Myths about Western secularism and politics in Islam

democratic fundamentalists, Abdul Karim Soroush, Iran

Another dogma needs to be dismantled here – that in Islam, religion and politics are forever joined at the hip and the two cannot be separated for fear of violating a presumed divine commandment. This dogma has grown out of an ahistorical reading of the growth of Islamic political thought that disregards the lack of evidence in the early sources for a notion of sacred or sacralised politics in the Islamic polity. Rather, political governance was deemed necessary for the pragmatic purpose of maintaining order in society and no particular mode of government was understood to be mandated.

Despite early hope: like father, like son



The first time I met Anwar al-Bunni, in June 2005, one of Syria's numerous state-owned newspapers had just called him a traitor. Over tea that he made himself and countless cigarettes that he smoked as furiously as he defended human...

Numbers

Abu Fatoush, 9/11, Iraq, Blacksburg, Virginia

Briefly, for a twenty-four hour period, the body count out of Blacksburg, Virginia rivaled that coming out of Iraq. It was a weird juxtaposition--the War on Terror eclipsed by an all too familiar brand of American violence that will never get its own “War on . . .” moniker. But the numbers were there--thirty two dead. Thirty-two people presumably for whom the “War on Terror” was being fought but for whom it could not possibly protect, not even on its best day.