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.

US govt should blacklist Pakistan’s Geo TV

Source: LUBP:   In the afternoon of 9 March, a mob of 3,000 Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (ASWJ/LEJ) and PML-N activists destroyed the entire neighborhood of Joseph Colony, Badami Bagh, in Lahore. The destruction was carried out when a rumor was deliberately spread by the religious-political activists affiliated to the Deobandi/ASWJ/LeJ mosque in […]

Sow hate, reap terrorism

Source: LUBP I found it encouraging to see Pakistan’s famous singer, Shehzad Roy, talking publicly against the hate content in the country’s text books. The uproar against Mr Roy from the Islamist and the right wing lobbies, including political parties, is nothing unexpected. What is more remarkable is that a […]

Church and state

Source: The Economist: THE perennial debate about religion and politics in America has a new point of reference: a bill passed a few weeks ago by a bipartisan majority in the House of Representatives to permit the allocation of federal disaster relief money for the reconstruction of houses of worship […]

Selecting a pope

Source: CNN Technically, any Roman Catholic male can be elected pope. But since 1379, every pope has been selected from the College of Cardinals, the group casting the votes at the conclave. Many of the cardinals are bishops and archbishops appointed by the pope to assist in religious issues. Some […]