Click here to buy Peace Movements in Islam

Also available at Nicola’s Books ;

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Amazon.

One of the referees for the book spoke of it as potentially “field-forming,” and it is our hope that it will spark more research and writing on the topic of peace in Islam.

The book has chapters by a galaxy of the foremost writers on Islam — Asma Afsaruddin, Sherman Jackson, Elizabeth Thompson, Alexander Knysh, Zilka Siljak, Mohammad Khalil, James Rowell, Grace Yukich and Rashied Omar. I wrote a chapter on the peace verses of the Qur’an, comparing them to the Sermon on the Mount and its commentary traditions in late antique Christianity. The book treats Sufi traditions ideas about peace in Muslim modernism, from the Versailles Peace Conference after WW I to the Muslim associates of Mahatma Gandhi in British India, and from Bosnian women’s organizations working for reconciliation to Muslim charities in Trump’s America. It explores in a concerted way the rich traditions of peace work in the Muslim world, from medieval times to the present.

Bruce Lawrence at Duke University, one of our country’s great Islam specialists, observes of this new volume,

“Nowhere has the charged topic of Islam and peace been as deftly and broadly addressed as in this collection of essays edited by the maestro of public scholarship on Islam, Juan Cole. From Qur’anic dicta to historical exemplars to modern day perspectives on fundamentalism, women and Trump, the contributors eschew easy platitudes or apologia, providing a kaleidoscope of insight that will attract the general reader as also the academic specialist.” ―Bruce B. Lawrence, Duke University, USA”

John Esposito, founder of a Center for Christian-Muslim Dialogue at Georgetown University wrote that the new book

“is a ‘must read,’ an antidote to media and plemicists’ portrayal of Islam as a religion of war and to former President Donald Trump’s declaration that ‘Islam hates us.’ An excellent collection of scholars take the reader on a journey from the time of the Prophet Muhammad to today, underscoring the long tradition of peace that exists in contrast to the rhetoric and actions of militant movements.”

The cover description says,

“Contrary to the distorted and in many places all-too prevalent view of Islam as somehow inherently or uniquely violent, there is a dazzling array of Muslim organizations and individuals that have worked for harmony and conciliation through history. The Qur’an itself, the Muslim scripture, is full of peace verses urging returning good for evil and wishing peace upon harassers, alongside the verses on just, defensive war that have so often been misinterpreted.

This groundbreaking volume fills a gaping hole in the literature on global peace movements, bringing to the fore the many peace movements and peacemakers of the Muslim world. From Senegalese Sufi orders to Bosnian women’s organizations to Indian Muslim freedom fighters who were allies of Mahatma Gandhi against British colonialism, it shows that history is replete with colorful personalities from the Muslim world who made a stand for peaceful methods.”

The best books on Islam

Who am I?

My interest in Islam was kindled when I lived in Eritrea, East Africa as a teenager, and in my youth fell in love with the mystical Sufi tradition. I went on to live in the Muslim world for over a decade, making many dear friends whose kindness overwhelmed me. I studied the Qur’an in Cairo and explored various corners of Muslim civilization, including in India. I have taught Islam and Middle East History for nearly 40 years at the University of Michigan and devoted myself to writing several books and many essays on Islam. For geopolitical reasons, the subject often gets a bad rap these days, but it is an impressive religion that produced a beautiful, intricate civilization. I hope you enjoy these books about it.

I wrote…

Muhammad: Prophet of Peace Amid the Clash of Empires

By Juan R.I. Cole

What is my book about?

The publisher blurb says,

“In this masterfully told account, preeminent Middle East expert Juan Cole takes us back to Islam’s –and the Prophet Muhammad’s — origin story. Many observers stereotype Islam and its scripture as inherently extreme or violent. Cole shows how Muhammad reacted against the unparalleled violence of his era. The eastern Roman Empire and the Sasanian Empire of Iran fought savagely throughout the Near East and Asia Minor. Muhammad envisioned an alternative movement, one firmly grounded in peace.

