Articles

The takfiri groun Daesh that also goes by the name ISIS or ISIL is much in the news. This book by Andrew Hosken sheds some light on the group but skips crucial details. Dmitry Shlapentokh reviews Andrew Hosken’s Empire of Fear: Inside the Islamic State (Oneworld, London, UK, 2015; 304 pages).

Islamic resistance movements face many challenges, none more critical than the kind of friends they keep. Hamas faces this dilemma most acutely.

With so many wars raging in the Muslim world, it is easy to forget the long-suffering people of Afghanistan. They have not been well- served by successive rulers.

A reader ridicules the lifestyle of the hordes of Saudi princes whose extravagance has caused immense suffering to the people.

This long-time reader thanks us for not forgetting the life and struggle of Malcolm X (El Haj Malik el Shabazz), the most outstanding leader of the African-American community in the last century.

All parts of the Islamic movement should learn from the experiences and mistakes of the Ikhwan al-Muslimoon in Egypt.

A day after Hans Blix, the chief UN weapons-inspector, delivered a stinging rebuke to US secretary of state Colin Powell, and rejected Powell’s claims about Iraq’s weapons of mass-destruction, people from around the world voted with their feet against the planned attack on Iraq.

Vicious Islamophobic bigots miss no opportunity to accuse Muslims of all kinds of wrongdoing. Their latest victim is 21-year-old U of T student Zahra Vaid who commented on her Facebook page that a 14-year-old girl, accused of stabbing fellow students and teachers, was being bullied at school. This emerged from reading the 14-year-old's Facebook. The Islamophobes immediately accused Ms Vaid of being the culprit.

Defying Western predictions and negative propaganda, Iranians in their tens of millions turned out for two crucial elections on Friday February 26 to elect 290 members to a new Majlis (Parliament) and 88 members to a new Assembly of Experts. Both elections are seen as important landmarks as they come less than a year after a nuclear deal was signed with the group of P5+1 countries. The Rahbar, Imam Khamenei was among the first to cast ballot.

The ruling clan in the Arabian Peninsula (aka Saudi Arabia) continues to make strategic blunders compounding their problems. Their crimes are egregious and have resulted in shortening their shelf life. The world would be none the worse for it. Their demise is being predicted not only by Muslims but also by many non-Muslims as the article below from Carnegie Endowment for International Peace shows.