Articles

Zahir Shah, the former king of Afghanistan, refuses to fade away. Living in exile in Italy since July 1973, when he was overthrown by Sardar Daoud, his prime minister, Zahir Shah has made occasional appearances on the political stage amid suggestions of resurrecting Afghanistan’s traditional system.

‘Gay-positive’ education is on the minds of many Toronto Muslim parents these days. While the province’s Conservative government claims to be bringing in a back-to-basics curriculum, and Toronto schools claim that their resources are being stretched to the limit by the provision of ESL (English as a second language) classes, time and money can still be found to inform the students that they can choose to be homosexuals!

Since its establishment in 1979, the Islamic Revolution has always been seen by Muslim dictators, their media and their western masters as a source of threat - not through force of arms but by example.

The Secretariat of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council condemned in unequivocal terms police-action against students on the night of Friday, July 9, in which one student was killed (not five, as some reports said) and several were injured at Tehran University.

Prime minister Nawaz Sharif of Pakistan followed the traditions of his predecessors when he snatched defeat from the jaws of victory in Kargil. After a brilliant military operation in which the Indian army was given a bloody nose for the first time, with serious cracks appearing in its ranks...

If, as is generally accepted, there is a language time-bomb ticking away in Kazakhstan, then it seems likely to explode sooner than anyone thought possible only two years ago; the issue was then believed to have been resolved by the 1997 language law, which declared Kazakh the language of the State and Russian that of common use.

If Turkish editors and commentators are right in their assessment of the effect of Abdullah Öcalan’s conciliatory gestures from prison on popular and establishment attitudes towards Kurdish rights and on the question of whether or not to execute him...

That the claimant to sole superpower status should feel threatened by one frail man living somewhere in the barren mountains of Afghanistan is strange indeed. American obsession with Osama bin Laden, the Arab mujahid, borders on paranoia.

Richard A. Gephardt, a Democratic congressman from Missouri, and leader of the House’s minority group, withdrew his nomination of a ‘moderate’ Muslim to serve on a congressional commission on July 7 after the country’s Jewish lobby attacked him for being ‘anti-Israel’ and an ‘apologist’ for terrorist groups.

One hears a lot of talk about ‘the millennium. There’s a daily countdown - one can buy watches that number the days. And there are numerous academic conferences involving Muslims in programs like, ‘interfaith dialogues for the new millennium’ or ‘new thoughts for the new millennium.’