before Congress, in the courts, and before the public. He was ultimately unsuccessful, but sold C&S's property for a good price, and gained public esteem.


title: Wendell Willkie

text: A longtime Democratic activist, Willkie changed his party registration to Republican in late 1939. He did not run in the 1940 presidential primaries, but positioned himself as an acceptable choice for a deadlocked convention. He sought backing from uncommitted delegates, while his supporters—many youthful—enthusiastically promoted his candidacy. As German forces advanced through western Europe in 1940, many Republicans did not wish to nominate an isolationist like Robert A. Taft, or a non-interventionist like Thomas E. Dewey, and turned to Willkie, who was nominated on the sixth ballot. Willkie's support for aid to Britain removed it as a major factor in his race against Roosevelt, and Willkie also backed the president on a peacetime draft. Both men took more isolationist positions towards the end of the race. Roosevelt won an unprecedented third term, taking 38 of the 48 states.


title: Wendell Willkie

text: After the election, Willkie made two wartime foreign trips as Roosevelt's informal envoy, and as nominal leader of the Republican Party gave the president his full support. This angered many conservatives, especially as Willkie increasingly advocated liberal or internationalist causes. Willkie ran for the Republican nomination in 1944, but bowed out after a disastrous showing in the Wisconsin primary in April. He and Roosevelt discussed the possibility of forming a liberal political party after the war, but Willkie died in October 1944 before the idea could bear fruit. Willkie is remembered for giving Roosevelt vital political assistance in 1941, which helped the president to pass Lend-Lease to send supplies to the United Kingdom and other Allied nations.


title: Wendell Willkie

text: Lewis Wendell Willkie was born in Elwood, Indiana, on February 18, 1892, the son of Henrietta (Trisch) and Herman Francis Willkie. Both of his parents were lawyers, his mother being one of the first women admitted to the Indiana bar. His father was born in Germany, son of Joseph Wilhelm Willecke or Willcke, born 1826. His mother was born in Indiana, to German parents; his grandparents were involved in the unsuccessful 1848 revolutions in Germany. The Trisches initially settled in Kansas Territory but, as they were abolitionists, moved to Indiana after the territory was opened to slavery in the mid-1850s. Willkie was the fourth of six children, all intelligent, and learned skills during the nightly debates around the dinner table that would later serve him well.


title: Wendell Willkie

text: Although given the first name Lewis, Willkie was known from childhood by his middle name. Herman Willkie, who had come from Prussia with his parents at age four, was intensely involved in progressive politics, and in 1896 took his sons to a torchlight procession for Democratic presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan, who had come to Elwood during his campaign. The Willkie boys had a sidewalk fight with Republican youths, and though the Willkies won their battle, Bryan lost his to William McKinley. When Bryan ran again in 1900, he stayed overnight at the Willkie home, and the Democratic candidate for president became the first political hero for the boy who would later seek that office.


title: Wendell Willkie

text: By the time Willkie reached age 14 and enrolled in Elwood High School, his parents were concerned about a lack of discipline and a slight stoop, and they sent him to Culver Military Academy for a summer in an attempt to correct both. Willkie began to shine as a student in high school, inspired by his English teacher; one classmate said that Philip "Pat" Bing "fixed that boy up. He started preaching to Wendell to get to work and that kid went to town." Faced with a set of athletic brothers—Edward became an Olympic wrestler—Willkie joined the football team but had little success; he enjoyed the debate team more, but was several times disciplined for arguing with teachers. He was class president his final year, and president of the most prominent fraternity, but resigned from the latter when a sorority blackballed his girlfriend, Gwyneth Harry, as the daughter of immigrants.


title: Wendell Willkie

text: During Willkie's summer vacations from high school, he worked, often far from home. In 1909, aged 17, his journey took him from Aberdeen, South Dakota, where he rose from dishwasher to co-owner of a flophouse, to Yellowstone National Park, where he was fired after losing control of the horses drawing a tourist stagecoach. Back in Elwood, Herman Willkie was representing striking workers at the local tin plate factory, and in August journeyed with Wendell to Chicago in an attempt to get liberal attorney Clarence Darrow to take over the representation. They found Darrow willing, but at too high a price for the union to meet; Darrow told Wendell Willkie, "there is nothing unethical in being adequately compensated for advocating a cause in which you deeply believe."


title: Wendell Willkie

text: After graduation from Elwood High in January 1910, Willkie enrolled at Indiana University in Bloomington. There, he became a student rebel, chewing tobacco, reading Marx, and petitioning the faculty to add a course on socialism to the curriculum. He also involved himself in campus politics, successfully managing the campaign of future Indiana governor Paul McNutt for student office, but when Willkie ran himself, he was defeated. He graduated in June 1913, and to earn money for law school, taught high school history in Coffeyville, Kansas, coaching debaters and several sports teams. In November 1914, he left his job there for one as a lab assistant in Puerto Rico arranged by his brother Fred. Wendell Willkie's commitment to social justice was deepened by the sight of workers suffering abuse there.


title: Wendell Willkie

text: Willkie enrolled at Indiana School of Law in late 1915. He was a top student, and graduated with high honors in 1916. At the commencement ceremony, with the state supreme court present, he gave a provocative speech criticizing his school. The faculty withheld his degree, but granted it after two days of intense debate. Willkie joined his parents' law firm, but volunteered for the United States Army on April 2, 1917, the day President Woodrow Wilson asked Congress for a declaration of war against Germany. An army clerk transposed his first two names; with Willkie unwilling to invest the time to have the bureaucracy correct it, he kept his name as Wendell Lewis Willkie. Commissioned as a first lieutenant, Willkie was sent for artillery training. He arrived in France as the war was ending and did not see combat. In January 1918 he married Edith Wilk, a librarian from Rushville, Indiana; the couple had one son, Philip. In France, Willkie was assigned to defending soldiers who had slipped away for time in Paris against orders. He was recommended for promotion to captain, but was discharged in early 1919 before the paperwork went through.


title: Wendell Willkie

text: Discharged from the army, Willkie returned to Elwood. He considered a run for Congress as a Democrat, but was advised that the district was so Republican he would be unlikely to keep the seat even if he could win it, and his chances might be better in a more urban area. Herman Willkie wanted Wendell and Robert to rejoin the family law firm, but Henrietta was opposed, feeling that opportunities in Elwood were too limited for her sons. She got her way, and in May 1919 Wendell Willkie successfully applied for a job with the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company in Akron, Ohio as head of the legal office that advised workers on wills and other personal matters. He was soon bored there, and on the advice of his wife, left for a law firm despite an offer from Harvey Firestone to double his salary. Firestone told the departing lawyer that he would never amount to anything because he was a Democrat.


title: Wendell Willkie

text: Willkie became active in the Akron Democratic Party, becoming prominent enough while still with Firestone to introduce the Democratic presidential nominee, Ohio Governor James M. Cox, when he came to town during the 1920 campaign. He was a delegate to the 1924 Democratic National Convention, and supported New York Governor Al Smith through the record 103 ballots, when the nomination fell to former West Virginia congressman John W. Davis. More important to Willkie, though, was a fight against the Ku Klux Klan, which had become powerful in much of the nation and in the Democratic Party, but he and other delegates were unsuccessful in their attempt to include a plank in the party platform condemning the Klan. He also backed a proposed plank in support of the League of Nations that ultimately failed. In 1925, Willkie led a successful effort to oust Klan members on the Akron school board.


title: Wendell Willkie

text: After leaving Firestone in 1920, Willkie joined leading Akron law firm Mather & Nesbitt, which represented several local public utilities. Although he quickly gained a reputation as a leading trial lawyer, he was especially noted for presenting utility cases before the Ohio Public Utilities Commission. In 1925, he became president of the Akron Bar Association. One of Willkie's clients, Ohio Power & Light, was owned by New York-based Commonwealth & Southern Corporation (C&S), whose chairman, B.C. Cobb, noticed him. Cobb wrote to the senior partner of Willkie's firm, "I think he is a comer and we should keep an eye on him." In 1929, Cobb offered Willkie a salary of $36,000 to be corporate counsel to C&S, a job which would involve a move to New York, and Willkie accepted.


title: Wendell Willkie

text: Wendell and Edith Willkie moved to New York in October 1929, only weeks before the Wall Street Crash of 1929, and found an apartment overlooking Central Park. Initially intimidated by the size and anonymity of the big city, Wendell Willkie soon learned to love it. He attended the Broadway theatre, and read through ten newspapers each day. Willkie and his wife had little in common, and grew apart through the 1930s. He acquired a social life, and met Irita Van Doren, the book review editor of the "New York Herald Tribune" who became a friend, and later his lover. Cultured, brilliant and well connected, Van Doren introduced him to new books, new ideas, and new circles of friends. Unlike Van Doren, Willkie was indiscreet about their relationship, and their affair was well known to the reporters covering him during his 1940 presidential campaign. None of them printed a word.


title: Wendell Willkie

text: At C&S, Willkie rose rapidly under the eye of Cobb, impressing his superiors. Much of his work was outside New York City; Willkie was brought in to help try important cases or aid in the preparation of major legal briefs. Cobb, a pioneer in the electricity transmission business, had presided over the 1929 merger of 165 utilities that made C&S the largest electric utility holding company in the country. He promoted Willkie over 50 junior executives, designating the younger man as his successor. In January 1933, Willkie became president of C&S.


