religion

By Damon F. Lynch | (Informed Comment) | – – Evangelical university Wheaton College has generated global attention by suspending and initiating the firing of Professor Larycia Hawkins. She had asserted that Christians and Muslims worship the same God, quoting Pope Francis. Wheaton justifies its punishment of Dr. Hawkins theologically, stressing inviolable differences between Islam […]

Iraq

Iraq: Ethnic Fighting endangers Civilians; now it’s Kurds and Shiites

contributors

Human Rights Watch | – – (Beirut) – Kurdish and Shia Turkmen armed groups have repeatedly harmed and endangered civilians in clashes in Iraq’s Tuz Khurmatu district, in Salah al-Din province, since October 2015. The armed groups have killed, wounded, and abducted civilians and destroyed scores, if not hundreds, of homes and shops. “Some of […]

Druze

Israeli plan for minorities slammed as bid to ‘divide and conquer’

contributors

By: Chloe Benoist | (Ma’an News Agency) | – – BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) — A plan approved by Israel’s cabinet last week to provide half a billion dollars worth of assistance to Israel’s Druze and Circassian minorities has been denounced by leaders of Israel’s Palestinian community as a “divide and conquer” tactic. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin […]

Assyrians

For Iraqi Minorities, ‘Immigration No Longer A Choice, It’s Inevitable’

contributors

By Saad Salloum | Baghdad| (Niqash.org) | – – In an interview, Raad Jabar al-Khamis, a representative of the Christian Sabean-Mandaean minority, talks about why all minorities in Iraq will leave the country over the next decade. Raad Jabar al-Khamis has held many senior political positions on behalf of Iraq’s Sabean-Mandaean minority. The Sabean-Mandaeans are […]

Islam

How I Explained to My Impressionable Student That Islam Is Not Monolithic

Juan Cole

Asma Afsaruddin | (Huffington Post) | – – On Sept. 29, 2015, President Obama addressed the United Nations summit on violent extremism. He stated that part of the international effort to stamp out terrorism “must be a continued rejection by Muslims of those who distort Islam to preach intolerance and promote violence, and it must […]

Islam

An Islamic Reformation? There have been Many

contributors

Sami Zubaida | ( Open Democracy) | – – We keep hearing calls for an ‘Islamic Reformation’, but the Protestant Reformation was not a liberal enterprise: it was the original ‘fundamentalism’, whence the label now applied to Islam. < Martin Luther’s Rycina Chrystusa i Antychrysta. Wikicommons .Some rights reserved. We keep hearing calls for an […]

Featured

Britain’s Debate over Banning Trump by the Numbers

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The British parliament will debate a motion to ban Donald Trump from the UK on January 18. Typically 100,000 signatures on a petition will provoke such a debate, but many more Britons asked for it than that. Trump would hardly be the first person banned there […]

Islam-hatred

Why have we normalized Islamophobia?

contributors

By John Esposito | ( OUPBlog) | – – The horrific attacks in Paris and San Bernardino have captured headlines and triggered responses from journalists, politicians, and religious leaders. Some Western heads of government have once again threatened a global war against terrorism, while some political commentators have even invoked World War III. In the […]

Featured

Iraqi Shiites up in Arms, claim Saudi “Spying on behalf of ISIL/Daesh”

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Saudi Arabia’s execution on Saturday of prominent Shiite cleric Nimr Baqir al-Nimr has so far not created a crisis between Riyadh and the Shiite-dominated Baghdad government. But Saudi Arabia’s name with the rank and file Shiites and parliamentary backbenchers is mud. On Tuesday, thousands (or perhaps […]