Islam

By Baher Kamal | (Inter Press Service) | – – MADRID, Dec 3 2015 (IPS) – Of all over-written, under-reported issues and regions, the Middle East is perhaps one of the oldest, outstanding ones. To start with, it is a common belief – too often heralded by the mainstream media – that the Middle East […]

Central Asia

Can Muslim Fundamentalism be Criminalized? Militant Secularism in Central Asia

contributors

By Farangis Najibullah and Charles Recknagel | ( RFE/RL) | – – Nabijon spends nearly 10 hours a day inside his one-room barbershop on a dusty backstreet in Khujand, Tajikistan’s second-largest city. He has no shortage of customers. “Business has never been this good,” says the third-generation barber, who politely declines to give his full […]

Islamic State of Iraq and Syria

Poll: Muslims actually HATE ISIL/ Daesh

contributors

Ana Kasparian, John Iadarola, Jimmy Dore & Francesca Fiorentini | (The Young Turks) | – – N. B. Charts courtesy Pew Research Center [N.B. 6% of Buddhists in Malaysia think well of Daesh (ISIS, ISIL), which either means they see it as anti-imperial or they just don’t know what it is. This statistic should provide […]

Iraq

Iraq: Eastern front against ISIL slowed by Internal Divisions, Unenthusiastic USAF

contributors

By Mustafa Habib | (Niqash.org) | – – Iraqi fighters in Anbar are waiting to push the Islamic State group out of cities like Ramadi. But they wonder when it will happen, if ever. Many believe that politics are why this particular victory must take so long. The tribal fighters of the central Iraqi province […]

Bashar al-Assad

From Putin To Khamenei: A Koran Copy With Its Own History

Juan Cole

By RFE/RL | – – It may not be the original version of the first . . . edition of the Koran, dating back 1,500 years, but it’s still quite a book. In a meeting heavily publicized by Russian media, President Vladimir Putin on November 23 gave Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei one of the […]

Islam

How Islamic law can take on ISIL

contributors

By Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na’im | (The Conversation) | – – The media coverage of the terrorist atrocities of Friday November 13 in Paris would seem to promote an almost mythical image of the [so-called] Islamic State group (ISIL, ISIS). What humanity needs, however, is to demystify ISIS as a criminal organization. And that need is […]

Buddhism

Terrorism and the Other Religions

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Reprint edn. slightly revised. Contrary to what is alleged by bigots like Bill Maher, Muslims are not more violent than people of other religions. Murder rates in most of the Muslim world are very low compared to the United States. As for political violence, people of […]

Featured

With Ahmad Chalabi’s Death, Passing of an Age of Lies

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Ahmad Chalabi (1944-2015) died of a heart attack in Iraq on Tuesday. Clarence Darrow, the great trial lawyer and orator, said, “I’ve never killed anyone, but I frequently get satisfaction reading the obituary notices.” I don’t get any satisfaction from this obituary. In the first Star […]

al-Qaeda

Syria: On eve of Vienna Summit, Has Russia changed the facts on the Ground?

contributors

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Writing in al-Hayat [Life] this week, columnist Walid Choucair outlined the successes he sees Russia to have had in its Syria campaign, and the goals for which it is reaching. Choucair is the Lebanese affairs bureau chief of this pan-Arab, Saudi-owned London daily, which has a […]