title: Wendell Willkie

text: Willkie maintained his interest in politics, and was a delegate to the 1932 Democratic National Convention. Since the incumbent Republican president, Herbert Hoover, was widely blamed for the Depression that had followed the stock market crash, the nominee would have a good chance of becoming president. The major candidates were Smith (the 1928 nominee), Smith's successor as New York's governor, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Speaker of the House John Nance Garner, and former Secretary of War Newton D. Baker. Willkie backed Baker, and was an assistant floor manager for his campaign. With a two-thirds majority needed to gain the Democratic presidential nomination, Willkie and others tried to deadlock the convention in the hope that it would turn to Baker. Roosevelt was willing to swing his votes to Baker in the event of a stalemate, but this did not occur, as Governor Roosevelt gained the nomination on the fourth ballot. Willkie, although disappointed, backed Roosevelt, and donated $150 to his successful campaign.


title: Wendell Willkie

text: Soon after taking office, President Roosevelt proposed legislation creating the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), a government agency with far-reaching influence that promised to bring flood control and cheap electricity to the impoverished Tennessee Valley. However, the TVA would compete with existing private power companies in the area, including C&S subsidiaries. Willkie appeared before the House Military Affairs Committee on April 14, 1933. He approved of the ideas for development of the Tennessee Valley, but felt that the government role should be limited to selling power generated by dams. Although the House of Representatives passed a bill limiting the TVA's powers, the Senate took the opposite stance, and the latter position prevailed.


title: Wendell Willkie

text: Negotiations took place through the remainder of 1933 for C&S to sell assets, including a transmission line, to allow the TVA to distribute energy to retail customers, leading to an agreement on January 4, 1934. TVA head David Lilienthal was impressed by Willkie, who left him "somewhat overwhelmed" and "pretty badly scared". C&S agreed to sell some of its properties in part of the Tennessee Valley, and the government agreed that the TVA would not compete with C&S in many areas. In October 1934, holders of securities issued by a C&S subsidiary filed suit to block the transfer. Willkie angrily denied that he had prompted the lawsuit, though plaintiffs' counsel proved later to have been paid by the Edison Electric Institute, of which Willkie was a board member. Willkie warned that New York capital might avoid Tennessee if the TVA experiment continued, and when Roosevelt gave a speech in praise of the agency, issued a statement rebutting him. By 1934, Willkie had become the spokesman for the private electric power industry.


title: Wendell Willkie

text: Amid this tension, Willkie and Roosevelt met for the first time, at the White House on December 13, 1934. The meeting was outwardly cordial, but each man told his own version of what occurred: the president boasted of having outtalked Willkie, while the executive sent a soon-to-be-famous telegram to his wife: "" Roosevelt decided that the utility holding companies had to be broken up, stated so in his 1935 State of the Union address and met with Willkie later in January to inform him of his intent. In the meantime, the companies did their best to sabotage the TVA; farmers were told by corporate representatives that lines from the new Norris Dam could not carry enough power to make a light bulb glow, and the company ran "spite lines" that might not even carry power in an effort to invoke the non-compete agreement over broad areas.


title: Wendell Willkie

text: Through 1935, as the breakup legislation wound through Congress, and litigation through the courts, Willkie was the industry's chief spokesman and lobbyist. When the Senate narrowly passed a bill for the breakup, Willkie made a series of speeches asking the public to oppose the legislation, and a storm of letters to congressmen followed. After the House of Representatives defeated the breakup clause, investigation proved that many of these communications were funded by the electric companies, signed with names taken from the telephone book, though Willkie was not implicated. Amid public anger, Roosevelt pressured Congress to pass a bill requiring the breakup to take place within three years.


title: Wendell Willkie

text: In September 1936, Roosevelt and Willkie met again at the White House, and a truce followed as both sides waited to see if Roosevelt would be re-elected over the Republican, Kansas Governor Alf Landon. Willkie, who voted for Landon, expected a narrow victory for the Republican, but Roosevelt won an overwhelming landslide as Landon won only Maine and Vermont. In December, a federal district court judge granted the C&S companies an injunction against the TVA, and negotiations broke off by Roosevelt's order as the litigation continued. Willkie took his case to the people, writing columns for major publications, and proposing terms for an agreement that "The New York Times" described as "sensible and realistic". He received favorable press, and many invitations to speak.


title: Wendell Willkie

text: The January 1938 Supreme Court ruling in "Alabama Power Co. v. Ickes", resolving the 1934 case, and the lifting of the injunction by an appeals court, sent the parties back to the negotiating table. Willkie kept the public pressure on: like most corporate executives, he had not spoken out against Roosevelt's New Deal policies, but in January stated in a radio debate that anti-utility policies were depressing share prices, making it hard to attract investment that would help America to recover. "For several years now, we have been listening to a bedtime story, telling us that the men who hold office in Washington are, by their very positions, endowed with a special virtue." "The Saturday Evening Post" dubbed Willkie "the man who talked back".


title: Wendell Willkie

text: Willkie and Lilienthal negotiated for a year, with Willkie wanting $88 million for C&S's properties in and around the Tennessee Valley, and the TVA offering $55 million. After a final, January 1939, legal defeat for C&S in the Supreme Court, the pace of the talks quickened, and on February 1, 1939, C&S sold the assets to the TVA for $78.6 million. Securities and Exchange Commission chairman William O. Douglas deemed Willkie to have outsmarted Lilienthal. Though defeated in the courts, Willkie had gained national stature for driving a hard bargain for his shareholders, and was seen by some as a potential presidential candidate in 1940.


title: Wendell Willkie

text: The 1940 presidential campaign was conducted against the backdrop of World War II raging in Europe. Although the United States remained neutral, the nation—and especially the Republican Party—was deeply divided between isolationists, who felt the nation should avoid any steps that could lead America into the war, and interventionists, who felt that America's survival depended upon helping the Allies defeat Nazi Germany. The three leading candidates for the 1940 Republican nomination were all isolationists to varying degrees: Senators Robert A. Taft of Ohio and Arthur Vandenberg of Michigan, and Thomas E. Dewey, the young (only 38 years old), "gangbusting" Manhattan District Attorney in New York City. Roosevelt's popularity had declined since the 1936 landslide, but many still hoped he would run for an unprecedented third term. He had long contemplated one, but made no announcement. Roosevelt's decision-making on this point is uncertain: as late as April 1940, he may have been thinking of retirement. If he stepped aside, possible candidates included Vice President Garner, Secretary of State Cordell Hull and Postmaster General and patronage handler James A. Farley.


title: Wendell Willkie

text: On the assumption Roosevelt would not seek a third term, Willkie had been spoken of as a possible Democratic presidential candidate as early as 1937. He raised his stock considerably when on January 3, 1938, he debated Assistant Attorney General Robert H. Jackson on the radio show "Town Meeting of the Air". With the topic of the debate being the cooperation between the public and private sectors, Willkie came across as a businessman with a heart, while Jackson appeared dull. A stream of positive press mentions for Willkie continued through 1938 and into 1939, culminating with a favorable cover story in "Time" magazine in July 1939. Willkie was initially dismissive of the many letters he received urging him to run for president, but soon changed his mind. Van Doren thought Willkie could be president, and worked to persuade her contacts. After hosting the Willkies for a weekend, "Fortune" magazine managing editor Russell Davenport became convinced Wendell Willkie had presidential timber; he devoted the magazine's April 1940 issue to Willkie, and later served as his campaign manager. In that issue, Willkie wrote an article, "We The People: A Foundation for a Political Platform for Recovery," urging both major parties to omit anti-business policies from their party platforms, protect individual rights, and oppose foreign aggression while supporting world trade. This piece won him applause and supporters from the press.


title: Wendell Willkie

text: Willkie never had any doubt that Roosevelt would run for a third term, and that his route to the White House would have to be through the Republican Party. In late 1939 he changed his registration from Democratic to Republican, and early in 1940 announced that he would accept the Republican nomination if it were offered to him. He blamed his allegiance shift on the Roosevelt policies that he deemed anti-business. He had voted for Landon in 1936, he said, and he felt that the Democrats no longer represented the values he advocated. As he later characterized it, "I did not leave my party. My party left me."


title: Wendell Willkie

text: The start of the war in September 1939 alarmed Americans, but the majority thought the U.S. should not get involved. Willkie spoke often about the threat to America and the need to aid Britain and other Allies. Willkie biographer Steve Neal wrote that the war "transformed Willkie from a big-business critic of the New Deal into a champion of freedom. And it gave his candidacy new purpose." Despite the chatter about Willkie, there were many who were skeptical about his chances should he seek the nomination. Kenneth F. Simpson, Republican National Committeeman from New York, initially thought the idea of a Willkie run to be silly. Indiana Senator James Eli Watson stated that he did not mind if "the town whore" joined the church, but she should not lead the choir the first week.


title: Wendell Willkie

text: Willkie did not enter the Republican primaries, placing his hope in a deadlocked convention. His campaign was composed mostly of political amateurs. New York lawyer Orem Root, Jr. (grandnephew of former Secretary of State Elihu Root) formed a network of local Willkie Clubs, which attracted a large membership among Republicans discontented with their leadership and seeking a new figure who might beat Roosevelt. He especially appealed to liberal, Eastern Establishment Republicans who saw none of the declared candidates to their liking. His rumpled suits, country-style haircut, and Indiana twang were reminiscent of ordinary midwesterners, which led to some derision as the efforts to nominate him became more obvious. Interior Secretary Harold L. Ickes mocked Willkie as "a simple, barefoot Wall Street lawyer". Alice Roosevelt Longworth stated that the Willkie campaign came "from the grass roots of ten thousand country clubs".


