Articles

Events in Afghanistan are not going according to America’s script, despite tall claims of having routed the Taliban and al-Qa’ida. It is not just attacks on American and other so-called coalition forces, which are now becoming more frequent, but also the continuing factional fighting, especially between forces loyal to defence minister Mohammed Fahim and forces loyal to president Hamid Karzai...

The crash of a Russian army helicopter on August 19 near Johar-Gala (Grozny, the capital of Chechnya, also known as Ichkeria), in which at least 114 Russian soldiers, many of them officers, died, was a great embarrassment both to the military and to president Vladimir Putin.

Few politicians in Turkey’s recent history have stirred interest as have the secular and pro-Western Ismail Cem and Kemal Dervis.

Dr Mazen al-Najjar’s history encapsulates the plight of the Palestinians: they are accused of everything, but nobody is prepared to listen to their story. Dr Najjar, 43 years old and a former instructor at the University of Southern Florida, was finally released on August 24.

It was a grisly reminder of the Uzbek government’s brutality in dealing with Islamic activists. The bodies of two Uzbek prisoners who had died under torture while in police custody were handed back to their families on August 8 for burial.

What Went Wrong? Western Impact and Middle Eastern Response by Bernard Lewis. Pub: Oxford University Press, Oxford and New York, 2002. Pp: 180. US$23.00.

British prime minister Tony Blair has long been recognised as the US’s most loyal servant among its allies; he has supported Washington on virtually every international issue, even when other Western countries have been critical of the US’s arrogant and overbearing approach, for example over the Kyoto accord and the International Criminal Court.

​The ICIT held a second International Seerah Conference in Colombo, Sri Lanka, earlier this month. Here we publish the first section of an abridged version of the keynote paper, presented by Zafar Bangash, Director of the ICIT.

We live in a world where greed, racism, violence and other forms of injustice and immorality are everyday realities. WAHIDA CHISHTI VALIANTE discusses Qur’anic principles for the raising of children in such a time...

At a time when the Islamic movement is under massive attack all over the world, it is perhaps useful to remember the broader historical context of our struggle.