The religion Muhammad founded, Islam, spread widely during his lifetime, relying on soft power instead of military might, and sought armistices even when militarily attacked. Cole sheds light on this forgotten history, reminding us that in the Qur’an, the legacy of that spiritual message endures. A vibrant history that brings to life the fascinating and complex world of the Prophet, Muhammad is the story of how peace is the rule and not the exception for one of the world’s most practiced religions.”

• Buy this book at: Bookshop.org | Amazon

The Books I Picked & Why

When you buy a book we may earn a small commission.

For the other titles I recommend, visit the original page at Shepherd.

Tuesday, Oct 27 2020 – 7:00 pm ET

Our friend Juan Cole is joining us on Facebook LIVE to discuss his new book The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyam A New Translation from the Persian.

A Q+A will follow.

ABOUT THE BOOK: A repository of subversive, joyous and existentialist themes and ideas, the rubaiyat (quatrains) that make up the collected poems attributed to the 12th century Persian astronomer Omar Khayyam have enchanted readers for centuries. In this modern translation, complete with critical introduction and epilogue, Juan Cole elegantly renders the verse for contemporary readers. Exploring such universal questions as the meaning of life, fate and how to live a good life in the face of human mortality, this translation reveals anew why this singular collection of poems has struck a chord with such a temporally and culturally diverse audience, from the wine houses of medieval Iran to the poets of Western twentieth century modernism.

“’To read Juan Cole’s deft, plain-spoken translation of the Rubáiyát
is to find companionship, to rejoin a thousand-year human
conversation about how to endure, enjoy, and find a fleeting beauty
in everlastingly dire times. The lucid, cogent and mind-opening
Epilogue is a kind of grace, a gift freely given, from one of our
most astonishing and generous intellects.’”

– Michael Chabon, Pulitzer Prize winner and author of Moonglow (2017)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Juan R. I. Cole is Richard P. Mitchell Collegiate Professor of History at the University of Michigan. For three and a half decades, he has sought to put the relationship of the West and the Muslim world in historical context. His most recent book is The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam: A New Translation from the Persian. Among his other recent works are Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires (Bold Type Books, 2018) and The New Arabs: How the Millennial Generation is Changing the Middle East (Simon & Schuster, 2014). He has translated works of Lebanese-American author Kahlil Gibran. He has appeared widely on media, including the PBS News Hour, ABC World News Tonight, Nightline, the Today Show, Anderson Cooper 360, Rachel Maddow, Chris Hayes’ All In, CNN, the Colbert Report, Democracy Now! and many others. He has written about Egypt, Iran, Iraq, the Gulf and South Asia and about both extremist groups and peace movements.

Remember, on Facebook LIVE at 7 pm ET, Tuesday October 27.

Nicola’s Books
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Ann Arbor, MI 48103

The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyam: A New Translation from the Persian (Paperback)

By Omar Khayyam, Juan R. I. Cole (Translator) $32.34 ISBN: 9780755600519 Availability: On Our Shelves Now Published: I. B. Tauris & Company – April 30th, 2020

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Whinfield did not know that the Rubaiyat or Quatrains of Omar Khayyam were not the work of a single author but rather were a genre contributed to by many hands over centuries, with the astronomer, who died around 1132, made into a frame author. Khayyam functions as Scheherazade did for the 1,001 Nights Tales.

Still, it is interesting that this genre, which included religious skepticism and advice to seize the day before death annihilates us, along with love poetry and praise of wine, was clearly a staple of medieval Persian literature and such manuscripts were much copied, added to, and prized. The Mughal emperor Akbar commended reading a quatrain of Omar Khayyam after a ghazal (Persian sonnet) by Hafez, sort of like an after-dinner aperitif.

I have for some years been translating these quatrains into contemporary English. The famous versions were by Edward FitzGerald, published in 1859, and they are lovely. They are nevertheless often in a diction rather distant from our own times.

