Rafiq A. Tschannen is a Swiss national. He converted to Islam and joined the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community at the age of 16 after reading the German translation of the Holy Qur'an. He worked in 15 countries in Europe, Asia, Africa and the Caribbean, first as Finance Director in the private industry and later as Chief Executive Officer of NGOs and International Governmental Organizations. He is now devoting his time to The Muslim Times as Editor for Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Palestine and Switzerland and as Associate Chief Editor.
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Salameh Bihar, 56, who was displaced after Israel destroyed his house in Gaza’s Shajaiya neighborhood in the recent war, is still waiting to rebuild his three-story house. But he is not optimistic about succeeding. Summary: Engineer Imad al-Khalidi has developed a replacement for cement to […]
Through his work Khalid tries to show that the idea is more important than anything else. For him it is the individual’s ideas that make him different from his peers […]
Reports by UN observers in the Golan Heights over the past 18 months reveal the type and extent of cooperation between Israel and Syrian opposition figures. The reports, submitted to […]
ROME — HRH Prince Hassan has called for encouraging interfaith dialogue as a way to celebrate religious diversity and culture, and focus on similarities rather than differences. In an address […]
The Daily Star As the anti-ISIS coalition – which includes over 60 countries – meets in Brussels, it is worth considering what exactly it has achieved. The coalition has bombed the jihadis in Iraq since August and in Syria since September, yet the militant group – which most of the […]
A Sunni governor offers advice to defeat ISIS David Ignatius| The Daily Star The Obama administration’s slow campaign against ISIS takes a small step forward this week as a leading Sunni politician visits Washington to urge support for a 10,000-member national guard force that could gradually help regain control of […]
The Magazine in full If knowledge is power, then the British government’s secret gazetteer of the Gulf, known simply as “Lorimer” after its author, epitomises the scale of imperial ambition. Intended to be a portable handbook, it was anything but, writes Matthew Teller. It’s one of the 20th Century’s most […]
Switzerland has won praise for its presidency of the Organization for Security and Cooperation (OSCE), which has now come to an end. But a key meeting in Basel has failed to find a compromise over Ukraine. The gathering of foreign ministers for OSCE countries did however make progress in the […]
BEIRUT: Lebanese authorities are holding a daughter and an ex-wife of the head of the Islamic State, Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, the interior minister said. It was initially reported that a wife and son of the self-proclaimed “caliph” had been arrested last month. The woman, who has been named as […]
JEDDAH: NADIM AL-HAMID To ensure a smooth worshiping experience for everyone at the Grand Mosque this Umrah season, the director of the Gates Administration at the mosque in Makkah, Abdullah […]
The Daily Star, Lebanon: Editorial The recent Russian movement in the region speaks not only of Putin’s desire to reassert Kremlin’s position in the area, but of U.S. failings here. But as long as it done with peaceful intentions then it is to be welcomed. Traditionally, Russia tended to keep […]
Yazidis From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia ( Total population 840,000 – 1,000,000[1][2][3] Regions with significant populations Iraq 650,000[4] Syria 50,000[5][6] Germany 40,000[1][7] Russia 40,586[8] Armenia 35,272[9] Georgia 20,843[10] Netherlands 5,000[11] Sweden 4,000[7] Scriptures Yazidi Book of Revelation (Kitêba Cilwe) Yazidi Black Book (Mishefa Reş) Languages Kurdish (Latin)[12][13] Yazidism Type Syncretic […]
313. Commandment – to whom houses you are allowed to have meals [24:62] There is no harm for the blind and there is no harm for the lame, and there is no harm for the sick and none for yourselves, that you eat from your own houses, or the houses […]
by Khetam Malkawi | Dec 04, 2014 JORDAN TIMES AMMAN — Jordan on Thursday stressed its commitment to supporting Syrian refugees on its territory, but warned that the same level […]
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — Fadi has endured verbal abuse and even the threat of suicide bombers during 15 years at the wheel of Jerusalem’s public buses, but like dozens of Palestinian […]
CAIRO — Al Azhar, Sunni Islam’s most prestigious centre of learning, on Thursday urged Christians in the Arab world to stand firm in the face of jihadist violence and not flee into exile. The call, made at a Cairo conference organised by Al Azhar, came just days after Pope Francis […]
Summary An ISIS commander threatened to kidnap Lebanese women and children and end negotiations over the captive servicemen unless his wife and children, detained by authorities last week, are released soon. Shishani denied what he said were claims that the woman was ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s wife, saying that […]
ROBERT FISK Thursday 04 December 2014 Mohamed Fahmy is an angry man. And so he should be. He says that he and his two colleagues from the Qatari-based al-Jazeera channel – Peter Greste and Baher Mohamed – were imprisoned by the Egyptians to “teach Qatar a lesson” because the emirate […]
by Qasim Rashid I remember having to explain to my then three-year-old why the Taliban shot Malala. It was a difficult conversation because he loves Malala, but it was easy to explain why killing is wrong and that the Taliban is evil. The world condemned the Taliban and, thankfully, Malala […]
A global fight against Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) militants will likely take years to fully succeed, but nations are prepared to engage “for as long as it takes” to defeat the bloody insurgency, US Secretary of State John Kerry said on Wednesday. Nearly a year after […]