As Homeland Grows Violent, Some Uighurs Seek Haven in Turkey By JEREMY PAGE And EMRE PEKER KAYSERI, Turkey—In hindsight, it was a soccer match that kindled Mehmet’s hatred of Chinese rule and set him on the path to exile. In 2002, Mehmet was at university in Xinjiang, the northwest corner […]
Dawn: ISLAMABAD: The illegal construction of madressahs and mosques in Islamabad caused a loss of Rs1.1 billion to the public exchequer. This was disclosed in an audit report of financial affairs of the Capital Development Authority (CDA) for the fiscal year 2012-2013 during the meeting of Public Accounts Committee (PAC) […]
Vox.com: Saudi Arabia’s deceased King Abdullah, according to just about every obituary in major Western publications, was a reformer. The New York Times, Washington Post, BBC, and NPRall describe Abdullah as a ruler committed to reforming Saudi Arabia’s notoriously repressive practices. Sen. John McCain called Abdullah an advocate for peace; IMF head Christine Lagarde called […]
By Usman Ahmad, who is a British freelance writer currently based in Pakistan. He writes mainly on issues of minorities, human rights and feature pieces. You can find him on Twitter @usmanahmad_iam Patheos.com Islam is once again under the spotlight for its supposed role in the recent Charlie Hebdo killings, sparking […]
ET: Let’s say you had a new neighbour. You knock on their door and say, “Hey there, welcome to the neighbourhood. I live next door. Oh, and by the way, you look like a pig. And is that your mother behind you? She looks like a fat old donkey. Dinner […]
edition.cnn.com: Noam Chomsky is Institute Professor Emeritus in the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His most recent book is “Masters of Mankind.” His web site iswww.chomsky.info. The views expressed in this commentary are solely his. (CNN)After the terrorist attack on Charlie Hebdo, which killed 12 […]
Dawn: ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Inter-provincial Coordination (IPC) Riaz Hussain Pirzada has accused the Saudi government of creating instability across the Muslim world, including Pakistan, through distribution of money for promoting its ideology. Addressing a two-day ‘Ideas Conclave’ organised by the “Jinnah Institute” think tank in Islamabad, the federal minister […]
Unreal Islam The word “takfīr” (pronounced “tuck – feer”) is one of the most fearsome words in the Islamic lexicon. Deriving from the same root as “kāfir” – infidel – it refers to the act of declaring someone who is nominally a Muslim to be an infidel. And, of course, […]
thedailybeast.com: Are All Terrorists Muslims? It’s Not Even Close What percentage of terror attacks in the United States and Europe are committed by Muslims? Guess. Nope. Guess again. And again… “Not all Muslims are terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslims.” How many times have you heard that one? Sure, we […]
middleeasteye.net: Whenever I use the term “New Atheism”, I’m invariably asked, “What is that and what is old atheism?” So allow me to clarify. Wikipedia defines New Atheism as a “social and political movement” that advocates the view that religion should not be tolerated. The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy says […]
hrw.org: “The [French] Republic is freedom of expression,” said President Francois Hollande on January 7 in reaction to the horrific attack against the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo that left 12 people dead. But is it really? A wave of cases opened by the French judiciary over the past several days […]
Telegraph: Here’s a theory. Terrorists aren’t offended by cartoons. Not even cartoons that satirise the Prophet Muhammad. They don’t care about satire. For all I know they may not even […]
NY Times: WILL “moderate Muslims” finally “speak up” against their militant coreligionists? People around the world have asked (but, as in the past, have not all seriously examined) this question since last week’s horrific attacks on the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and on a kosher supermarket in Paris. In […]
NY Times: President Obama was criticized for failing to attend, or send a proper surrogate to, the giant antiterrorism march in Paris on Sunday. That criticism was right. But it is typical of American politics today that we focus on this and not what would have really made the world […]
Huff Post: There has been plenty of fallout from last week’s Charlie Hebdo attack by Islamic extremists: a manhunt for the suspects, rallies in Paris and across Europe and heightened Islamophobia, not to mention the cartoonists at the magazine who lost their lives. In a HuffPost Live interview Tuesday, former […]
Haaretz.com: PARIS – The flags are back at full mast, the snipers have descended from the roofs and the marchers have gone back to work. World leaders are heading home, […]
Huff Post: On January 7, gunmen did not just commit the heinous murder of 12 people at theCharlie Hebdo office in Paris; they also unleashed a barrage of extremism on both ends of the ideological spectrum. On one end are some Muslim leaders, replaying the broken record of “We-condemn-this-and-please-don’t-blame-the-Muslims.” On […]
Dawn: ISLAMABAD: A video message by students of Jamia Hafsa, in which they invited Islamic State (IS) chief Abu Bakar al-Baghdadi to ‘avenge’ the 2007 military raid on Lal Masjid, has been termed as “waging war” against the state. A report by the Islamabad police, sent to the interior ministry, […]
Source: The Guardian By Ed Husain Today’s fanatics are blind to the compassion and care in the prophet’s life. Their ignorance must be tackled head on. The killing of journalists in […]
NY Times: local newspaper Charlie Hebdo skewers people of all faiths and backgrounds. One cartoon showed rolls of toilet paper marked “Bible,” “Torah” and “Quran,” and the explanation: “In the toilet, all religions.” Yet when masked gunmen stormed Charlie Hebdo’s officesin Paris on Wednesday with AK-47s, murdering 12 people in […]