My book, published in April, contains a modern translation of the first coherent book-length collection of something entitled “The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam,” mostly in free-verse quatrains, though I experimented with some metered stanzas. I almost never attempted a rhyme. The original was collected and copied out by one Mahmud Yerbudaki in Shiraz in 1460. The poems below were not in that anthology.

Now that I have that out of my system, I’ve gone to what I think are the relatively late poems in Whinfield’s collection, and picked back up the late nineteenth and early twentieth century custom of rendering them in meter and rhyme. FitzGerald favored iambic pentameter, and defined what Rubaiyat are in English, inspiring T.S. Eliot and Robert Frost, among many others. Sometimes I use iambic hexameter. I’ve also experimented with trochaic, but not in what follows. Where I use rhyme, often it is abcb in this series. But sometimes abca, and sometimes I play instead with internal rhymes and half-rhymes. Having published the book, which I wanted to be close to the originals for scholarly reasons, I don’t mind now experimenting with some more traditional forms of poetry.

So here are a few of my recent versions. I had attempted some of these in the past on the internet, but am happier with these translations. As I did in my book, I am trying for relatively simple contemporary English diction, to convey the simplicity, directness and boldness of the original. I also did some cultural translation, making, e.g., a dowry into a wedding ring. The number is the number Whinfield gave the Persian original.

Selected Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
Translated by Juan Cole

1

At dawn a shout awoke us in that dive:
“You crazy rascal in this run-down shack,
get up and finish up our vow to wine–
before our time is up and we’re called back.”

2

Tonight, who brought you from behind the veil;
who brought you, tipsy, to me, drawing near?
–to one on fire because you had been gone–
one like an arid wind; who brought you here?

5

Get up and come to me, for my heart’s sake–
your beauty takes my troubles all away.
And bring clay cups of wine, to quench our thirst–
before they fashion cups from our own clay.

6

When I am dead, please wash me with red wine;
and raise a fine Shiraz in eulogy.
On Resurrection Day my restless dust
will stir on the floor of a drinkery.

8

True lovers always are out of their minds:
They are disgraced, distracted and crazy.
When we are sober, life annoys us;
but when we’re drunk, what things will be, will be.

12

Although we look and smell magnificent–
red tulip cheeks, and standing cypress tall–
we’re clueless as to why we’ve been decked out,
and set to dancing at this earthly ball.

17

I’ll drink so much red wine that from my grave
a fragrant, fine bouquet will waft abroad,
so sober mourners visiting my tomb
will pass out from the vapors, drunk and awed.

19

That day when my hand grasps a glass of wine,
and when I’ve gotten wasted happily,
I will perform a hundred miracles,
with soul afire, words flowing like a sea.

59

My faith is drinking wine and happiness.
My worship lacks belief and unbelief.
I asked my bride of fate what ring she needs:
She said, “My diamond is your ecstasy.”

63

No matter if they pray in mosque or church,
all hearts that shine with passion’s wild advice–
all those whose names are written in love’s book–
have been set free of hell and paradise.

66

Wine’s not for going rogue or faithlessness:
A search for good times isn’t why we drink.
It is to bring ourselves to selflessness.
That is the secret of my drunkenness.

71

Now that the bloom is on rose of bliss,
Don’t hesitate to raise a wine glass high.
Drink up, for your determined foe is time:
You won’t again come by a day like this.

80

An old man issued from a drinkery,
his wine flask full, his prayer rug threadbare.
I asked him what he meant by it. He said,
“Drink up! The works of this world are hot air.”

81

Into the garden flew a drunken nightingale,
delighting in the cup of wine that was its rose.
It whispered with its mystic voice into my ear:
“Grab hold, for life is gone when once it goes.”

