Category Archives: Islam
Engaging the Muslim World Out in Paperback
Today is the official publication date for the paperback edition of my most recent book, Engaging the Muslim World. Click here to purchase It is somewhat revised, taking some of the stories into 2010. Here is a link to David … Continue reading
Makdisi: The Tragedy of Obama’s Middle East Policy
Ussama Makdisi writes in a guest column for Informed Comment: In the tragic story of U.S-Arab relations, no era has been as violent as our own. And yet when President Obama began his presidency, he initiated a series of highly-anticipated … Continue reading
Top Ways 9/11 Broke Islamic Law
On the ninth anniversary of the September 11 attacks, it is clear that al-Qaeda was a tiny fringe terrorist movement, not a globe-straddling threat to Western societies. The organization has been decisively disrupted and now lacks command and control. Its … Continue reading
Top Stories More Important than Quran-Burning Nut Job
The horrible era of anti-Muslim bigotry in the United States yielded a one-day silly season on Thursday, covered wall-to-wall by the US cable news channels. The weird cultist Terry Jones, fired from his church in Cologne, Germany last year for … Continue reading
UAE Fatwa Against the Vuvuzela
The vuvuzela horn that produces that annoying buzzing sound at the world cup games had threatened to spread from South Africa around the world. An Abu Dhabi businessman, Dhia al-Din, had planned to import 10,000 of them into the United … Continue reading
Fadlallah’s Life and the Shiite Wave
The death of Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Husain Fadlallah at age 75 in Beirut marks the passing of a cleric revered by many Shiite Muslims and by many Lebanese and Iraqis. His life exemplified the awakening and increasing global influence of … Continue reading
A Sign of Modernization: Saudi Clerics Promote Kinship by Sharing Breast Milk
Two Saudi clerics have followed an Egyptian one in advocating breast-milk feeding as a way of establishing kinship between men and women, which would then allow the two to be in each others’ presence when the woman is alone and … Continue reading
Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: Niass & Shahzad
I received some snarky message after the Shahzad attempted bombing in Times Square, asking if I were still standing behind the idea of Islam as a religion of peace. It was a stupid comment. Classical Islamic law forbids murder and … Continue reading
