Islam

By Iqbal Akhtar | – Muslims see wealth as a gift and a divine dispensation. The Quran urges individuals to share their wealth and income with those of lesser means. Almsgiving is one of the five pillars of Islam – a fundamental practice within the faith. One key way this happens is through Zakat, the […]

Donald Trump

In Irrational COVID Policy, is there any Difference between Republicans and Iran’s Ayatollahs?

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – David Axe at the Daily Beast reports on what he says is very bad news for the US red states whose Republican governors are depending on herd immunity to get us past the COVID-19 pandemic. Some Iranian provinces have, since its beginning, reported more cases of the coronavirus than they […]

Islam

Juan Cole’s “Muhammad” is one of Best Five Books on the Prophet Muhammad (Muqtedar Khan Youtube)

Juan Cole

Muqtedar Khan is Professor of Political Science and International Relations at the University of Delaware. His doctoral dissertation at Georgetown University was on Islamic political thought. He edited Debating Moderate Islam: The Geopolitics of Islam and the West (University of Utah Press, 2007) and authored Jihad for Jerusalem: Identity and Strategy in International Relations (Praeger […]

Afghanistan

Afghanistan: Taliban Forcibly Evict Minority Shia — Hazaras Targets of Collective Punishment

Human Rights Watch

Human Rights Watch – (New York) – Taliban officials in several provinces across Afghanistan have forcibly displaced residents partly to distribute land to their own supporters, Human Rights Watch said today. Many of these evictions have targeted Hazara Shia communities, as well as people associated with the former government, as a form of collective punishment. […]

Featured

Will Israel’s Muslim Fundamentalists help Pass Marijuana Bill?

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Jack Khoury and Noa Shpigel report at Haaretz that the Israeli government is advancing a marijuana bill that may gain the support of the United Arab List, a Muslim fundamentalist party that forms part of the 8-party coalition underpinning the government of Prime Minister Naftali Bennett. Although Mansour Abbas, the […]

China

China: removing features from country’s biggest mosques the latest move in campaign of Muslim assimilation

The Conversation

By David R. Stroup | In the normally quiet city of Xining, capital of northwest China’s Qinghai province, everyday interactions between the city’s ethnic groups – Han Chinese, Hui Muslim, Tibetans, Turkic Salars and others – usually pass without conflict or fanfare. But thanks to the municipal government’s controversial demolition of the entrance hall of […]

Islam

Glowing Review of Juan Cole, “Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires” (Video)

contributors

Dr. Shabir Ally reviews Juan Cole’s book, Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires [Click] Da’wah Center Toronto — “A review of Juan Cole’s book on the prophet Muhammad pbuh – Dr. Shabir Ally” – Fast forward to 12:24 for English review Dr. Ally’s site says, “Dr. Shabir Ally holds a B.A. in […]

astronomy and outer space

Did a Cosmic Airburst inspire the Myth of Sodom and inadvertently Spark millennia of Homophobia?

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – In a new paper in Nature archeologists Ted E. Bunch and Malcolm A. LeCompte et al. present their findings that a cosmic airburst destroyed an ancient city in 1650 BC (about 3600 years ago) at the site of today’s Tell el-Hammam in western Jordan near the mouth of the Jordan […]

Afghanistan

Why the Hazara Minority of Afghanistan is now Imperiled

The Conversation

By Iqbal Akhtar | – The land we now call Afghanistan has been a place of constant migration through its mountainous passes. Its linguistic, cultural and religious diversity is a result of millennia of trade along the Silk Road. More than a dozen ethnic groups are mentioned in the country’s constitution. Afghanistan’s fall to the […]