.@ibtauris is publishing @jricole
's new, radically modern translation of The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyam on April 30th. Find a sneak peek here: https://t.co/ZyFDW6wcma and DM us if you'd like a review copy #Rubaiyat #translation #persian #literature #poetry #OmarKhayyam pic.twitter.com/CRjG4e7tiS

— Juan Cole (@jricole) April 24, 2020

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Here is what reviewers are saying:

“’To read Juan Cole’s deft, plain-spoken translation of the Rubáiyát
is to find companionship, to rejoin a thousand-year human
conversation about how to endure, enjoy, and find a fleeting beauty
in everlastingly dire times. The lucid, cogent and mind-opening
Epilogue is a kind of grace, a gift freely given, from one of our
most astonishing and generous intellects.’” ―Michael Chabon, Pulitzer Prize winner and author of Moonglow (2017)

“’Omar Khayyam is a Persian treasure and Juan Cole’s new
translation brings him anew to Western audiences who
for centuries have been both delighted and educated by this
medieval sage! Reading The Rubáiyát is a thrill – you feel the
echoes of the 12th century seamlessly into our 21st, as this is
a holy book of wisdom and magic. In another perilous era for
Iranians, it’s wonderful to see this enchanting volume make
its way through the world yet again!’” ―Porochista Khakpour, novelist, essayist and author of Brown Album (2020)

Breitbart’s offices are in Los Angeles, which is itself threatened by the ravages of global heating. We perhaps forget that Malibu was burned down by wildfires, with Kanye and Kim and other celebs fleeing for their lives, not so long ago. Good luck to the brown shirt rag if they want to deny this reality.

Breitbart is the racist piece of excrement that is actually failing, and fast. They’ve gone from 17.3 million readers (or, you know, people who move their lips while they stare with heavy knitted brows at the site) to 4.6 million Neanderthals in May of 2019. They wouldn’t have any readers at all if advertisers had any sense of civic responsibility– who would want their product associated with white supremacy (except for maybe Alex Jones brand brain fluid tampons)? It is bankrolled by the Mercer daughters. Shadowy patriarch Bob Mercer, who gave us Trump as president, is along with his billionaire family an abject climate crisis denialist. I don’t wish anyone ill, but if I had heard that they were vacationing in the Bahamas the last few days I would be struck by the irony.

Carbon dioxide emissions, 70% produced by the 100 dirtiest corporations are causing rapid global heating (far more rapid than anything in the geological record, so you could call it unprecedented). CO2 is a greenhouse gas that traps the sun’s heat and prevents it from radiating back out to space.

CO2 emissions don’t cause hurricanes, but they do heat up water, which puts more moisture in the atmosphere and feeds the strength and speed and longevity of hurricanes. Warm water expands (pay attention, Breitbart; I know you failed 8th grade chemistry because you were sniffing glue in the toilet), which raises the sea level. Global heating also melts surface ice, which likewise raises sea level. Higher sea level contributes to higher storm surges. Climate scientist Michael Mann explains at the Scientific American, which the Breitbart folks can’t read because it is hard to hold a magazine while dragging your knuckles on the ground. Mann points out that for every degree C. of warming, you get a 26 foot per second increase in wind speed. The 2019 world average surface temperature is up nearly one degree from the 1950-1980 average.

I don’t demean myself by reading Breitbart. I’d rather lie naked in my garden during a rainstorm and let slugs traverse me, leaving trails of slime. Most of their existence they’ve just made fascist shit up, riffing on Mein Kampf. But from my hate mail, I take it that they questioned my credentials to speak to climate change because I am a historian.

This level of ignorance makes my head hurt. Actually, climate is a major part of historical studies, and I have taught courses on History and Climate Change at the University of Michigan. I know that the geniuses over at Breitbart are contemptuous of learning and, like, knowing the alphabet, so let me make you a bet that none of them has read any of the books on my syllabus. They don’t have the slightest idea what they are talking about, just like their Clown-in-Chief, Trump.

My colleague Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie (Michigan has an exchange with the Paris School of Higher Studies) was one of the pioneers in writing about the history of climate, with his Times of Feast, Times of Famine (French ed. 1967).

