Liberalism and human rights are two of the major ideological sticks the west uses to beat Islam. They represent, we are constantly told, universal values based on humanity’s collective experiences and mature rationality.

The Uthmaniyyah sultanate, which claimed the legitimacy of khilafah, was as corrupt and rotten as any monarchy in Muslim history. This was a massive contributory factor in its decline and ultimate collapse.

The US is presently engaged in an intensive witch-hunt against Islamic movement activists all over the world, on the grounds that they are part of an ‘international terror network’ controlled by Osama bin Ladin and responsible for the bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, and numerous other ‘terrorist acts’ against US installations and interests around the world.

It is perhaps indicative of the present state of the Ummah that, outside his native Egypt and a small circle of Islamic activists, few Muslims are aware that August 29 marked the thirty-third anniversary of the martyrdom of Sayyid Qutb.

Palestinians in Zionist-occupied Jerusalem last month marked the 30th anniversary of the arson attack on the Masjid Al-Aqsa on August 21, 1969. Palestinian Islamic leaders used the occasion to highlight continuing threats to the mosque, as well as other Islamic sites under Israeli rule

The routine bombing of Iraq by the US and Britain, and the UN sanctions kept in place by their vetoes, have taken a heavy toll of Iraqi lives, destroyed the country’s once-thriving economy, and reduced its people to poverty.

The dispute about Kashmir between India and Pakistan evokes different reactions at different levels. During the crisis over Kargil, patriotic sentiments on both sides ran high. But, as usual, Muslims in India were put in a particularly difficult position, increasingly asked to prove their loyalty to the country.

After 200 years of relentless struggle, the people of the Caucasus are rolling the frontiers of Russia, slowly but surely, back to where they rightly belong. In the latest fighting in Dagestan, a few hundred Chechen mujahideen led by the intrepid commander Shamil Basayev...

A Kashmiri alim based in Oldham, UK, is fighting government attempts to deport him to Pakistan. Shafiq ur-Rahman, who came to the UK in 1993 as an imam, is accused of being the UK leader of the Lashkar Tayyaba (LT) Islamic group fighting the Indian occupation of Kashmir.

Surprised Nigerians have witnessed two unprecedented events in the last month. A new truth-commission, known as the Oputa Panel, held its first hearings into abuses of power by military rulers, and the administration of the recently-elected president Olusegun Obasanjo announced a plan for the drastic reduction of the army that could cut it by half. Nigerians are watching both developments with interest and no small trepidation.

When the Saudi defence minister, prince Sultan bin Abdul-Aziz, appeared in Islamabad in May, and reportedly toured Pakistani nuclear installations with prime minister Nawaz Sharif, he congratulated his hosts on the acquisition of the latest military technology of which ‘the Muslim was proud’...

The two Moroccan enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla, occupied by Spain for more than five centuries, are unlikely to be returned to their rightful owners in the forseeable future, if Madrid’s reaction to a recent Moroccan call for a ‘bilateral rethink’ on the issue, and Rabat’s anxiety to avoid a confrontation, are anything to go by.

The Turkish government requested 45,000 body-bags from the UN on August 24, giving the first clear indication of the final death-toll it is expecting from the earthquake that struck north-western Turkey at 3am on the morning of August 17.