Many Muslim scholars and statesmen viewed the decline of the Ottoman and Mughal Empires as the Reform has always been a major concern of the Muslim Ummah, and many reformers (mujaddidun) have appeared.

This study is a significant breakthrough in modern historiography of the Middle East. In addition to its academic merits, the author dwells on a very important debate: ‘Ottomanism’ versus both Turkism and Arabism.

The Kemalists’ crusade against the Islamic movement is becoming more vicious. Last month there was another assault when an issue of the Selam Islamic weekly was confiscated.

There is only one Maulana in Turkey - Maulana Jalaluddin Rumi, known as one of the greatest mystic poets of Islam. In Turkey, he is known simply as ‘Mevlana,’ and his followers go by the title of ‘Mevlevi.’

King Hasan of Morocco, one of the longest-reigning rulers in the Muslim world, was buried in Rabat on July 25, two days after his death in a Rabat hospital. In keeping with recent tradition, his funeral was attended by a large entourage of his foreign masters...

The outlines of a catastrophic cave-in to Israel are becoming clearer every day, and prospects of a separate peace treaty between Syria and the Zionist state become stronger. Islamic as well as secular groups opposed to a deal are being increasingly suppressed...

Despite centuries of strong Russian influence and decades of communist rule under the former Soviet Union, Muslims in the region - now consisting of countries organized as the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) - never lost their Muslim identity.

While Russian president Boris Yeltsin spends his few sober moments fighting with whoever happens to be prime minister at the time, his interior ministry troops are trying to assuage their injured pride by provoking fights with Chechen mujahideen. It seems that some people never learn, either from their own mistakes nor from others’.

Last month’s brief troubles in Tehran - which were effectively ended by the mass rally on July 14 at which almost one million people came into Tehran’s streets to support the Islamic system and the Rahbar, Ayatullah Seyyed Ali Khamenei - were clearly manipulated by the enemies of the Islamic Revolution.

Tens of thousands of Pakistanis marched in the streets of Lahore on July 25 to protest against prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s acceptance of a US-imposed settlement to the confrontation with India in occupied Kashmir which amounted to a humiliating withdrawal by Pakistan.

The Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo - former military dictator and retired general before his controversial election as head of state last February has stepped up his purge of Hausa and Fulani officers in the security forces, largely replacing them with members of his own Yoruba tribe.

Three years after an oppressive law - the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 - was signed into law by US president Bill Clinton, Muslim organisations have intensified their efforts to get it repealed