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.’

Professor Hamid Algar begins the main essay of this commemorative collection by highlighting the remarkable fact that ten years after Imam Khomeini’s death, and twenty years after the triumph of the Islamic Revolution in Iran, no serious, comprehensive biography of him has yet been written, in Persian, English or any other language.

Noam Chomsky’s status as an acceptable rebel at the heart of the west is well-established, dating back to his role in anti-Vietnam protests in the 1960s.

The Prophet’s Seerah (peace be upon him) is a model for Muslims in their individual as well as collective lives. Within his lifetime, the noble Messenger of Allah not only delivered the message of Islam to all parts of the Arabian Peninsula and beyond...

If the reports that Saddam Hussain has joined the exclusive club of the world’s billionaires, boasting an estimated fortune of $6 billion, are even partly true, he will then have even greater contempt for the Iraqi opposition-groups in exile whose proudest possessions are fax-machines and an expensive rented office in London provided by the US.

There are two faces of Israeli justice: a counterfeit and untrue face that is arranged only to play a part in Zionist media propaganda; and a real face that moves mainly in the dark when TV cameras are turned off.

Any person - or for that matter, any group of people - anywhere in the world, who, being under pressure for whatever reason, declares himself or herself to be Jewish, and is accepted as such by the rabbinical authorities in Israel, acquires an automatic right to Israeli citizenship and can look forward to being settled in lands being ruthlessly confiscated from indigenous Palestinian owners.

Nato’s intervention in Kosova failed to save the country’s infrastructure from destruction and its Muslim population from genocide, but it has saved the territory for Serbia, asserting the ‘principle’ that it is an integral and inalienable part of Yugoslavia, and disarming the Kosova Liberation Army (KLA).

After months of kite-flying, the world’s wealthiest countries announced a debt-relief plan on June 19 which, they said, was designed to reduce the debt-burden of the world’s 33 poorest countries by up to $70bn from its present level of $127bn.

Great men live in people’s consciousness long after they have left the physical world. Sayyid Jamaluddin Afghani (Asadabadi), Allamah Muhammad Iqbal, Syed Qutb, Imam Khomeini, Maulana Maudoodi and Dr Kalim Siddiqui all come into this category. They were men of great ideas which have helped shape the destiny of millions in this century.

Israel’s chief rabbi, Israel Lau, has been leading an international campaign for the release of 13 Jews arrested for spying in Iran. The case of the 13 Iranian Jews came to light last month when Tehran announced that they are to be tried after an intensive four-month investigation.

India put its navy ï the fourth largest in the worldï on full alert in the Indian Ocean on June 17, a somewhat surreal response to the successes of Kashmiri mujahideen among the frosty peaks of the Himalayas 1,000 miles away.

NATO and the Kosova Liberation Army (KLA) signed an agreement regarding the KLA’s future role in Kosova on June 21. The agreement was signed following what was described as “a frenetic weekend of military and political wrangling from mountainous rebel bases in central Kosova to the capitals of Europe”.

A draft resolution submitted simultaneously to the US house of representatives and the senate calls on the Clinton administration to arm the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), led by John Garang...