title: Wendell Willkie

text: His failure to enter primaries did not greatly disadvantage Willkie because most were "beauty contests" serving only to show voter preferences and not to elect delegates. The primaries were governed by a complex set of unwritten rules about who would enter which primary and Taft ran only in his native Ohio, where Dewey did not enter his name. Even those delegates who were pledged to support a candidate were not strongly committed: what was important to most Republicans was to field a nominee who could beat Roosevelt. The run-up to the June convention in Philadelphia coincided with Hitler's advance in Western Europe, and delegates had second thoughts about running an isolationist, let alone a young one without national experience such as Dewey. Willkie, who had spoken out against isolationism, and who was a successful executive, was an attractive possibility. Willkie made speeches widely, including in a tour of New England that paid off with promises of support, though delegates might first support a favorite son candidate for a ballot or two. Important converts to Willkie's cause included Minnesota Governor Harold Stassen and Massachusetts Governor Leverett Saltonstall. The move to Willkie was reflected in polls; he went from 3 to 29 percent in the seven weeks before the convention, while Dewey, the frontrunner, fell from 67 to 47 percent.


title: Wendell Willkie

text: The 1940 Republican National Convention opened at the Philadelphia Civic Center on June 24, 1940. As the delegates assembled, they discussed the war, the candidates, and Roosevelt's appointment of two Republican interventionists to his cabinet four days before the convention. Henry L. Stimson, Secretary of War under President Taft and Secretary of State under Hoover, was restored to the War position, and Landon's 1936 running mate, Frank Knox, was appointed Navy Secretary. The cabinet appointments divided the Republicans, who accused Roosevelt of dirty politics.


title: Wendell Willkie

text: Willkie arrived by train in Philadelphia on June 22, two days before the convention, and immediately attracted attention by walking from 30th Street Station to his hotel, answering questions from reporters and anyone else who could get close enough to be heard. Dewey, Vandenberg and Taft had large public headquarters, but Willkie's campaign was run from clandestine rooms at the Benjamin Franklin Hotel. Root's Willkie Clubs and other supporters bombarded the delegates with telegrams urging support for their candidate, to the annoyance of some. Key convention officials were Willkie supporters; these included House Minority Leader Joe Martin, Massachusetts' favorite son and permanent chairman of the convention. When the head of the Committee on Arrangements, Ralph Williams (deemed likely to support Taft), died just before the convention, he was succeeded by the vice chairman, Sam Pryor, a firm Willkie backer. This placed a Willkie supporter in charge of tickets for the public galleries. With noted publicist Steve Hannagan, the Willkie campaign gained tremendous momentum.


title: Wendell Willkie

text: The opening night of the convention saw the keynote speech by Governor Stassen; he subsequently announced his support for Willkie and became one of the candidate's floor managers. The second night featured a speech by the only living former president, Herbert Hoover, who hoped to stampede the convention to a third nomination. His address went almost unheard in the hall because of problems with the sound system. In the meantime, the Dewey campaign, faced with the German announcement that with France taken, Hitler's forces would sail on Britain, did its best to stem the flow of delegates to Willkie. Negotiations among Dewey, Taft, and Vandenberg came to nothing because none would accept less than the presidential nomination. A blaze of publicity followed Willkie wherever he went, as he caucused with delegates and appeared at press conferences with supporters, including the entire Connecticut delegation. A strong minority of African Americans still supported the Republicans, and Willkie met with a group of them, urging those delegates to visit him in the White House in 1941.


title: Wendell Willkie

text: Indiana Congressman Charles Halleck gave the nominating speech for Willkie on the evening of June 26, arguing that Willkie's recent conversion to the Republican Party was no reason not to nominate him, "is the Republican Party a closed corporation? Do you have to be born into it?" When Halleck mentioned Willkie's name, there were initially boos from some delegates, but they were quickly drowned out by those in the public balconies, who thunderously chanted, "We want Willkie!". Pryor had cut ticket allocations to delegations that were not for Willkie, and distributed thousands of standing room passes to Willkie partisans. The vocal support for Willkie among spectators led to complaints that other campaigns had been shorted in the distribution of tickets, but provided one of the convention's most dramatic moments.


title: Wendell Willkie

text: Dewey had predicted he would have 400 of the 501 votes needed to be nominated on the first ballot and he kept nothing in reserve so that he might show momentum in future ballots. When delegates first balloted on the afternoon of June 27, he had only 360 to 189 for Taft, 105 for Willkie, and 76 for Vandenberg. On the second ballot, Dewey began to slip, falling to 338 to Taft's 203 and 171 for Willkie. The losses greatly damaged Dewey's campaign, because other than the trivial losses suffered in the early rounds of balloting by Warren G. Harding in 1920, no Republican candidate had ever lost support from the previous ballot and won the nomination. Dewey came under pressure from his advisors to withdraw during the dinner break that followed the second ballot, and when the convention resumed to chants of "We want Willkie!" from the packed galleries, Dewey continued to slip as the convention became a two-horse race between Taft and Willkie. Listening by radio from his hotel room, Willkie refused to make a deal to get support from Taft delegates in exchange for making the Ohioan his running mate, and became convinced he would lose on the fifth ballot. Dewey had planned to go to the convention and withdraw, hoping to stop Willkie by endorsing Taft, but by the time he decided this, the fifth ballot was about to begin and he could not get to the Civic Center in time. Willkie led with 429 delegates after the fifth ballot, while Taft held 377 and Dewey only 57. The large states whose votes still were not committed to one of the two leaders were Pennsylvania (Governor Arthur James was the favorite son) and Michigan, most of whose delegates stayed with Senator Vandenberg. Although Willkie had thus far refrained from making deals, to get Michigan he agreed to allow the Republican organization there to pick that state's federal judges. The sixth ballot, held at 12:20 am on June 28, saw Taft, then Willkie take the lead. As those in the gallery continued to call for Willkie, Vandenberg released his delegates, most of whom went to Willkie. Pennsylvania also broke for him, making Willkie the Republican nominee for president on a vote that was made unanimous.


title: Wendell Willkie

text: Willkie had offered the vice presidential nomination to Connecticut Governor Raymond Baldwin, a key supporter, but scuttled those plans after his advisors and Republican officials felt that a New York-Connecticut ticket would not give sufficient geographic balance. They urged Willkie to select Senator Charles McNary of Oregon instead. A lawyer, advocate of public power, and farmer, McNary was popular and respected in the West. Willkie agreed, and got Baldwin to withdraw as others persuaded McNary, who had called Willkie a tool of Wall Street after arriving in Philadelphia. The convention dutifully nominated McNary. Before departing Philadelphia, Willkie went to the Civic Center to appear before the delegates who had chosen him, becoming the first Republican nominee to speak to the convention after gaining its endorsement:


title: Wendell Willkie

text: After the convention, Willkie returned to New York. When he went to the movies or play, he received a standing ovation. He resigned from C&S on July 8, 1940, confident that even if he lost his presidential bid, he would not lack for work. He had Republican National Committee (RNC) chairman John Hamilton dismissed on the advice of some of his advisors, who felt Hamilton was too conservative and isolationist, though the former chairman was given the post of executive director with partial responsibility for the Willkie campaign. Congressman Martin became RNC chair. At a time when little campaigning was done until after Labor Day, Willkie left on a five-week working vacation to The Broadmoor, a resort in Colorado Springs, but found neither peace nor privacy.


title: Wendell Willkie

text: Roosevelt had been surprised by the outcome of the Republican convention, having expected to oppose a conservative isolationist. The polls showed Willkie behind by only six points, and the president expected this to be a more difficult race than he had faced in his defeats of Hoover and Landon. Roosevelt felt that Willkie's nomination would remove the war issue from the campaign. Roosevelt was nominated by the Democratic convention in Chicago in July, though he stated that because of the world crisis, he would not actively campaign, leaving that to surrogates. The fact that both major-party presidential candidates favored intervention frustrated isolationists, who considered wooing Charles Lindbergh as a third-party candidate.


title: Wendell Willkie

text: Willkie formally accepted the nomination at Elwood on August 17 before a crowd of at least 150,000, the largest political gathering in U.S. history to that point. It was an extremely hot day, and Willkie, who tried to read his speech from a typed manuscript without enlargement, failed to ignite the crowd. He remained in Rushville, where he owned farmland, over the next month, trying to become more associated with his native state than with Wall Street. He gave interviews to reporters there, and his firm support of Roosevelt's aid to the Allies led Congressman Martin and Senator McNary to support a peacetime draft despite the strident objections of many Republicans and some Democrats. Roosevelt contacted Willkie through intermediaries to ensure the Republican candidate would not make a political issue out of the Destroyers for Bases Agreement; Willkie was supportive of the transfer, though he felt Congress should act, and opposed Roosevelt sending armaments to Britain by executive order.


title: Wendell Willkie

text: Conservatives and isolationists had little enthusiasm for the Willkie campaign, and the moderates wanted to see stronger positions on progressive issues and foreign policy. Publisher Henry Luce decried both Roosevelt and Willkie for failing to be honest with the American people, "America will never be ready for any war "until she makes her mind up there is going to be a war"." (italics in original) Despite his pledge not to campaign, Roosevelt made inspection tours to military installations, well covered by the press. The president did not mention Willkie by name, seeking to avoid giving him publicity. According to Susan Dunn in her book in the 1940 campaign, this forced Willkie "to box against a phantom opponent and carry on a one-sided partisan debate ... Even in Willkie's speeches, Roosevelt occupied center stage". Willkie promised to keep New Deal social welfare programs intact, expand Social Security, and provide full employment, a job for everyone: "I pledge a new world".


