In this excellent Dawn article, rock musician Salman Ahmad of Junun explains why it is a great good thing that Usama Bin Laden was taken out. Ahmad, who favors the mystical, often tolerant, Sufi form of Islam, said that few individuals in the past 1400 years had wrought as much destruction on Islam as Bin […]
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Pakistan
Pakistani Military between Rock and Hard Place
One of the reasons for which Pakistan’s military is so incensed about the unannounced US raid into Pakistan territory is that they are afraid the operation might form a precedent that could be exploited by India. Indeed, Pakistani generals thought that the SEALs were an Indian special ops team that had inserted itself at Abbottabad. […]
Ala. Governor Apologizes to Muslims, Hindus, Jews
Gov. Robert Bentley, the new governor of Alabama, created a firestorm of controversy on Monday when he said that if you are not a Christian he does not consider you his brother or his sister. He added, “… so anybody here today who has not accepted Jesus Christ as their saviour, I’m telling you, you’re […]
Death Penalty for Blasphemy Rare in Muslim World
Pakistani campaigners against the country’s blasphemy laws are pointing out that out of 54 Muslim-majority countries in the world, at most 5 permit capital punishment for blasphemy. They are Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Iran, the United Arab Emirates, and possibly Afghanistan (the new Afghan constitution incorporates human rights norms that could affect statutes treating blasphemy as […]
Death of Pakistani Secularism Much Exaggerated
There has been a lot of hand-wringing about religious extremism in Pakistan in the wake of the assassination of Punjab governor Salman Taseer. On Sunday the fundamentalist religious parties held a rally some 40,000 strong in the southern port city of Karachi against repealing Pakistan’s blasphemy law, as the Pakistan People’s Party MP Sherry Rahman […]
Wainwright: Taseer’s Assassination Lays Bare Contradictions in Pakistani Islam
Aadil Wainwright writes from Pakistan in a guest column for Informed Comment: The assassination of Punjab Governor Salman Taseer has laid bare a crucial debate within the Pakistani public over the nature of Islam and the place of Islamic law in national affairs. That it is a debate among Muslims with more than one side […]
Death of Pakistani Progressivism?
Salman Tasir, the governor of Punjab Province in Pakistan, was assassinated by one of his own guards Tuesday, allegedly for his desire to repeal Pakistan’s blasphemy law, which has been increasingly misused by the religious right to target Christians, Ahmadis and secularists. The guard who killed him was not a Deobandi fundamentalist but an adherent […]
Top Ten Middle East Challenges for U.S. Policy, 2011
10. The new Republican majority in the House of Representatives will attempt to stampede Obama into keeping troops in Iraq, delaying any withdrawals from Afghanistan, and launching a military strike on Iran. Just last week, Rudy Giuliani, Fran Townsend, and other members of the Permanent War Party flew to Paris to lobby on behalf of […]
Collateral Damage in Pakistan: Cloughley
Brian Cloughley writes in a guest column for Informed Comment: I started thinking about the phrase after a recent, disturbing trip to Pakistan. ‘Collateral damage’ is a seemingly bland phrase, but it indicates stomach-churning contempt for human life. It was fashionable during the Vietnam war, when countless thousands of civilians were blown to bits, burned […]