Jews have good reason to be wary of Tehran’s rhetoric. By Shahrzad Elghanayan Until Iran’s leaders decide to get their facts straight about Jews, they should stay quiet on the subject. No, I’m not talking about former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s Holocaust-denying antics. These days, as Iran’s leaders try to soften their image to seal a deal to limit the country’s nuclear […]
C. Christine Fair Pakistan’s military and intelligence agencies are waging a nasty war on U.S.-based scholars whose writings and public statements undermine cherished narratives promulgated by the army that has dominated Pakistan’s governance for most of the state’s existence. These agencies aim to intimidate, discredit, and silence us. Their tools are crude and include: outright threats; slanderous articles in Pakistani papers and […]
It’s here that the IS hopes to set up its sub-HQ, with help from powerful madrasas and clerics By Khaled Ahmed As Pakistan denies the growing footprint of the Islamic State (IS) on its soil, its radicalised citizens keep killing “liberals” and members of Muslim sects they don’t like. There’s evidence that Pakistanis are going to Syria “for training”, one angry academic […]
by Raymond Ibrahim Straining at gnats while swallowing camels is increasingly how Islam’s apologists rationalize away the violence and hate Sharia engenders for the “infidel,” the non-Muslim. Consider the true significance of yet another learned Muslim justifying the enslavement and rape of non-Muslim women. Suad Saleh, a female professor of Islamic doctrine at Al Azhar University, correctly defined the Arabic […]
By Khaled Ahmed Islamabad’s central place of worship, the Lal Masjid (Red Mosque), has become the symbol of the contraction of the state in Pakistan. It defies the state and threatens to “update” itself to suit the murderous extremism of al-Qaeda and the Islamic State. The lowest point in the state’s relationship with Lal Masjid was reached when its chief priest […]
By Noor Dhari The Jihadist movement in Pakistan is not new, this ideology is now completely embedded in people’s minds, particularly children’s minds. There is a myth and misconception around the world that Madrasahs are the prime tool of generating the Jihadists ideology in Pakistan, while there was no doubt that Madrasahs played a very important role in spreading a […]
WASHINGTON: About 24,000 ‘madrassas’ in Pakistan are funded by Saudi Arabia which has unleashed a “tsunami of money” to “export intolerance”, a top American senator has said adding that the US needs to end its effective acquiescence to the Saudi sponsorship of radical Islamism. Senator Chris Murphy said Pakistan is the best example of where money coming from Saudi Arabia is funnelled to religious […]
A 17-year-old girl has exposed the scale of Islamic sex tourism in India where Muslim men from the Middle East and Africa are buying ‘one month wives’ for sex. By Dean Nelson, Hyderabad Campaigners for Muslim women’s rights said while short term ‘contract marriages’ are illegal in India and forbidden in Islam, they are increasing in Hyderabad, in southern India, where wealthy foreigners, local […]
Dr Ali Muthanna The first thing that hits me every single time I visit the refugee camps in northern Iraq is their sheer size. Great sprawling masses of tents stretch as far as the eye can see. Just 18 months ago these vast pieces of land were home to no one except a handful of farmers and their sheep. Now, thousands upon […]
India is tolerant, I’m proud to be Indian — and I’m still music’s original heart-throb: Zakir Hussain Zakir Hussain is India’s iconic tabla maestro. Speaking with Sugandha Indulkar, Hussain discussed the highvolume tolerance debate, why he feels media should temper its tone – and being the first heart throb of Indian music: We’re seeing considerable debate on tolerance currently – is India […]
by Samuel Osborne When he came to the throne a year ago, King Salman of Saudi Arabia was expected to continue to provide the relative stability which characterised the rule of his half-brother, King Abdullah. Instead, the reign of Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud, 80, has been marked by wars in Yemen and Syria, an ongoing feud with Iran and mass executions King Salman was also quick to shock […]
by Raheem Kassam Britain’s first female Sharia law judge has issued a brazen warning that flies in the face of UK law, stating that the “government cannot ask Muslims not to have more than one wife”. The news comes on the back of areport by the Times newspaper which claims that Britain is experiencing a “surge” in Sharia marriages, as young British Muslims […]
By Ayesha Siddiqa The news of Masood Azhar’s possible detention in Pakistan left me with the same feeling I had when reading a story in my childhood about Sheikh Chilli, a man who built castles in the air. What if he hadn’t shaken his head so violently that the basket of eggs didn’t come crashing down as did his dreams? As […]
By Corey Charlton for MailOnline Police fear a gang-rape phenomenon known as ‘taharrush gamea’ in the Arab world and seen in attacks on women across German cities at the New Year has now spread to Europe. The name of the practice translates to ‘collective harassment’ and is carried out by large groups of men who sexually assault lone women, either […]
Deborah Orr Oh dear. It’s leftageddon. Two matters close to the progressive heart have been pitted against each other. In one corner, the right of women to stroll down the street, wearing what we like to wear without being mistaken for a walking, gilt-edged invitation to cop a free feel. In the other, the right of men, women and children […]
By Peter Tatchell Iran’s criticism of the Saudi mass executions is outrageous hypocrisy. Tehran is also guilty of barbaric killing methods and, indeed, of putting to death eight times as many prisoners as Riyadh in 2014. It condemns Saudi Arabia for persecuting Shia Muslims, yet it persecutes Sunnis. Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, warned of “divine vengeance” for the […]
By Tarek Fatah, The idiom “pot calling the kettle black” was perfectly illustrated by Islamic Iran’s outrage over the public executions of 47 people by Islamic Saudi Arabia on Jan. 2. As horrific and detestable as the Saudi actions that included the beheading of human rights and democracy activist Nimr el-Nimr were, it was laughable to watch Iran’s hypocritical self-righteousness […]
by Robert Fisk Saudi Arabia’s binge of head-choppings – 47 in all, including the learned Shia cleric Sheikh Nimr Baqr al-Nimr, followed by a Koranic justification for the executions – was worthy of Isis. Perhaps that was the point. For this extraordinary bloodbath in the land of the Sunni Muslim al-Saud monarchy – clearly intended to infuriate the Iranians and […]
By Husain Haqqani India and Pakistan have initiated dialogue several times over the last six decades, only to end the process amid acrimony. Why, then, would things be different following Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent Christmas Day stopover in Lahore? Optimists believe the answer might lie in the desire of Modi and Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to expand economic […]
By Majid Nawaz The country executed 47 people on Saturday, for crimes all too similar to those cited by ISIS. Most countries ushered in their new year by hosting increasingly beautiful displays of fireworks. Others, by increasingly archaic displays of public execution. Today Saudi Arabia executed 47 people which is the biggest mass execution in the kingdom since the early […]