title: Wendell Willkie

text: On September 12, Willkie began a whistle-stop tour by train, and between then and November 2, he reached 31 of the 48 states. He did not visit the Solid South, though he spoke in Texas, hoping to win it as Hoover had in 1928. Willkie filled the Los Angeles Coliseum with 70,000 middle-class supporters, but reporters saw few working-class people at his rallies, and he cancelled some appearances at auto plants in the Midwest. Other people in working-class areas booed the candidate, held up signs in support of Roosevelt, or pelted his motorcade with overripe fruit. Although Edith Willkie accompanied her husband on his tour (he had little time for contact with Van Doren), she disliked the media attention and did not give interviews, completing the campaign without ever giving a speech. On one occasion, she looked at her husband and stated, "Politics makes strange bedfellows". The Democrats knew of Willkie's affair with Van Doren, but the Republicans had letters from Henry A. Wallace, the Democratic vice presidential nominee, to his former guru, Russian mystic Nicholas Roerich, and neither issue became a factor in the campaign.


title: Wendell Willkie

text: With polls released on October 6 showing Roosevelt well ahead, Willkie began to sound an isolationist theme, accusing Roosevelt of being a warmonger. Many of Willkie's speeches to that point had been on domestic issues, but he had been advised by Martin, Hamilton, and other advisors that the war was the issue the voters really cared about. Willkie began to argue that Roosevelt would not keep the U.S. out of war, but that he would. He was given room to make this argument by the United Kingdom's increasing success in the Battle of Britain, as it was clear a German invasion was not imminent. The polls showed voters responding positively to this new tack, and Willkie kept on this course for the remainder of the campaign. Roosevelt reacted by scheduling five speeches for the final days, in which he proposed to rebut Willkie's "falsifications". The president stated, "I have said this before, but I shall say it again and again and again. Your boys are not going to be sent into any foreign war." Willkie was prone to ad lib remarks, which sometimes led to gaffes: addressing steelworkers, he pledged to appoint a new Secretary of Labor, "and it will not be a woman either". This allusion to Secretary Frances Perkins, the only woman to hold a cabinet position in American history to that point, did not aid him among female voters.


title: Wendell Willkie

text: Willkie concluded his campaign on November 2 with a large rally at New York's Madison Square Garden. Polls showed him four points behind Roosevelt, but with a trend towards the Republicans. Many pundits expected a tight race. On Election Day, November 5, 1940, the returns were initially encouraging, but quickly turned against Willkie. By 11 pm, radio commentators were reporting that Roosevelt had won a third term. Willkie received 45 percent of the popular vote to Roosevelt's 55 percent. The president received 27.2 million votes to Willkie's 22.3 million, and won 449 to 82 in the Electoral College. Willkie won 10 states to the president's 38 though he did better than Hoover and Landon had against Roosevelt. Willkie's popular vote total of 22,348,480 set a record for a Republican not broken until Eisenhower in 1952.


title: Wendell Willkie

text: The endorsement of CIO head John L. Lewis probably gave Willkie Michigan, and he gained ground in the suburbs and rural areas, but Roosevelt consolidated his 1936 coalition of working-class Americans, ethnics, and white Southerners to take the election. On the evening of November 11, Willkie gave a nationwide radio address, urging those who had voted for him not to oppose Roosevelt on all issues, but to give support where it was called for. In late November, Willkie interrupted a Florida vacation for a speech he concluded by offering a toast "to the health and happiness of the President of the United States"; Roosevelt confided to his son James: "I'm happy I've won, but I'm sorry Wendell lost".


title: Wendell Willkie

text: Although defeated in the election, Willkie had become a major figure on the public scene, and at age 48, was deemed likely to remain one for years to come. Landon had received some 6,000 letters commiserating with him in his defeat; Willkie received over 100,000. Financially independent, he was in no hurry to decide among the many offers of employment from top law firms and major corporations. He resumed his affair with Van Doren.


title: Wendell Willkie

text: While on vacation, Willkie decided his next cause should be military aid to embattled Britain, and announced support of the president's Lend-Lease program on January 13, 1941. Lend-Lease was highly unpopular in the Republican Party, and Willkie's announcement created a firestorm, with Landon and Taft decrying his actions. Former RNC chairman Hamilton wrote that of the almost 200 Republican members of the House and Senate, "Willkie couldn't dig up ten friends if his life depended on it."


title: Wendell Willkie

text: Roosevelt, both appreciating Willkie's talents, and seeking to divide and conquer his opposition, had been mulling over ways his former opponent might be of use. The president's onetime advisor, Justice Felix Frankfurter, had suggested that Willkie should travel across the Atlantic to demonstrate bipartisan support of Britain. Willkie had already been planning a visit in support for Britain. Roosevelt believed that the visit of the nominal head of the opposition party would be far more effective in demonstrating American support than sending one of his advisors.


title: Wendell Willkie

text: Willkie visited the president at the White House for the first time as an ally on January 19, 1941, the evening before Roosevelt's third swearing-in. The president asked Willkie to be his informal personal representative to Britain, and Willkie accepted. Eleanor Roosevelt recorded that family members and White House staff found excuses to observe Willkie, and she would have done so herself had she been aware of the visit as it was happening. Roosevelt urged Willkie to see W. Averell Harriman and Harry Hopkins, both in London on missions from Roosevelt, and gave his former rival a letter to be hand-delivered to the British prime minister, Winston Churchill. At this time it was not routine for politicians to travel abroad; McNary, with considerable influence in foreign affairs, had never left North America. Thus, there was much public attention to Willkie's mission. He departed from New York Municipal Field for London on January 22.


title: Wendell Willkie

text: Upon arrival, Willkie told the press, "I want to do all I can to get the United States to give England the utmost aid possible in her struggle". Willkie saw the damage Nazi bombing had inflicted on Britain, visiting bombed-out sites in London, Birmingham, Coventry, Manchester and Liverpool. In London during the Blitz, he walked the streets at night without helmet or gas mask (until Churchill gave him some), visiting bomb shelters. Churchill hosted Willkie at an official luncheon at 10 Downing Street and had him as a guest at Chequers. In his writings, Churchill recalled "a long talk with this most able and forceful man".


title: Wendell Willkie

text: Although it was cut short by Roosevelt's desire to have him testify before Congress on Lend-Lease, Willkie's visit to Britain was deemed a triumph. Willkie also went to Ireland, hoping to persuade Éamon de Valera to abandon neutrality, but his urging was unavailing. Willkie left London for Washington on February 5; because of the risk of being shot down by Nazi aircraft, the roundabout journey home took four days. He testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on February 11, and his support was key to passing Lend-Lease.


title: Wendell Willkie

text: Willkie's Senate testimony made him the leading interventionist outside the government, with Lindbergh (who had testified against Lend-Lease) the leading isolationist, and they debated in the pages of magazines. Roosevelt weighed in, backing his former opponent in a radio address on March 29. "The leader of the Republican Party himself—Mr. Wendell Willkie—in word and in action is showing what patriotic Americans mean by rising above partisanship and rallying to the common cause." That same month, a Gallup poll showed that 60 percent of Americans believed Willkie would have made a good president.


title: Wendell Willkie

text: In April 1941, Willkie joined the New York law firm of Miller, Boston, and Owen as a senior partner, with the firm changing its name to Willkie, Owen, Otis, Farr, and Gallagher. Two months later, he agreed to represent motion picture producers before a Senate subcommittee which was investigating claims that Hollywood was producing pro-war propaganda. Willkie defended the rights of the studios to make films that reflected their views, and warned, "the rights of the individuals mean nothing if freedom of speech and freedom of the press are destroyed." Congress took no further action.


title: Wendell Willkie

text: In late 1941, Willkie fought for the repeal of the Neutrality Act. In September, Lindbergh accused American Jews of "agitating for war"; Willkie responded that the aviator's speech was "the most un-American made in my time". Willkie lobbied Republican congressmen to repeal the act. The measure passed Congress with the aid of Republican votes, though most of that party voted against it. Roosevelt invited Willkie to dedicate Mount Rushmore, but because of other commitments, Willkie could not. Roosevelt also sought to have Willkie join his administration, which the Republican was reluctant to do, wishing to preserve independence of word and action.


title: Wendell Willkie

text: After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, Willkie offered his full support to Roosevelt. Willkie was interested in the post of war production czar, but that position went to Donald M. Nelson. Labor Secretary Perkins offered to have Willkie arbitrate between management and labor in war industries, but Willkie declined after White House officials informed the press. In early 1942, Willkie considered a run for Governor of New York. He later stated that Roosevelt had been willing to endorse him, but Willkie ultimately concluded that the Dewey forces were too strong and a defeat might eliminate him from a possible run for president in 1944. In July, Willkie proposed to Roosevelt that he go on another foreign mission, and the following month Willkie announced that he would be visiting the Soviet Union, China, and the Middle East. Dewey wrote, "I hear he is going to Russia before the Republican [state] convention, so he will be where he belongs and I hope he stays there until Christmas".