The field has become more sophisticated over time, as the science itself has made strides and as some historians have learned techniques like reading tree ring samples from long-lived trees or deploying ice core samples or seabed cores.

Sam White has authored a groundbreaking book on the Little Ice Age and the history of the Ottoman Empire, The Climate of Rebellion in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire, which I’ve taught in seminar.

Not only historians but humanists are attending to the issue. See, e.g., Alexander Elliott et al., Climate Change and the Humanities: Historical, Philosophical and Interdisciplinary Approaches to the Contemporary Environmental Crisis (Springer, 2017).

Those of us who write modern and contemporary history cannot ignore climate change as a driver of social change. I found that water shortages in Egypt contributed to rural rebellions in Egypt in 2011, in my The New Arabs: How the Millennial Generation is changing the Middle East (Simon & Schuster, 2014).

I’ve also done on-the-ground journalism on the issue in places like the Caribbean and Morocco.

We are entering a period of contemporary history where the impacts of global heating and sea level rise on cities such as Alexandria, Egypt, are an unavoidable part of their social and economic history.. That is, no modern history of the city that came up to the present could be successful without factoring in human-caused climate change.

Historians belong in this debate, because our moment is world-historical, and only historians can set it in context.

———-

Bonus video:

WBIR: “Tree ring study uncovers Tennessee’s climate history”

It is that fundraising time of year again, folks. This year everyone who contributes $100 or more to Informed Comment by Paypal will receive a signed copy of the paperback version of my recent book, The New Arabs. Nicola’s Books in Ann Arbor has kindly agreed to send them out for me off the Paypal addresses, so occasional glitches of the past should not recur. Thank you to all of my supporters for your generosity and your encouragement of an independent press!

Look, we also need support in the amounts of $5 and $10. If you liked or benefited from something you saw here, and can’t afford an average of $10 a month, then a one-time smaller contribution is still welcome (and essential). Isn’t IC worth as much as one or two lattes per year at a coffee shop? The site is stronger if all fans participate. If everyone who appreciates Informed Comment donated even a small amount, we could turn it into a media giant.

Personal checks should be made out to Juan Cole and sent to me at:

Juan Cole
P. O. Box 4218
Ann Arbor,MI
48106-4218
USA

So, all those who contribute to Informed Comment at any level will become members with a Golden Lion beside their own name in the comments as recognition for your role in making this site possible. You will also be included in a private newsletter only for contributors with some additional big picture behind-the-scenes analysis which will be newsletter only. Remember that there are contribution buttons off to the upper right on all the individual post pages.

2015: A Year of Crises

2015 was a year full of tragedy and triumph with regard to Middle Eastern themes, and Informed Comment has been there with solid analysis widely recognized as unique and as key to understanding these events. I write a column daily. Don’t ask me how. In some large part, it is because I don’t want to let you down.

Regular readers know that what they get here is not the Main Stream Media accounts by all-purpose pundits unfamiliar with the region, by retired officers paid under the table by arms corporations to promote conflict, by loud-mouthed casino moguls too rich to be told by their staffers that they are making fools of themselves, or by lobbyists not required to reveal their organizational pasts or on whose payroll they serve. I have argued back against wild allegations about Muslims and the Middle East made by the US political class, at a time when many journalists politely interviewed them without challenging their bigoted and inaccurate assertions. This site has been unafraid to take unpopular or controversial stands– against NSA snooping, against Climate denialism, against hatred of our Muslim brothers and sisters, against the statelessness and victimhood of the Palestinians, against casual warmongering of the Lindsey Graham ilk, against racism of any sort. Unlike those other outlets, it is a little unlikely that this site will be supported by right wing billionaires, and so if you want it to continue, it is up to you.

And what a year it was. President Obama and the UN Security Council concluded a deal with Iran to restrict that country’s nuclear enrichment solely to making fuel for reactors, setting off a colorful struggle with Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu and the GOP Congress, which Mr. Obama won. Russia entered the Syrian war. Tunisian democrats won a Nobel Peace prize. Saudi Arabia and allies bombed Yemen back to the stone age. Turkey had two elections, the first with a pluralist outcome and the second with an ominous authoritarian one.

