Author Archives

Rafiq A. Tschannen

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.

Religious liberty and the Supreme Court

Source: The Economist: The way to determine whether the government is impermissibly “endorsing” religion, the courts later decided, is not to canvass actual citizens but to imagine how a reasonable observer would look upon a creche, a ten commandments display, a cross or a Jesus statue. Over the past generation, as the endorsement test has […]

Mission failure

Source: The Economist: THE first major response to the terrorist attack on the Westgate shopping mall in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, came two weeks to the day after the shooting began on September 21st. US Navy Seals (pictured above on a training exercise) led a failed morning raid on a house in […]

Religion and the UN

Source: The Economist: WHEN the United Nations was created after the second world war, it was “an era of secular international relations and few if any anticipated that religion would ever again be an important international actor.” However, as Professor Jeffrey Haynes of London Metropolitan University goes on to show […]