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Juan Cole

Islam
The Logos of Abraham in the Qur’an and Universal Salvation for all True Religions

The Logos of Abraham in the Qur’an and Universal Salvation for all True Religions

Juan Cole

The Qur’an castigates the Jews and Christians of the early 600s AD for their exclusivist theories of salvation. Alan Race and John Hick have identified three possible stances by one religion toward the prospects of going to heaven for members of other religions. Exclusivism is the position that only members of your own religion are […]

Featured
Top 7 Signs Willie Nelson Might not be a Republican (That's 'TeaPot Party,' not Tea Party)

Top 7 Signs Willie Nelson Might not be a Republican (That’s ‘TeaPot Party,’ not Tea Party)

Juan Cole

Music legend Willie Nelson is doing a benefit concert for Democratic senator hopeful in Texas, Beto O’Rourke, provoking the anger of some Republicans who had been his fans (but apparently were not very observant people). Here are some signs that might have signaled to those fans that Willie Nelson is not a Republican and does […]

Donald Trump
Manafort's Plea Deal is a Constitutional Crisis, we Just don't Know it Yet

Manafort’s Plea Deal is a Constitutional Crisis, we Just don’t Know it Yet

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Trump’s campaign manager April-August of 2016, Paul Manafort has agreed to plead guilty to conspiring against the United States. In return for a reduction of his sentence he must answer fully and candidly all the questions asked him by special counsel Robert Mueller and his team about criminal wrongdoing. Since […]

Democratic Party
How the Corporate Media Treated Julia Salazar differently from Trump and Netanyahu

How the Corporate Media Treated Julia Salazar differently from Trump and Netanyahu

Juan Cole

Julia Salazar, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, has won the Democratic primary for state senator from Brooklyn and neighboring areas in New York, defeating a long-serving incumbent she claimed was in the back pocket of the realtors. Coverage of her campaign, however, read like a salacious tabloid, and had a weird set […]

Extreme Weather
Dear Carolinas:  You can't Outlaw Storm Surges & Climate Crisis; Physics isn't Interested in Your Laws

Dear Carolinas: You can’t Outlaw Storm Surges & Climate Crisis; Physics isn’t Interested in Your Laws

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – There has been a flurry of irony-heavy articles about how the North Carolina, Republican-dominated state legislature, in 2012 forbade state-employed scientists from talking about sea level rise and climate crisis. This ostrich policy of just denying reality was intended to prevent real estate values along the coast from falling, and […]

Featured
Top 3 Charges on which John Bolton should be Tried at Int'l Criminal Court

Top 3 Charges on which John Bolton should be Tried at Int’l Criminal Court

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – National Security Adviser John Bolton appears to be spiraling down into the same miasma of madness that possesses other members of the Trump administration– perhaps caused by a microbe carried in Trump’s sniffle. This week he threatened justices of the International Criminal Court in the Hague with physical abduction were […]

Featured
Did Trump almost start WW III with Russia with Proposed Massive Bombing of Syrian AF?

Did Trump almost start WW III with Russia with Proposed Massive Bombing of Syrian AF?

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – According to Bob Woodward’s just-released book, “Fear,” Donald Trump had been pressed to use 200 cruise missiles to destroy the Syrian Air Force in 2017. Knowing that the Russian Aerospace Forces personnel were all over Syrian air bases, Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis became alarmed, and shaped a limited response […]

Islam
Islam: Compassion and Positive Peace in the Qur’an

Islam: Compassion and Positive Peace in the Qur’an

Juan Cole

One of the early chapters of the Qur’an is “The City,” chapter 90 in the standard version. It gives us a good idea of the verses being recited by the Prophet Muhammad around 613, three years into his ministry, once he started preaching publicly. I discuss this period in Chapter 3 of my new book: […]

Donald Trump
#Plaidshirtguy shows Why Trump likes Mideast Dictators

#Plaidshirtguy shows Why Trump likes Mideast Dictators

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The most striking characteristic of the tyrant is pettiness. Trump as president is dangerous. He is volatile. He shouts that he wants people killed, and apparently in large numbers sometimes (“kill them all,” he appears to have said about the Syrian government, and Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis just ignored […]

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The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam


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