title: Wendell Willkie

text: According to Dunn, Willkie's mission was to be Roosevelt's personal representative, "demonstrating American unity, gathering information, and discussing with key heads of state plans for the postwar future". After leaving the U.S. on August 26, Willkie's first stop was in North Africa, where he met General Montgomery and toured the front at El Alamein. In Beirut, he stayed with General de Gaulle, leader of the Free French. In Jerusalem, Willkie met with Jews and Arabs, told the British rulers of Palestine that both peoples should be brought into the government, and he later wrote that the conflict there was so ancient, it was unrealistic to think that it could "be solved by good will and simple honesty". Willkie had been moved to add the Soviet Union to his itinerary when three Western reporters there urged him by telegram to do so. There, he met with Stalin, and upon his return he advocated more liberal Lend-Lease terms for the USSR. In China, Willkie was hosted by Chiang Kai-shek and was deeply fascinated by Madame Chiang. Willkie was taken to the front in order to observe the Chinese military forces in their fight against the Japanese, and he spoke out against colonialism, in China and elsewhere. His statements were reported widely in Britain, angering Churchill, who responded by saying, "We mean to hold our own. I have not become the King's First Minister in order to preside over the liquidation of the British Empire."


title: Wendell Willkie

text: While in the USSR, Willkie urged the opening of a second front against the Germans; when reporters asked Roosevelt about those comments, the president responded flippantly by saying that he had read the headlines but had not considered the speculative comments worth the reading. This angered Willkie, and on his return from his 49-day trip, he confronted Roosevelt about it when making his report at the White House.


title: Wendell Willkie

text: On October 26, 1942, Willkie made a "Report to the People", telling Americans about his trip in a radio speech heard by about 36 million people. The following April, he published "One World", a book Van Doren edited, in which he recounted his travels and urged America to join a supernational global organization after the war was successfully concluded. The book was an immediate bestseller, selling a million copies in its first month. It was especially influential because Willkie was seen by many as having transcended partisan politics. According to Samuel Zipp's "The Idealist", Willkie was interested in creating 'a body of public opinion' to force policymakers and politicians of both parties to embrace the robust multilateralism he envisioned.


title: Wendell Willkie

text: During his 1940 campaign, Willkie had pledged to integrate the civil service and armed forces, and proudly pointed to what he deemed the strongest civil rights plank in history in the Republican platform. He also promised to end racial segregation in Washington, D.C. He gained the endorsements of the two largest African American newspapers, the "Pittsburgh Courier" and the "Baltimore Afro-American". With Willkie running to the left of Roosevelt on civil rights, Roosevelt feared that blacks would return to their traditional home in the Republican Party, and he secured several prominent promotions or hirings of African Americans. Roosevelt was successful in keeping the majority of the black vote. After the election, Willkie promised to keep fighting for civil rights.


title: Wendell Willkie

text: Willkie warned Republicans that only a full commitment to equal rights for minorities would woo African Americans back to the party, and he criticized Roosevelt for yielding to Southern racists among the Democrats. Willkie addressed a convention of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1942, one of the most prominent politicians to do so up to that point. He urged integration of the armed forces, and when a violent race riot broke out in Detroit in June 1943, he went on national radio in order to criticize both parties for ignoring racial issues. When the movie hearings of 1941 ended without further action, Willkie had been made chairman of the board of Twentieth-Century Fox. In 1943, he worked with Walter White, executive secretary of the NAACP, to try to convince Hollywood to give blacks better treatment in films. Movie moguls promised changes, and some films featured blacks in major roles, but faced with objections from white Southerners, they reverted to giving blacks stereotyped roles after Willkie's death in 1944, such as servants. After his death, the NAACP named its headquarters the Wendell Willkie Memorial Building.


title: Wendell Willkie

text: On November 9, 1942, soon after making his reports to Roosevelt and the American people, Willkie argued the case of "Schneiderman v. United States" before the Supreme Court. William Schneiderman, secretary of the California Communist Party, was a naturalized American until the government revoked his citizenship, stating that he had concealed his membership on his application for naturalization in 1927. Two lower federal courts upheld the denaturalization. Representing a communist, even in wartime, did nothing to shore up Willkie's diminishing support in the Republican Party, but he wrote to a friend saying, "I am sure I am right in representing Schneiderman. Of all the times when civil liberties should be defended, it is now." In his argument Willkie quoted Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson by saying that the people could, if they deemed it necessary, remake the government, and he stated that Marx's view of revolution was mild by comparison. In 1943, the Supreme Court ruled for Schneiderman, 5–3, restoring his citizenship. Although Willkie refrained from criticizing Roosevelt's internment of Japanese Americans, he stated in a speech that war was no excuse for depriving groups of people of their rights. He spoke out against those who blamed the Jews for the war, warning against "witch-hanging and mob-baiting". For his activities, he received the American Hebrew Medal for 1942.


title: Wendell Willkie

text: Willkie spent much of 1943 preparing for a second presidential run, addressing Republican and nonpartisan groups. He did not meet with Roosevelt; with the presidential election approaching and with both men likely to run in it as candidates, their continued association would have been awkward. Although they differed with him on many issues, Republican leaders recognized Willkie's appeal and they had wanted him to campaign for the party in the 1942 midterm elections, but he went around the world instead. The huge publicity received by the titular head of the Republican Party as an emissary for a Democratic president frustrated leading Republicans. In 1942, the Republicans gained seats in both the House and the Senate. Thous they still remained in the minority, they formed a Conservative coalition with Southern Democrats that took control of domestic issues in Congress. Few Republican members of Congress were by then willing to support Willkie, and he dropped to second place behind General Douglas MacArthur in polls of likely voters in the party's 1944 presidential primaries. By 1943, even liberal Democrats did not doubt Willkie's progressive credentials. He spoke of appointing an African American to either the cabinet or the Supreme Court, and he warned California's Republican committee that the New Deal was irreversible and he stated that all they would get by opposing it was oblivion.


title: Wendell Willkie

text: Willkie made his candidacy clear in an interview with "Look" magazine in early October 1943, arguing that a return to isolationism would lead the party to disaster. He decided to enter several presidential primaries in order to demonstrate his public support of the party, and he chose Wisconsin, with a primary on April 4, 1944, as the first major test. Willkie had not taken Wisconsin's electoral votes in 1940, though he had won in all parts of the state except Milwaukee. His advisors feared the large German-American vote in Wisconsin, which had contributed to the state being firmly isolationist until Pearl Harbor. None of the other major candidates—Dewey, Stassen, MacArthur and Ohio Governor John Bricker—spoke in Wisconsin; MacArthur and Stassen were on active duty and could not do so. Willkie stated that if he did badly in Wisconsin, he would end his campaign.


title: Wendell Willkie

text: The New Hampshire primary had not taken on the significance it later would, and Willkie won it on March 14, taking six out of eleven delegates. This was deemed a disappointment because he had spoken there many times since 1940, and was expected to do better. In Wisconsin, Willkie ran a slate of delegates led by future governor Vernon W. Thomson, and he devoted two weeks to campaigning there. He was endorsed by most newspapers, but polls showed him well behind Dewey both in the state and nationwide.


title: Wendell Willkie

text: On March 16, his first day of campaigning in Wisconsin, Willkie made eight speeches, and the pace took a toll on his voice. The weather did not cooperate, and he travelled through a blizzard to reach a rally in the northern part of the state. Willkie attracted large crowds in most places, and he told them that the Republican party would fail unless it accepted the New Deal and recognized the need for the U.S. to remain active in the world after the war. The Democrats, he alleged, had been in office too long and they did not have the vision that was needed in the postwar world. Willkie's speech in Milwaukee attracted 4,000 people to a hall that could hold 6,000, and he left the state on the 29th for Nebraska, where he had also entered the primary. Once he was gone, Dewey's backers, including most of the Wisconsin Republican leadership, flooded the state with billboard advertisements and radio commercials. On April 4, Dewey gained 17 of Wisconsin's 24 delegates, Stassen 4, and MacArthur 3. Willkie's delegates ran last in every district. The following night, after giving his speech in Omaha, Willkie addressed the crowd:


title: Wendell Willkie

text: Defeated in his second bid for the White House, Willkie announced that he was returning to the practice of law, but his friends doubted that he would be content there. Roosevelt was anxious to dump Vice President Wallace from the ticket in his bid for a fourth term, and he had an intermediary sound out Willkie about running in Wallace's place. Willkie was reluctant even to respond, knowing that Roosevelt had made promises to potential running mates which he did not follow through on. There were further discussions between Willkie and the White House, of which third parties were aware though the details are not known; the vice presidential nomination went to Harry S. Truman. Willkie got Roosevelt interested in a new liberal party which would be formed once peace came that would combine the left of the two existing major parties, but Willkie broke off contact with the White House after there were leaks of this to the press, because he felt that Roosevelt had used him for political gain. Roosevelt sent a letter expressing his regret for the leak, but that too was printed in the papers, and Willkie stated, "I've been lied to for the last time."


title: Wendell Willkie

text: In spite of their breach, Roosevelt continued to try to conciliate Willkie. Roosevelt's son Elliott later stated that his father hoped to have Willkie be the first Secretary General of the United Nations, and the two men agreed to meet later in the year. Willkie had not been invited to speak at the 1944 Republican National Convention in Chicago that nominated Dewey for president, and he declined a pass as an "honored guest". Dewey hoped to get Willkie's endorsement, and he sent his foreign policy advisor, John Foster Dulles, to see Willkie. The former candidate refused to be drawn, and he made no endorsement before he died. Willkie wrote two articles for "Collier's", one urging an internationalist foreign policy, and the other demanding advances in civil rights for African Americans. He also explored becoming a newspaper publisher.


title: Wendell Willkie

text: Willkie had long been neglectful of his health and diet, smoking heavily and rarely exercising. His heavy drinking had charmed the reporters in Philadelphia in 1940, but by 1944 it was becoming a problem. In August 1944, Willkie felt weak while traveling by train to his Rushville home. There, he suffered a heart attack, but he had to be persuaded to see a doctor and he refused to be admitted to a hospital.


