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.

The US’s disregard for law, even its own, since September 11 is now being emulated by others. The story of Mohammed Mansour Jabarah, 20, a Canadian citizen, was told on July 30 by Thomas Walkom of the Toronto Star, who related how he had been arrested and “kidnapped” to the US.

While public attention has recently been on the commemoration of the first anniversary of the attacks of September 11 last year, the major subject of political debate has been neither the war against terrorism nor events in Afghanistan, but George W. Bush’s fierce lobbying for his planned escalation of war on Iraq.

In yet another example of Bush’s cowboy-style government, Washington has announced that it will block a lawsuit against US multinational ExxonMobil by victims of the notorious Indonesian military’s atrocities in Aceh.

A month after 54 Afghani civilians were killed when American planes bombed a wedding party, the Times (London)newspaper published details of a report written by UN officials who visited the village two days after the bombing.

Tzachi Hanegbi, Israel’s environment minister, during his visit to India in February this year, said that “The main purpose of my visit is to enhance the relations between India and Israel as well as to commemorate the 10th anniversary of our diplomatic relations”.

Displaying supreme arrogance, India’s chief election commissioner on August 2 dismissed calls for international observers to monitor forthcoming elections in the disputed state of Jammu and Kashmir.

If Turkey joins the European Union (EU) it will be its largest member by population, and Europe will share borders with Iran, Iraq and Syria. Both prospects are bound to make most Europeans uneasy (to put it mildly), and they may prove to be an insurmountable obstacle to Turkey’s EU membership.