Paris was struck twice by terrorists trying to induce a clash of civilizations, and my urging of people not to take the bait in “Sharpening the Contradictions” was one of the more popular things I’ve ever written. In November, when Turkey shot down a Russian fighter jet, my analysis of why went viral and gained me lots of fan mail, such as a message from a prominent political scientist who said it was the best offering of context he’d seen. I had given a keynote at a conference in Turkey in mid-October, and used my time there to try to get a sense from locals of the current political situation. Informed Comment readers’ contributions always pay part of my expenses on a trip like that, and enable me to do what I do.

This is a sign I saw in Ankara, Turkey’s capital, which had been hit by an unprecedented bombing earlier in October, denouncing terrorism on the part of civil society organizations, including labor unions; it was a reminder that beyond geopolitics, this kind of violence is a struggle for working people of all kinds:

“We Curse Terrorism!”

What we do for our Readers

Afraid of missing the best in analysis of Middle East issues? Be sure to sign up for delivery of the daily postings by email so you don’t miss even one. My aim is to be even more comprehensive, and to provide insights on world developments not found elsewhere that challenge lazy conventional wisdom and inside-the-beltway tunnel blindness. I seek to provide visitors with one-stop access to high quality curated sources for research on the Middle East, including maps and key documents and translations. That endeavor obviously requires resources, and the more we have the more we can do. Your support allowed me to pay guest columnists and syndicators for some of our more popular entries this year.

Our new format, driven by a technical plug-in, has allowed four or five postings a day on world affairs and progressive politics, so that I’ve been functioning as an editor and curator in finding or soliciting these other pieces for you.

In our pages, we’ve had eyewitness accounts from Egypt, Israel, Gaza, Iraqi Kurdistan and Turkey, and searching, critical opinion pieces on politics and Islam. And, I’ve continued to give you an interpretive essay every day of the year on what I think is the most important or interesting story of the day. (Those who like the old weblog view and are mainly interested in my essays can still find it here (click on the underlined text).

We were up to 5 million page views last year at the server, from four and a half the year before. Informed Comment also has a big presence in social media. Twitter impressions for the most recent quarter alone were 5.1 million. Of course, we can’t track email circulation, and likely as many readers or more see posts that way as via Twitter or Facebook. I’m proud to say some 45 percent of our readers are women, and 60 percent of you are 34 and younger. (We’ve got the key demographic!) But remember, these impressive circulation figures are not generating any income and don’t pay the bills.

Fans will want to know that this fall there appeared a paperback edition of my new book, The New Arabs: How the Millennial Generation is Changing the Middle East,

which has been widely and favorably reviewed and which makes an excellent holiday present for your friends and relatives :-)!

Philosophy and Mission of Informed Comment

Despite rising costs of maintaining this site, years ago I decided that I did not want to put Informed Comment behind a firewall and charge a subscription fee for it. That just isn’t who I am. In my own view, there has been a long crisis between the United States (and perhaps much of the West) and the Muslim world that I felt a duty to attempt to interpret and analyze for both publics, not just for well-heeled elites. More recently issues have arisen such a climate change and the energy and water crises, which have a great deal to do with the Middle East and South Asia, my areas of expertise. This is a democratic blog, for the people and in dialogue with the people, for the common weal.

Travel and Field Reporting in 2015

Although I have some research funds from my university, there are categories of expense it does not cover, and my ability to go spontaneously to the region when there are important developments is enhanced by your subscriptions (academic fellowships have to be plotted out at least a year in advance, which is too inflexible for my style of academic journalism). Also, I do some pro bono speaking and traveling for, e.g. peace groups, and you support those expenses, too. Your support gives me the determination and courage to go on. Visits to the region this year included a trip to Istanbul in January, to Doha, Qatar, in May, and to Ankara in October. The trip to Qatar was for the annual Aljazeera Forum, and I got to meet and hear movers and shakers in the Arab world there, gaining a sense of the politics behind our headlines. I also gave a presentation, in Arabic, arguing that sectarianism is a symptom and not a cause of the social conflicts in the region. My conference in Ankara had in-depth presentations on the plight of the 2 million Syrian refugees in Turkey, giving insight into why some of them risk life and limb to try to flee to Europe.