title: Wendell Willkie

text: Willkie's condition only worsened as the weeks went on. He went to New York by rail in mid-September, but on the trip he was stricken with another heart attack. Although his advisors told him to seek treatment and abandon the trip, Willkie pressed on. When he arrived in New York, Willkie was in great pain and his press secretary called an ambulance to take him to Lenox Hill Hospital. He recovered to some extent, enough so that his friends expected him to be discharged. He spent time working on the galleys of his second book, "An American Program", and planned future projects. On October 4, Willkie caught a throat infection, which was treated with penicillin. As he was recovering, Willkie's now chronic heart attacks struck again and he suffered three more attacks on October 7. The hospital, which had been issuing reassuring bulletins to the public, was now forced to inform the public that Willkie's condition had worsened and that he was critically ill. The next morning, Willkie suffered one last attack, which proved fatal. He had suffered over a dozen heart attacks in Lenox Hill Hospital.


title: Wendell Willkie

text: Roosevelt released a statement applauding Willkie's "tremendous courage" which "prompted him more than once to stand alone ... In this hour of grave crisis the nation loses a great citizen." War Secretary Stimson offered to have Willkie buried in Arlington National Cemetery, but Edith Willkie wanted her husband to be buried in his native Indiana, at Rushville. His casket was placed in the center aisle of the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church; 60,000 people filed by his casket, and 35,000 crowded around the church during the service, including many blacks—as, Eleanor Roosevelt noted in her column, was fitting. Wendell and Edith Willkie rest together in Rushville's East Hill Cemetery, the gravesite was marked by a cross, and a book was carved in stone, designed by sculptor Malvina Hoffman, and inscribed with quotations from "One World".


title: Wendell Willkie

text: Willkie's 1940 running mate, McNary, died eight months before him, on February 25. It was the first, and to date, the only time both members of a major-party presidential ticket died during the term for which they sought election. Had they been elected, the Presidential Succession Act of 1886 would have been invoked upon Willkie's death, and his Secretary of State would have been sworn in as acting president for the remainder of the term ending on January 20, 1945.


title: Wendell Willkie

text: Soon after the 1940 convention, Roosevelt described Willkie's nomination as a "Godsend to our country", because it ensured that the presidential race would not turn on the issue of aid to Britain. Walter Lippmann believed Willkie's nomination to have been crucial to Britain's survival, "second only to the Battle of Britain, the sudden rise and nomination of Willkie was the decisive event, perhaps providential, which made it possible to rally the free world when [Britain] was almost conquered. Under any other leadership but his the Republican party in 1940 would have turned its back on Great Britain, causing all who resisted Hitler to feel abandoned". Charles Peters wrote that "it is arguable that [Willkie's] impact on [the United States] and the world was greater than that of most men who actually held the office [of president]. At a crucial moment in history, he stood for the right things at the right time." When Georgia Senator Zell Miller, a Democrat, gave the keynote address at the 2004 Republican National Convention, he urged unity instead of partisan strife in the War on Terror, and recalled Willkie's actions, "He gave Roosevelt the critical support he needed for a peacetime draft, an unpopular idea at the time. And he made it clear that he would rather lose the election than make national security a partisan campaign issue."


title: Wendell Willkie

text: Historian Hugh Ross argued that in gaining the nomination, Willkie "gave exceptional promise of being a winner. There were ample precedents from American political history in which a minority party, queasy over prospects for survival, bypassed professional leadership in order to entrust its political fortunes to a man without political experience. In most of the previous instances, the nomination had gone to a military man. In 1940, it went to a businessman." Richard Moe, in his book on the 1940 election, suggested that the nomination of Willkie left long-lasting scars on the Republican Party, with conservatives angered by the success of its Eastern Establishment wing; "whatever else it did, Philadelphia gave birth to the bitter proprietary division within the Republican Party, one accentuated by ideology and geography, that would define the party for decades to come." Among those converted from isolationism by Willkie's oratory, and who worked intensely on the Willkie campaign in Michigan, was Gerald R. Ford, who wrote many years later in his memoirs, "I now realize that my participation did not make much difference at all to the political fate of Wendell Willkie. But it made a lot of difference to me."


title: Wendell Willkie

text: Correspondent and author Warren Moscow wrote that after 1940, Willkie helped Roosevelt, who was always careful not to go too far in front of public opinion, "as a pace-setter with the President's blessing". Willkie's global trip and the publication of "One World" increased public support for the idea that the United States should remain active internationally once the war was won, and should not withdraw into a new isolationism. Indiana University president Herman B Wells noted that "One World" "has had such a profound influence on the thinking of Americans". Historian Samuel Zipp noted, "He launched the most successful and unprecedented challenge to conventional nationalism in modern American history ... He urged [Americans] to imagine and feel a new form of reciprocity with the world, one that millions of Americans responded to with unprecedented urgency."


title: Wendell Willkie

text: His advocacy came at a cost to his standing in the Republican Party. According to Moscow, "his appeal for the party to be the party of the Loyal Opposition, supporting the President, was treason to the diehards; his trip around the world marked him as a Presidential agent seeking to infiltrate the Republican Party". This decline was accelerated as it became apparent that Willkie was a liberal, standing to the left of Roosevelt and proposing even higher taxes than the president was willing to stomach.


title: Wendell Willkie

text: In 1965, Indiana University completed Willkie Quadrangle, an 11-story undergraduate residence hall, on the Bloomington campus that was named after Willkie.


title: Wendell Willkie

text: In 1992, the United States Postal Service marked the centennial of Willkie's birth with a 75-cent stamp in the Great Americans series. Dunn concluded that Willkie "died as he had lived, an idealist, a humanitarian—and a lone wolf". Willkie's biographer, Neal, wrote of him,


title: Sexuality in Islam

text: Views and laws about sexuality in Islam are largely predicated on the Quran, the sayings of Muhammad ("hadith") and the rulings of religious leaders ("fatwa") confining sexual activity to marital relationships between men and women. Islamic scholarly perspectives and rulings on sexuality are codified as either sexual jurisprudence () or marital jurisprudence (), which both in turn also contain components of Islamic family jurisprudence, Islamic marital jurisprudence, hygienical and criminal jurisprudence. While most traditions discourage celibacy, all encourage strict chastity, modesty and privacy with regard to any relationships between genders, holding forth that their intimacy as perceived within Islam is largely reserved for marriage. This sensitivity to gender difference, gender seclusion and modesty outside of marriage can be seen in current prominent aspects of Islam, such as interpretations of Islamic dress and degrees of gender segregation.


title: Sexuality in Islam

text: In Islam, prohibitions against extramarital sex are strong, and permissible marital sexual activities are familiar subjects. Marriage is the only permitted sexual relationship, and it is described in Quran and hadith as bringing about strong love and closeness. Contraceptive use is permitted for birth control. Homosexual acts are strictly forbidden.


title: Sexuality in Islam

text: Islam has strongly emphasized the concept of conservatism, decency and modesty ("haya"); besides the lawful sexuality, priority is given to modesty and chastity both inside and outside the marital relationships. The Quran warns against immoral lust ("fahisha"), and the hadith literature, modesty has been described as "a part of faith". Islam strictly discourages nudity and public nakedness, and it is also forbidden for spouses to spread the secrets of what happens between them in their private marital life.


title: Sexuality in Islam

text: Islam has a long tradition of pragmatism with respect to sex education, with sex being readily discussed and not subject or taboo as long as the topics under discussion were Islamically permissible. A hadith attributed to Muhammad's wife Aisha states that the Ansar women in particular were not shy about asking questions regarding sexual matters as long as they are halal. From as early as the 14th-century, entire manuscripts devoted to Islamic sexual education were being written in Arabic in Baghdad, which at that time was a great literary centre within the Muslim world.


title: Sexuality in Islam

text: In modern practice, sex education is not recommended until the approach of puberty, children are expected to be taught the signs of this and the characteristics which distinguish men from women. Islamic tradition also encourages that sexual education be entwined with morality, explaining Islamic rules involving the covering the intimate parts of the body, ‘"awrah", and the Islamic positions on modesty, chastity and avoiding promiscuity.


title: Sexuality in Islam

text: "Khitan" or "Khatna" (, ) is the term for male circumcision carried out as a cultural rite by Muslims and is considered a sign of belonging to the wider Islamic community. Whether or not it should be carried out after converting to Islam is debated among Islamic scholars. The Quran does not mention circumcision, either explicitly or implicitly, in any verse, while some hadiths mention circumcision in a list of practices known as "fitra" (acts considered to be of a refined person). However, different hadiths contradict on whether circumcision is part of fitra or not. According to some traditions Muhammad was born without a foreskin (aposthetic), while others maintain that his grandfather Abdul-Muttalib circumcised him when he was seven days old. Islamic sources that advocate for circumcision also do not fix a particular time for circumcision, which can depend on family, region and country. The preferred age is usually seven although some Muslims are circumcised as early as the seventh day after birth and as late as the commencement of puberty.


title: Sexuality in Islam

text: "Bāligh" or "bulūgh" () refers to a person who has reached puberty or adulthood, and has full responsibility under Islamic law. In Islam, human life is divided into two parts, the first is before adolescence or childhood, when man is considered innocent, and the second is after adolescence ("bulugiyat") or adulthood, when the Islamic law is fully applied to man and the hereafter is judged. If a person dies before he becomes an adult, he is considered to be in heaven.


