Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdulaziz Alsaud, Chairman of the Alwaleed Bin Talal Foundation and Princess Ameerah Al-Taweel, Vice-Chair woman of the Alwaleed Bin Talal Foundation, hosted an historic gathering of leading scholars on Islam and the West at The Alwaleed Bin Talal Islamic Studies Program at Harvard University, Wednesday, February 8th, 2012. The […]
If a country’s government is democratic and classically liberal, men and women are generally treated as equals. However, if men and women are treated equally, does this mean a government is democratic? No. Example: Tunisia. Under Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, women were, broadly speaking, given equal treatment. They were entitled to receive […]
Yesterday’s bombing of the UN compound in Abuja, Nigeria by the radical-Islamist sect Boko Haram is finally setting off alarm bells throughout the Nigerian Government and the global anti-terrorism establishment. And well it should. Boko Haram– the nickname for the group which is largely composed of disaffected, unemployed youth and university students from the predominantly […]
Present Dangers A Counterterrorism Ally In North Africa Morocco’s remarkable soft-power strategy By Ilan Berman Morocco can trace its contemporary approach back to the end of the Cold War. While many in the region saw the Soviet Union’s collapse as a destabilizing development–and consequently tightened domestic control–Morocco’s monarch did the opposite. The previously authoritarian […]
Secretary of State Clinton addressed the Seventh Annual U.S. Islamic World Forum in Doha, Qatar, yesterday. This report in the Washington Post notes that it was seen as a follow-up to President Obama’s Cairo speech and promised renewed efforts to maintain the momentum generated by that speech: In what aides billed as a sequel to […]
People marked International Women’s Day yesterday in a variety of ways. In Europe, the Commissioner for Human Rights for the Council of Europe, Thomas Hammarberg, made news with the publication of his Viewpoint that bans against the Islamic niqab or burqa would violate a woman’s privacy and could potential violate the European Convention on […]
Last Sunday, Swiss voters opted to legally ban the construction of any new minarets in the country. Since then, the topic has been debated online and in the media, with plenty of analysis by people on both sides of the ban on what the minaret ban is really about, or what minarets are really about. […]
Thailand – A Thai HIV Vaccine trial, led by Dr. Supachai Rerks-Ngarm of the Department of Disease Control of the Thai Ministry’s Public Health Department, was successful in that it provided coverage to a small percentage of participants, which is better than any previous trial. A combination vaccine, using strains of HIV common in Thailand, […]
Cambodia and Thailand – Our favorite soft authoritarian, Cambodian PM Hun Sen is back at it. Just when you thought they were on the road to peace, Hun Sen has ordered Cambodian troops and police to fire on anyone crossing “illegally” into the area around the Preah Vihear Temple. This was Hun Sen’s response to […]
– Malaysia is often sited as an example for the wider Muslim world of how a moderate pluralistic democracy can be compatible with Islam. An article in Forbes explores how moderate Malaysia actually is. First, the article recants the common outsiders view of Malaysia: …the Southeast Asian nation boasted the world’s tallest building, the iconic […]
Adeeb Khalid, a professor of history at Carleton College and Central Asian expert, wrote ‘Islam after Communism‘ in an attempt to educate those who view Central Asian Muslims through the prism of Muslims in the Middle East, in effect, ignoring their own history and societal changes and make up. Khalid effectively hammers down the point […]
*Update: Here is my review of Adeeb Khalid’s ‘Islam after Communism’ on the CA site. Josh Hammer of FPA’s ‘Terrorism‘ blog, wrote a fierce criticism of the Pakistani governments move to grant the Swat region autonomy. Hammer rightly fears that this may lead to other such claims of autonomy in the tribal areas of Afghanistan/Pakistan […]
Popular from Press
