Articles

General Pervez Musharraf’s call for the recognition of zionist Israel, made during his visit to the US last month, hit the people of Pakistan like a bombshell. During a television interview on June 29, he called for an open debate in the media.

US military authorities said on July 3 that president George W. Bush has selected six of the estimated 680 Muslim detainees illegally held at the Guantanamo Bay naval base for trial by military tribunal and possible execution.

The Best Democracy Money Can Buy: An Investigative Reporter Exposes the Truth about Globalization, Corporate Cons, and High Finance Fraudsters by Greg Palast. Published by Constable Ltd., London, 2003. Pp: 400. Pbk: £7.99.​

After months of Iraq dominating the headlines, the focus seems to have shifted to Islamic Iran. It began with American accusations that Iran was interfering in Iraq’s affairs, because of the close links between the Islamic state and some Iraqi Islamic leaders and movements...

Few doubt that the Iraqi Governing Council that met in Baghdad for the first time on July 13 exists primarily to serve the US’s objectives. The members of the council have been handpicked by L. Paul Bremer, the US viceroy in Baghdad, rather than elected by Iraqis, either directly or indirectly...

Critical assessment of the true nature of Western democracy is one of the key needs of contemporary Muslim thought. Here we publish an extract from a paper on the subject by DR SAIED REZA AMELI, professor of sociology at the University of Tehran.

As the West’s war on terrorism is constantly expanded to take in more and more Islamic groups, activists and causes, the distinction between terrorism (as defined by the West) and jihad is become increasingly difficult to maintain.

Last month, Crescent International published the paper presented by Imam Muhammad al-Asi at the ICIT Seerah conference in Toronto on May 10. SHAMA QURESHI, a reader in the UK, is less than entirely convinced by his argument...

American and British claims that Iraq was calm except for limited resistance by a few pro-Saddam stragglers were blown away on June 24, when six British soldiers were killed by angry people in Majar al-Kabbir, a small town north of Basra, in response to aggressive and intrusive anti-resistance operations.

Jordan’s parliamentary elections finally took place on June 17, almost two years after the dissolution of the previous parliament at the end of its four-year term in July 2001. Since that time, king Abdullah II had repeatedly postponed elections, citing ‘regional circumstances’.