title: Sexuality in Islam

text: The minimum age for puberty in boys is approximately 11 lunar years, and in the absence of symptoms, approximately 15 lunar years , or may vary by geographical region; in the case of boys, the characteristics or signs of puberty , pubic hair growth and semen discharge (wet dreams). The minimum age of puberty for girls is approximately 9 lunar years and if no symptoms are found, it can be considered as approximately 15 or may vary by geographical region. The characteristics or signs of puberty in girls are pubic hair, menstruation, wet dreams and the ability to conceive.


title: Sexuality in Islam

text: In issues pertaining to marriage, "baligh" refers to the legal expression "hatta tutiqa'l-rijal", which means a wedding may not take place until a girl is physically fit for sexual intercourse. This can also, though not necessarily, coincide with the reaching of sexual maturity manifested by menses or nocturnal emission. Only after a separate condition called "rushd", or intellectual maturity to handle one's own property, is reached can a wife receive her bridewealth.


title: Sexuality in Islam

text: In Islam and Islamic law ("sharia"), marriage ("nikāḥ" نکاح) is a legal and social contract between two individuals that outlines the rights and responsibilities of the groom and bride. Polygyny is permitted in Islam under some conditions. Both the groom and the bride are to consent to the marriage of their own free wills. Marriage is an act of Islam and is strongly recommended. In Islamic jurisprudence, the primary purpose of sex between marriage and concubinage is procreation. Islam recognizes the strong sexual urge and desire for reproduction and supports a pro-natalist view of procreation.


title: Sexuality in Islam

text: Divorce in Islam can take a variety of forms, some executed by a husband personally and some executed by a religious court on behalf of a plaintiff wife who is successful in her legal divorce petition for valid cause.


title: Sexuality in Islam

text: In addition to "nikah", there is a different fixed-term marriage known as ("temporary marriage") permitted only by the Twelver branch of Shi'ite for a pre-fixed period. There is also Nikah Misyar, a non-temporary marriage with the removal of some conditions such as living together, permitted by some Sunni scholars.


title: Sexuality in Islam

text: In Islam, the husband should have intercourse with his wife according to what satisfies her, so long as that does not harm him physically or keep him from earning a living. The husband is obliged to treat his wife in a kind and reasonable manner. Part of that kind and reasonable treatment is intercourse, with tradition stipulating that couples should not forego intercourse for longer than four months. According to other scholars, there is no time limit. However, most scholars say that, it is obligatory on women alike not to refuse their husbands if they call them, so long as the woman who is called is not menstruating or sick in such a way that intercourse will be harmful to her, or observing an obligatory fast. If she refuses with no excuse, then she is cursed.


title: Sexuality in Islam

text: Interfaith marriages are recognized between Muslims and Non-Muslim "People of the Book" (usually Jews, Christians, and Sabians). According to the traditional interpretation of Islamic law ("sharīʿa"), a Muslim man is allowed to marry a Christian or Jewish woman but this ruling does not apply to women who belong to other Non-Muslim religious groups, whereas a Muslim woman is not allowed to marry a Non-Muslim man of any Non-Muslim religious group. However, marriage with an idolatress or idolater is forbidden,


title: Sexuality in Islam

text: In the case of a Muslim-Christian marriage, which is to be contracted only after permission from the Christian party, the Christian spouse is not to be prevented from attending church for prayer and worship, according to the Ashtiname of Muhammad, a treaty between Muslims and Christians recorded between Muhammad and Saint Catherine's Monastery.


title: Sexuality in Islam

text: Sexual hygiene in Islam is a prominent topic in Islamic jurisprudence ("fiqh") due to its everyday nature. After sexual intercourse or seminal discharge, individuals enter a state known as "junub" () meaning ritually impure due to sexual intercourse or seminal discharge.


title: Sexuality in Islam

text: This state prevents a person from offering salat, and a person in such a state must perform a full-body ablution known as "ghusl" to regain the state of ritual purity necessary to once again perform prayers, or touching a copy of the Quran.


title: Sexuality in Islam

text: The Qur'an makes specific mention of menstruation in that instructs Muslims to "keep aloof from the women during the menstrual discharge and do not go near them until they have become clean; then when they have cleansed themselves, go in to them as Allah has commanded you", language that is taken to clearly imply that sexual relations during menstruation are prohibited. Ibn Kathīr, a muhaddith, narrated a hadith that describes Muhammad's habits with his menstruating wives. This hadith demonstrates that Muhammad gave licence to all forms of spousal intimacy during the period of menstruation with the exception of vaginal intercourse. Women are required to perform ritual cleansing ("ghusl") before resuming religious duties or sexual relations upon completion of their menstruation.


title: Sexuality in Islam

text: Sexual intercourse is also prohibited during menstruation, for forty days after childbirth (puerperium), during the daylight hours of the month of Ramadan (i.e. while fasting) and on pilgrimage. While in the sanctuary (in Ahram) at Mecca, pilgrims are not allowed to have intercourse, and marriages performed during the pilgrimage are invalid.


title: Sexuality in Islam

text: Nocturnal emission is not a sin in Islam. Moreover, whereas a person fasting (in Ramadan or otherwise) would normally be considered to have broken their fast by ejaculating on purpose (during either masturbation or intercourse), nocturnal emission is not such a cause. They are still required to bathe prior to undergoing some rituals in the religion. Muslim scholars consider ejaculation something that makes one temporarily ritually impure, a condition known as junub; meaning that a Muslim who has had an orgasm or ejaculated must have a "ghusl."


title: Sexuality in Islam

text: During Ramadan, sexual activity is only permitted at night. Although this passage is explicitly addressed to men, the regulations on sex in regard to fasting are universally taken to apply equally to both male and female Muslims.


title: Sexuality in Islam

text: Before the abolition of slavery, concubinage existed alongside marriage as a permitted relationship in Islamic law that allowed a man to have sexual intercourse with his female slaves. Concubinage, which was a sexual relationship between a Muslim man and an unmarried female slave whom he owned, was the only legal sexual relationship outside marriage in Islamic law.


title: Sexuality in Islam

text: "Concubine" ("surriyya") refers to the female slave ("jāriya"), whether Muslim or non-Muslim, with whom her master engages in sexual intercourse. The word "surriyya" is not mentioned in the Quran. However, the expression "Ma malakat aymanukum" (that which your right hands own), which occurs fifteen times in the sacred book, refers to slaves and therefore, though not necessarily, to concubines. Concubinage was a pre-Islamic custom that was allowed to be practised under Islam through some reform with Jews and non-Muslim people. Muhammad also inspired to free "converted pious" concubines and marry them.


title: Sexuality in Islam

text: Islamic jurisprudence sets limits on the master's right to sexual intercourse with his female slave. A man's ownership of his unmarried slave-girl gave him an exclusive right to have sex with her under the condition that he could not sell her to others (in order to prevent prostitution of slaves) and neither harm her. A man could own a limitless number of concubines that he could afford and maintain their upkeep, but could not have access to the slave-girls owned by his wife. Marriage between the master and his concubine was only possible if she was granted free status first. To avoid pregnancies, the master had the right to practice coitus interruptus. The birth of progeny would change the legal status of the concubine to that of "umm al-walad" ("mother of the child"); as such, the concubine could not then be sold and her child would be seen as legitimate and free. On the (lawful) death of her master, she would automatically acquire free status.


title: Sexuality in Islam

text: An intersex person may have sex characteristics or organs that are not typically male or female. This person is called a "Khunthaa" in the books of Fiqh. There are three types of Khunthaa:


title: Sexuality in Islam

text: 1. A person has aspects of both organs, and urinates from the male organ. This person will be included among the males and the laws regarding males will fall on him.


title: Sexuality in Islam

text: 2. The person urinates from the female organ so will be included among the females. The laws related to females will fall on this person. This applies before the person reaches maturity. After maturity, the person will be rechecked. If he experiences wet dreams like a male then he will be counted as a male. On the other hand, if the person develops breasts and other signs of being feminine the she will be included among the females.


title: Sexuality in Islam

text: 3. When both masculine and feminine signs are equal and it cannot be determined whether the person is more male or more female then such a person is termed Khunthaa Mushkil. There are different laws regarding such a person, a few examples: It is not permissible for a Khunthaa Mushkil to wear silk and jewellery. Both these are permissible for females. But because this person's condition cannot be ascertained, so precaution demands that such a person not wear silk and jewellery, because of the possibility that the person may be more male. Such a person cannot travel without a Mahram because of the possibility of being more female. When this person dies, Ghusl will not be given because the question arises that who will render the Ghusl, male or female. The law is that this person will be given Tayammum. If a Ghayr Mahram is rendering the Tayammum then the person has to wear a cloth over the hands. A Mahram does not have to wear a cloth over the hands.


title: Sexuality in Islam

text: With regard to marriage of one who is intersex, if it is an unambiguous case, then according to how he or she is classified, he or she may marry someone of the opposite gender. If it is an ambiguous case, then the marriage of such a person cannot be valid, the reason being that he may be male, in which case how can he marry another male, or may be female, in which case she can't marry another female like her. If this individual is sexually attracted to females and claims to be a man, this is a sign that he is most likely male, and vice versa.


title: Sexuality in Islam

text: Intersex medical interventions are considered permissible to achieve agreement between a person's exterior, chromosomal make-up or sex organs. They are regarded as treatment and not the altering of Allah's creation or imitation of the opposite sex.


title: Sexuality in Islam

text: The Quran does not contain explicit text regarding contraception. Muslims refer to the hadith on the question of contraception. According to Muslim scholars, birth control is permitted, when it is temporary and for a valid reason. As such, the withdrawal method of contraception—'Azll—is allowed according to the hadith. Muslim jurists concur with its permissibility and use analogical deduction to approve other forms of contraception (e.g. condom usage).