Juan in Doha, May ’15

Middle East issues are often framed by right wing media such as Fox Cable News in Islamophobic and frankly racist ways. Unscrupulous “news” providers play on the comparative lack of good information and analysis to manipulate public opinion on these matters so as to create fear and promote right-wing policies. Informed Comment is one of the few solid counterweights to this propaganda. Corporate news outlets, even relatively liberal ones, can almost never report evenhandedly on controversial issues such as the plight of the stateless Palestinians, because of fear of consumer boycotts. Likewise, much of the MSM in the US seems determined to obscure the dangers and sources of climate change, perhaps influenced by the vast wealth of Big Carbon or even because their parent companies are invested in that sector. Informed Comment is unconstrained by such considerations.

How to Help

Voluntary subscriptions or donations can be sent to Informed Comment via the contribution link in this post (which takes Paypal payments or credit cards). Here is the direct link again:

Thank you to all of my supporters for your generosity and your encouragement of an independent press!

Personal checks should be made out to Juan Cole and sent to me at:

Juan Cole
P. O. Box 4218
Ann Arbor,MI
48106-4218
USA

Plans for 2016

For 2016, we will continue to explore and develop the potentials of this magazine-format Informed Comment, to make sure it is the best possible resource on the contemporary Middle East.

I have several projects at Informed Comment for which I’d like to ask those who can to support. These plans continue to serve the larger goal of promoting understanding between the West and our neighbors in the Middle East. I will also continue to follow energy issues and climate change as these unfold, with their implications on the US, Europe, and the global South.

When events call for first hand reporting, I will continue travel for research and journalism to places where important developments are unfolding affecting US foreign policy, including of course the Middle East. Your contributions also allow me to solicit and pay for pieces from stringers on the scene.

To make all these projects a reality, I do need your help. Our budget is a tiny fraction of any other news organization in the world. Given the wide online circulation of IC posts, your contribution here makes an incredible difference in the news landscape.

All those who donate $100 or more will receive a signed copy of my recent book, The New Arabs. Some kind readers give more than once a year, but if you want the book, consider making a single larger donation. All those who donate will become part of an Informed Comment supporters club who will receive my occasional private newsletter with some big picture political analysis and a Golden Lion beside their name.

Smaller contributions are also very much appreciated! Paypal is convenient for small contributions and crowdsourcing is now the name of the game.

Independent Media

Your donation helps me keep Informed Comment independent and prolific. Together we keep independent media alive. I would like to thank all my readers and contributors again for your support in 2015 and look forward to an even more productive 2016 together. Thank you for supporting our independent thinking and dialogue!

“Months after the “Charlie Hebdo” attacks, questions remain about Europe’s Islamic communities. How strong is the lure of groups like al-Qaeda and ISIS for Islamic youth in France or the UK? Why do so many Muslims, including those born and raised in affluent European states, feel disconnected from their societies? Georgetown’s Jocylene Cesari and University of Michigan’s Juan Cole take a nuanced look at these misunderstood communities.

Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs: “Europe’s Muslims: Challenges and Misconceptions”

            By Juan Cole |

            The Office

            Adib was winning at cards again.   Bashir was already out, sitting in a corner with his French novel. 

            Soliman hated losing, even though they didn’t play for much in the way of stakes.  They only had their share of the neighborhood protection money — greasy, taped-together old notes proffered by the housewives and pensioners.  They were the miserable souls who didn’t have enough in savings to get a ticket to a neighboring country and escape this hellhole.  The neighbors paid willingly to have the militia patrol, and keep out other militias. 

