Decline and Death
Rabbani died in a military hospital in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, of liver cancer on 16 April 2001. According to a press release in Islamabad:
- Mullah Mohammad Rabbani was one of the main founders of the Movement and greatly contributed to peace and security in our country. His service to Islam is unforgettable. His demise is an irreparable loss.
Rabbani's body was repatriated to the southern Afghan city of Kandahar by a UN plane, permitted to operate on humanitarian grounds despite the air embargo against the Taliban Movement. he was buried in the Taliban's Martyr's Cemetery in Kandahar.
Regarding him as somewhat of a moderate, members of the opposition voiced fears that hardliners within the Taliban would strengthen their hold on power following Rabbani's death.
Read more about this topic: Mohammad Rabbani
Famous quotes containing the words decline and, decline and/or death:
“Or else I thought her supernatural;
As though a sterner eye looked through her eye
On this foul world in its decline and fall,
On gangling stocks grown great, great stocks run dry,
Ancestral pearls all pitched into a sty,
Heroic reverie mocked by clown and knave....”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“The decline of a culture
Mourned by scholars who dream of the ghosts of Greek boys.”
—Stephen Spender (1909–1995)
“Do but consider this small dust, here running in the glass,
By atoms moved.
Could you believe that this the body was
Of one that loved?
And in his mistress’ flame playing like a fly,
Turned to cinders by her eye?
Yes, and in death as life unblest,
To have’t expressed,
Even ashes of lovers find no rest.”
—Ben Jonson (1572–1637)