title: Sexuality in Islam

text: Under normal circumstances, sterilization is not considered to be permitted in Shari’ah. The irreversible nature associated with both the male and female sterilizations contradicts one of the primary purposes of marriage which is to have children, as mentioned by Abu Hamid al-Ghazali in his Ihya’ Ulum al-Din. Furthermore, sterilization is considered a form of self-mutilation ("muthla"), which is forbidden. Only in cases of absolute necessity is sterilization permitted.


title: Sexuality in Islam

text: As early as 1980, authoritative fatwas issued from Egypt's famed Al-Azhar University suggested that in vitro fertilisation (IVF) and similar technologies are permissible In Islam as long as they do not involve any form of third-party donation (of sperm, eggs, embryos, or uteruses).


title: Sexuality in Islam

text: There are varying scholarly views of masturbation () in Islam, largely because the Qur'an does not specifically mention the subject. There are some references to it in the "hadiths", but these are classified as unreliable. The hadith regarding masturbation are, too, not considered to take a definitive stance on the subject. As such, positions on masturbation vary widely.


title: Sexuality in Islam

text: Masturbation has nevertheless been considered "haram" or prohibited by many jurists historically, though often with the caveat that it may be permissible if done out of necessity. For example, one scholar notably permitted masturbation as a means whereby soldiers, far away from their wives on a tour of duty might remain chaste. At the same time, in certain points in history, masturbation has also been considered among the great sins, and subject to discretionary punishments "ta'zir" under Islamic law, with stronger punishments in case of repeat offense.


title: Sexuality in Islam

text: The four Sunni schools of jurisprudence or "fiqh" (Hanafi, Shafi'i, Maliki and Hanbali), have differing stances on the issue. Some see it forbidden in certain cases (i.e. if it leads a man/woman to ignore their spouse sexually) but recommended it when they see it as a lesser evil to illicit sex. In the Maliki and Shafi'i schools, masturbation is typically fully prohibited, while in the Hanafi and Hanbali schools, it is typically prohibited unless one spouse is unattainable and one fears adultery or fornication (i.e. in a state of extreme sexual desire), in which case, it is permissible to seek a relief through masturbation.


title: Sexuality in Islam

text: The Maliki and Shafi'i position stem from it being considered prohibited by both Imam Malik ibn Anas and Imam Al-Shafi’i, the latter stating that verses in the Qur'an about guarding one's chastity and private parts applied to masturbation. At the same, there is a minority opinion within the Maliki school that allows masturbation if done in private and without the use of illicit materials such as pornography and drugs. Some Hanbali jurists meanwhile also excuse that those under the desire pressure from not being married, and Ahmad ibn Hanbal also said it is permissible for prisoners, travellers and for men and women who have difficulty in finding a lawful spouse. In Hanafi scholarship, a wife masturbating her husband is meanwhile disliked, but not prohibited, meaning it would be preferable not to do so but doing so will not incur sin.


title: Sexuality in Islam

text: In Shia jurisprudence, masturbation is generally considered prohibited, though there has always been a view to permit masturbation as the lesser of two evils (so as to ward off falling into fornication). Those jurists who permit masturbation in different cases distinguish between those who masturbate out of necessity and those who have these means yet still masturbate to gratify their lust. Ja'far as-Sadiq also cited the Quran'ic verses on guarding one's chastity and private parts. The modern Iranian jurist Ali al-Sistani has stated that masturbation, while emphasising that it is haram in all other circumstances, is permissible in case of medical necessity, provided there was no lawful means to achieve ejaculation.


title: Sexuality in Islam

text: In Sunni Islam, oral sex between a husband and wife is considered "Makruh Tahrimi" or highly undesirable by some Islamic jurists when the act is defined as mouth and tongue coming in contact with the genitals. The reason behind considering this act as not recommended is manifold, the foremost being the issue of modesty, purification (Taharat) and cleanliness. In Twelver Shia Islam, oral sex is permitted as long as najasah (impurity) is not consumed.


title: Sexuality in Islam

text: The most common argument states that the mouth and tongue are used for recitation of the Quran and for the remembrance of Allah (Dhikr). The status of contact between genitals and mouth and genital secretions is also debated among the four Sunni schools, some scholars viewing them as impure and others not.


title: Sexuality in Islam

text: Islamic schools of law have differing opinions on abortion, though it is prohibited or discouraged by most. However, abortion is allowed under certain circumstances, such as if the mother's health is threatened. If the abortion is necessary to save the woman's life, Muslims universally agree that her life takes precedence over the life of the fetus.


title: Sexuality in Islam

text: Muslim views on abortion are also shaped by the Hadith as well as by the opinions of legal and religious scholars and commentators. In Islam, the fetus is believed to become a living soul after four months of gestation, and abortion after that point is generally viewed as impermissible. Many Islamic thinkers recognize exceptions to this rule for certain circumstances; indeed, Azizah Y. al-Hibri notes that "the majority of Muslim scholars permit abortion, although they differ on the stage of fetal development beyond which it becomes prohibited."


title: Sexuality in Islam

text: Some Muslim scholars hold that the child of rape is a legitimate human being and therefore subject to the normal laws of abortion, that it is permitted only if the fetus is less than four months old, or if it endangers the life of its mother. Certain contemporary fatwas have also laid out the position that permit abortion if the newborn might suffer from a congenital condition that would make its care exceptionally difficult for the parents.


title: Sexuality in Islam

text: Islam strictly prohibits immodesty, and also prohibits pornographic contents and lustful exposures outside marital relationship, which falls under fahisha.


title: Sexuality in Islam

text: According to Islamic laws made by exegesis of the Quran and the hadiths, all sexual relationships except with a spouse (or a man's concubine) are considered zinā (fornication). "Zina" must also be committed by a person of their own free will. According to traditional jurisprudence, "zina" can include fornication, adultery, prostitution, rape, sodomy, incest, and bestiality.


title: Sexuality in Islam

text: Prostitution was practised by some Arabs during the 6th century, but was banned in Islam from the 7th century after Muhammad declared it forbidden on all grounds.


title: Sexuality in Islam

text: Rape is considered a serious sexual crime in Islam, and can be defined in Islamic law as: "Forcible illegal sexual intercourse by a man with a woman who is not legally married to him, without her free will and consent".


title: Sexuality in Islam

text: Classical Islamic law defined what today is commonly called "rape" as a coercive form of fornication or adultery ("zināʾ"). This basic definition of rape as "coercive "zināʾ"" meant that all the normal legal principles that pertained to "zināʾ"its definition, punishment and establishment through evidencewere also applicable to rape; the prototypical act of "zināʾ" was defined as sexual intercourse between a man and a woman over whom the man has neither a conjugal nor an ownership right. "Zināʾ" was established, according to classical law, through confession by one or both parties as well as proof. A second type of evidencepregnancy in an unmarried/unowned woman was contested between the schools. The stringent evidentiary and procedural standards for implementing the zināʾ punishment may have functioned to offset the severity of the punishment itself, an effect that seems to have been intended by legal authorities, who in the early period developed legal maxims encouraging averting the ḥadd punishments as much as possible, whether through claiming ambiguity (shubhah) or a lack of legal capacity (ahliyya).


title: Sexuality in Islam

text: The requirements for proof of rape, by contrast, are less stringent, and do not require any extraneous witness testimony, eyewitness or otherwise:


title: Sexuality in Islam

text: Rape charges can be brought and a case proven based on the sole testimony of the victim, providing that circumstantial evidence supports the allegations. It is these strict criteria of proof which lead to the frequent observation that where injustice against women does occur, it is not because of Islamic law. It happens either due to misinterpretation of the intricacies of the Sharia laws governing these matters, or cultural traditions; or due to corruption and blatant disregard of the law, or indeed some combination of these phenomena.


title: Sexuality in Islam

text: Caliph Umar accepted the testimony of a single individual who heard the rape victim call for help as evidence that rape occurred. Imam Malik accepted physical injuries on the victim as evidence that rape occurred. If a woman claims to have been raped or sexually abused under duress, she will be acquitted of adultery in light of Qur'anic verse 24:33, which states that a woman has not sinned when compelled to commit this crime.


title: Sexuality in Islam

text: According to Professor Oliver Leaman, the required testimony of four male witnesses who eyewitnessed the actual penetration applies only to consensual illicit sexual relations (whether adultery or fornication), not to the non-consensual crime of rape.


title: Sexuality in Islam

text: What distinguished a prototypical act of zināʾ from an act of rape, for the jurists, was that in the prototypical case, both parties act out of their own volition, while in an act of rape, only one of the parties does so. Jurists admitted a wide array of situations as being "coercive" in nature, including the application of physical force, the presence of duress, or the threat of future harm either to oneself or those close to oneself; they also included in their definition of "coercion" the inability to give valid consent, as in the case of minors, or mentally ill or unconscious persons. Muslim jurists from the earliest period of Islamic law agreed that perpetrators of coercive "zināʾ" should receive the "ḥadd" punishment normally applicable to their personal status and sexual status, but that the ḥadd punishment should not be applied to victims of coercive or nonconsensual "zināʾ" due to their reduced capacity.


title: Sexuality in Islam

text: Marriage is not allowed between most relatives with whom relations would typically considered incestuous, including a man marrying his mother, daughter, sister, aunt, niece or mother-in-law. Other prohibited marriages include step-daughters born of women with whom one has had conjugal relations, two or more sisters from the same family. Incestuous relationships in Islam ("zinā bi'l-mahārim") are those with any of a person's "mahram", a definition of nuclear and extended family derived from the hadith.