religion

Why White Christian Nationalists are Freaked out: Liberals are More likely to be Non-Religious than Christian

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Ironically, White Christian nationalism has captured the U.S. government despite its steep decline in popularity among the public. The Pew Research Center has released a poll on the state of religion in the United States. From the point of view of contemporary American history, Christianity in the U.S. has collapsed […]

Balkans

Trump Official Destroying USAID Secretly Met With off-limits Bosnian Serb Islamophobes

ProPublica

By Brett Murphy and Anna Maria Barry-Jester | – ( ProPublica ) – Before Peter Marocco was selected to dismantle America’s entire foreign aid sector on behalf of President Donald Trump, he was an official with the State Department on a diplomatic mission. In 2018, during Trump’s first term, Marocco was a senior political appointee […]

Salafis

Syria’s New Government is already Oppressing Women, Posing a dire Threat to their Future

The Conversation

By Vrinda Narain, McGill University and Fatemeh Sadeghi, UCL (The Conversation) – As the international community celebrates the fall of another dictatorship following the collapse of Syria’s Assad regime, the future of women’s rights remains precarious. Global leaders are commending Syria’s liberation and discussing the return of 5.5 million refugees, but women’s rights advocates are […]

Featured

The Qur’an’s Celebration of Diverse Skin Colors: Forms of Equality in the Muslim Scripture

Juan Cole

I am reprinting part of this essay that appeared in Renovatio, the literary magazine of a small Muslim liberal arts college — Zaytuna — in Berkeley, Ca. The Qur’an is the most hated book in America that no one has ever read, and there are already new visa bans on Muslims deriving from severe misunderstandings […]

Antisemitism

Death shaded the Life of this Holocaust historian. The cancer Memoir he began in Hospital was a final ‘Act of Love’

The Conversation

By Tess Scholfield-Peters, University of Technology Sydney (The Conversation) – Mark Raphael Baker began writing his final book, A Season of Death, from his hospital bed, in the wake of his terminal pancreatic cancer diagnosis. His second wife, Michelle, would later observe: “More than a comfort or distraction, in him it was a need.” The […]

religion

How the US Religious Right is making Religion Unpopular

The Conversation

By Galen Watts, University of Waterloo (The Conversation) – In 1961, less than one per cent of Canadians identified as having no religion. In 2021, 43 per cent of those between 15 and 35 considered themselves religiously unaffiliated. Organized religion — and especially Christianity — is in decline. Secularization is advancing apace. Most sociologists of […]

Featured

NOLA Attacker was a Vet who fought the War on Terror against Extremists before Breakdown

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor – (Informed Comment) – I love New Orleans, and have been known to hit the jazz clubs on Bourbon Street into the wee hours myself. So what happened there is a gut punch, and I want to express my condolences to the families of the victims and to the community there for its […]

Jewish History

What Hannukah Teaches us about Violence and Peace

Yakov M. Rabkin

( The Times of israel ) – Biblical accounts teem with violent episodes. Just a few days ago, we read in the synagogue the story of Jacob’s two sons, Levi and Simeon, massacring the entire male population of a city in a devious scheme using a religious pretext. (Genesis 34) Their father was so aggrieved […]

Christianity

For Christmas: The Persian Poet Nezami’s Story of Jesus Finding Virtues even in the Lowliest

Juan Cole

On Christmas Day, I like to recall the significance of Jesus and the nativity for Muslims. I’ve talked about Rumi, Attar, and other mystics. Today it is Nezami’s turn. The great Persian poet Nezami (1141-1209) was from the city of Ganja in northwestern Iran when it was ruled by the Seljuk Empire. That was the […]