            Adib, Soliman, Bashir and a couple of other guys went out sometimes, wearing khaki and ski masks and hobnail boots they’d bought at the Thursday flea market for almost nothing, Kalashnikovs at the ready.  There was only so much  surveillance you could do.  It wasn’t like their neighborhood was worth looting, or had tall buildings.   Guerrillas prized tall buildings, like soldiers loved hills in the old days of conventional warfare.  Get a mortar emplacement up on one, you controlled a quarter of the city.

            Their office used to be someone’s luxury apartment, but those people lived in Paris now.  They had better, too.  Amber bulbs flickered on ornate lamps like flowers hanging off a bush.  Louis XIV chairs showed off ankles with sexy curves.   A militia, Bashir always said, had to have an office.

            Bashir looked up from his book, grey streaks in his mustache. He stared at beaming Adib, a cat that had gulped down a rat whole.

            "You smile too much, Adib.  A commando should have a straight face, a little menacing, a little bored.   Like you might put one right between the ribs, just at random." 

            Soliman was glad to see him upbraided for gloating.  Adib was just a teenager.  He should be playing video games.  Who would be afraid of him? Artillery howled in the distance and the lights blinked.

            Bashir pointed at Soliman.  "And you. You have no guile.  You’re no good at cards." 

            "I’m good at other things."

            Bashir shook his head.   Adib laughed.   A militia office was no place to laugh.  Adib had caught his drift.  They both had their eye on Leila.  They had gone to her apartment to collect a donation and were met by the mother.  The old lady had run out of money so she dumped a bracelet into their rucksack.  She kept sweeping her hand behind her, gesturing to her daughter to stay hidden, in the back room.  But the girl had peered out and they caught her eye. 

            Leila sneaked out and came by the office sometimes.  They sat around talking about what they would do when the war was over.  She stared hungrily at their khaki, like she wanted to make a meal of it.

             Adib raked in the bills he had won, then downed some milky arak, a licorice-tasting drink cut with water.  "You only dream of being good.  Me, I’ve been more practical."

            Soliman looked up sharply.  "What do you mean by that?"

            "You should hear the sounds she makes!   We did it under the overpass a couple of nights ago."

            "Somebody’s mouth is bigger than his other organs."

            Adib pursed his lips.  He unsnapped the front pocket of his shirt and pulled a pendant out.   It was Leila’s.  

            Bashir swiveled around, alarmed.  "She’s just a girl, Soliman.  They’re a lira a half dozen.  They like the sound of boots and the flash of gun barrel.  Lots more gazelles in that desert, boy."

            Soliman stood and swung his Kalashnikov around.  "Take it back!   You’ve insulted her honor!  Admit you’ve never been near her!"

            Adib was grinning again, swinging the pendant.  "Inside her, it’s like holiday sweets."

            Bashir shrugged and went back to his novel.  "If you boys want to off yourselves, be my guest.  But my advice is to change the subject.  She’s not worth it."

            Soliman put his finger on the trigger to show he meant business.  "Take it back!"

            "If you could get it up, you could have been there first."   Neon white teeth.

            Soliman took a step forward, but tripped over his own glass of arak and lost his balance.  He tried to brace himself and his finger pulled the trigger.

            Adib flipped back, flinging Leila’s pendant against the wall.   A red tulip was blooming in his chest.    His eyes, quizzical, flickered out.

            Soliman ran to his friend but his head was heavy and there was no breath on his lips, which smelled of licorice.  He looked at Bashir through watery eyes.

            The older man had not bothered to rise.  His black unibrow undulated like a cobra.  "You idiot!"

            "It was an accident!  What can we do?"

            "It was a moronic accident.  But all our efforts are for the party.  Go see Hani at the photocopy shop."

            The next day the city’s walls and light poles were plastered with pictures of Adib.  Underneath his smiling portrait, large cursive letters spelled out the word "Martyr."

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