religion

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) French President Francois Hollande addressed the Institute of the Arab World on Friday, in a bid to reassure French Muslims, who fear being the victims of a collective guilt campaign or reprisals after the attack of radicals on Charlie Hebdo. Hollande said: “It is the Muslims who are the […]

Dissent

Learning from Paris: Are you Charlie Hebdo? (Juan on Radio w/ C. Lydon)

contributors

Christopher Lydon | Radio Open Source ” Learning from Paris The story of the massacre at Charlie Hebdo has gone everywhere in the past week: into meditations on free speech and blasphemy, into declarations of cultural and actual war, and high-wire geopolitics. It’s a fresh attack, meaning high emotion and demands for ‘moral clarity‘ — […]

Islam

Muslim-Jewish Coexistence: Mark Cohen on its History and Relevance Today

contributors

by JOSEPH RICHARD PREVILLE for ISLAMiCommentary Professor Mark R. Cohen delivering a lecture to a seminar room full of professors and graduate students at King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. (December 2014)Cohen gave two lectures there: “What is the Geniza and What Does it Tell Us?” and “The Importance of the Geniza for Islamic History” […]

Africa

Boko Haram Menaces Cameroon Schoolchildren after Massacre in Nigeria

contributors

By Ngala Killian Chimtom MAROUA, Far North Region, Jan 14 2015 (IPS) – “I’d quit my job before going to work in a place like that.” That is how a primary school teacher responded when IPS asked him why he had not accepted a job in Cameroon’s Far North region. James Ngoran is not the […]

Featured

In aftermath of Charlie Hebdo, German Chancellor Merkel says Islam Belongs to Germany

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) The thinly veiled hate group PEGIDA, which says it is against the “Islamization” of Germany (by which it means it wants German to be Muslimrein or purified of Muslims), staged a demonstration of 18,000 in the eastern city of Dresden on Monday, in the wake of the Paris terrorist […]

Education

Fundamentalism for Dummies: The Paris Terrorists’ Ignorance and Poverty

contributors

By Akil N. Awan | (The National Interest) The masked gunmen who assaulted the Charlie Hebdo offices in a hail of automatic gunfire, leaving twelve people dead in their wake, were heard proclaiming, “we have avenged the Prophet Muhammad.” Amateur footage also revealed the killers invoking God with the Arabic phrase, “Allahu Akbar”—an otherwise-innocuous, everyday […]

France

Determined to Protect Jewish Citizens, France to deploy thousands of Troops to “sensitive sites”

contributors

AFP | — “Members of the Jewish community in Paris remain rattled after an Islamist attack that left four people dead at a kosher supermarket. France has deployed thousands of troops across the country to guard Jewish schools and other sites.” AFP: “France to deploy thousands to protect Jewish, “sensitive sites” ”

al Qaeda in the Arabian Penisula

Muslim Hero Lassana Bathily Saved Jewish Hostages in Paris

contributors

WotchitGeneralNews | — “At a kosher supermarket in Paris, a quick-thinking Muslim employee hides several Jewish shoppers in the basement before sneaking out to brief police on the hostage-taker upstairs. In the town of Dammartin-en-Goele, a poker-faced businessman fools a pair of gunmen into believing they’re alone in the building before being allowed to leave […]

Germany

Despite rising racism, European Muslims embrace democratic values

Juan Cole

EurActiv | — “For Muslims, Germany has become a home. But they see themselves being confronted by a negative image, defined by a minority of radical Islamists.” [kellinahandbasket/Flickr] A large portion of Muslims in Germany share the country’s democratic values, a Bertelsmann study shows, but unfortunately this fact is not recognised by a majority of […]