religion

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – When Donald Trump announced his monstrous and yet daffy plan to exlude Muslims from the United States (what with being, himself, both monstrous and yet daffy), British Prime Minister David Cameron called him out. The plan, he said, is “divisive, stupid and wrong.” Trump gave an […]

Buddhism

Left For Dead: Myanmar’s Muslim Minority

contributors

VICE News | (Video report) | – – “In recent years, democratic reforms have swept through Myanmar, a country that for decades was ruled by a military junta. As the reforms took hold, however, things were growing progressively worse for the Rohingya, a heavily persecuted ethnic Muslim minority concentrated in the country’s western state of […]

Featured

Baghdad gov’t paralysis made capital vulnerable to massive ISIL bombings

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Daesh (ISIL, ISIS) launched a series of suicide car and truck bombs in Baghdad on Wednesday, killing nearly 100 and wounding nearly 200 persons. Baghdad security had improved over the past couple of years, but the Coalition United for Reform blamed political wrangling on sectarian and […]

Islam-hatred

Sadiq Khan and the End of Islamophobia

contributors

By John Feffer | ( Foreign Policy in Focus) | – – The victory of Sadiq Khan has "normalized" Muslims in UK politics in much the same way that JFK normalized Catholics in American politics. But American Muslims are still waiting for their JFK moment. Even his own sister was mortified. In the recent mayoral […]

Featured

Majorities of Muslim Arabs in N. Africa want a Separation of Religion and State

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – You know those silly anti-sharia laws passed by evangelicals in US state legislatures? They may as well not bother. (Sharia is Muslim law; but it is much more diverse and fluid than fundamentalists of both stripes think it is). It turns out a lot of Muslims […]

Featured

Sadiq Khan and Trump: Why KKK Donald’s values are Unacceptable

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The charismatic young mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, is calling out Donald Trump for his bigotry toward Muslims. He says he plans to visit the United States this fall before the presidential election, because in case Trump wins, he won’t be able to. He had told […]

Western Muslims

Sadiq Khan: Is London’s first Muslim Mayor the ultimate weapon against Radicalism?

contributors

Parveen Akhtar | (The Conversation) | – – In Pakistan, the chances that the son of a bus or rickshaw driver could secure a high-ranking political position in the country’s capital city are minuscule. But now, the people of London have elected Sadiq Khan – the son of an immigrant Pakistani bus driver – to […]

Europe

London’s Muslim Mayor is nothing New: 1300 yrs of Muslims who Ran Major European Cities

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | The press is declaring Sadiq Khan, victor in the electoral contest for mayor of London, the “first Muslim mayor of a major European city.” They mean of course, something like ‘the first Muslim mayor of a really big Western European city in the modern period (say the past […]

Islam-hatred

Islamophobia: When Europe starts hating a Religious Minority, you Know it is a bad Sign

contributors

By: Emran Feroz | ( TeleSur | – – Europe’s first report on Islamophobia shows the dangerous climate Muslims live in, and that bigoty is closely linked with imperialist politics. Throwing a pork head, or sometimes even a grenade, on a mosque. Assaulting a Muslim woman who wears a head scarf. Demonstrating against the building […]