Numbers
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.

Torture Lite: Michael Ignatieff’s Problematic Written Record
By Grace-Edward Galabuzi Controversial Canadian novelist and human rights scholar Michael Ignatieff is one of the Liberal Party's candidates for the 2006 federal election. In his response to Haroon Siddiqui’s opinion piece in the Toronto Star titled “Ignatieff now in...

A Different Kind of Jihad in Kashmir
Let us hope that those radical imams who fuel Muslim anger learn to fuel Muslim charity.

How the American Empire Used Islam; Review of Mahmood Mamdani’s new book Good Muslim, Bad Muslim; America, the Cold War and the Roots of Terror
By Sadik Kassim Except for the purpose of conquest, “Islam” is not what it is generally said to be in the West today. Edward Said The aim of literature, according to the 19th century critic Matthew Arnold, is to...

What The Ground Said
Last week the bombers came to the places where I used to live. This week the police came to the places where I live.

Muting Muslims: US Denies Entry to Zaki Badawi
The US government's refusal to allow popular Muslims from Britain entry into the country, borders on xenophobic.

'Oh God, please, let it not be a Muslim.'
Killing innocent people in the name of religion has become a trademark of certain segments of our community. This is not because Muslims are intrinsically violent people, or our religion commands us to kill. It is because, Islam and its narrative have been hijacked by a small minority of fascist death worshippers, who arose from groups nurtured for decades by western governments, eager to contain the spread of communism.

Kamal Nawash’s Very, Very Strange Bedfellows
Digital Art by Frank Joel By Hussein Ibish On Saturday, May 14, "Free Muslims Against Terrorism," the group set up to stop criticism of Kamal Nawash by right-wing Zionists like Daniel Pipes and bolster his failed career as a...

The Making of the Green Menace
By Rayan El-Amine Anti-Arabism and Islamophobia are so much a part of the political and cultural discourse on Arabs and Muslims in American society today that most do not even recognize it as racism. The fear mongering of the...

In the Fight Against Terrorism, Some Rights Must Be Repealed
In the post 9/11 world where supposedly “everything has changed,” perhaps it is time for Americans to reconsider the value of public gun ownership.

Will the US Finally Live Up to Its Lofty Ideals? The Case for a More Aggressive Pro-Democracy Stance in the Arab World
In demonstrating our renewed commitment to the promotion of democracy in the Arab world, we would be well-advised to start with Egypt, whose President, Hosni Mubarak, has been in power for nearly a quarter-century, thanks, in large part, to US support.

An Islamic Renaissance?
Should Islam be reformed? Does the current rise in violence by Muslims reflect a problem within Islam? Or is it a malpractice of Islamic doctrines found in religious Sharia laws?

Western Muslims Must Get Tough on Extremism in Our Community
The presence of a persistent anti-western extremism within a small minority of Western Muslims exacerbates the plight of Western Muslims and undermines all their efforts to improve relations with the broader western communities and allay fears that Islam in the West is a threat to democracy and security.

American Muslims Call for a Radical Transformation of US Foreign Policy at USIP Conference
The open and very candid forum once again showed the great unease that American Muslims have about the direction of US foreign policy.

A Chip Off the Old Block: Why the Fearmongers Want to Keep Tariq Ramadan Out
Why do some camps continue to portray Tariq Ramadan as a threat to a civilized way of life (as in France) or to national security (as in the US)? And why are these portrayals deemed credible by a considerable number of people?

‘What Do You Think You’re Fighting for?’ An Interview with Anwar Ibrahim
There is a pressing need for us to look closer at ourselves and ask how and why our societies and political systems could have allowed this to happen. For me the absence of democracy, transparency and dialogue within the Muslim world is one main reason.

Wahhabism and the Illusion of a Golden Age
I had high expectations that Algar would blast away the clichés and superficialities and get to the essence of Wahhabism. Unfortunately, this was not the case. Although well written, the work suffers from several major flaws.

Globalizing Dissent: Arundhati Roy in Seattle
Praising the American people for coming out in protest to the Iraq war in huge numbers, Roy stressed the importance of confronting the threat of empire-building.

September 6th Had Direct Bearing On September 11th: Breakfast at Lahore
By Seeme Gull Hasan To the chagrin of my husband, I always forget my wedding anniversary date. In fact, I have been known to mix it up with my engagement date. In this fumble of memories, there is one...

The Australian Embassy Bombing in Jakarta: "Friends" That Indonesia Doesn’t Need
The bombing of the Australian embassy in Jakarta, Indonesia, has served yet another blow to a country that is already struggling as best as it can to recover from the economic and financial crises of 1997-98, and the aftermath of the Bali bombings a couple of years ago.

Be Who You Are: An Interview with the Banned Tariq Ramadan
We have to start with a principle—whoever, woman or man, says, I am a Muslim, and feels that he or she is a Muslim is a Muslim and should be considered as such. We have to stop judging each other.

How Not to Fight Muslim Anti-Semitism: The Revocation of Tariq Ramadan's Visa Fuels Bigotry
Reading the news in my morning paper that Tariq Ramadan had been suddenly banned from American soil by the Department of Homeland Security only days before he was to begin his much anticipated teaching position at the University of Notre Dame, I found myself imagining conspiracy theories worthy of the "X Files."

The 9/11 Commission Report: Generally Fair and Balanced
The Report's value lies in its summation and accumulation of a large body of facts in one place and will remain a useful reference tool for all who are engaged in the new enterprise of global counter-terrorism.

Why They Hate Us: The Failed Ideology of the Clash Thesis
Instantly, instinctively, and unrelentingly, the American establishment has framed the attacks of September 11, 2001, in the language of a clash of civilizations. The Islamic terrorists attacked America because they hate our highest values, our freedoms, our way of life, our civilization.

A Paranoid Muslim's Terror Alert System
I ran into Sanjay here. Sanjay wants to know if I feel in danger because, well, peace is a radical idea. I feel fairly safe. I do not really think about it a lot.

Changing My Curriculum
One of the first things that most children learn in school is that most formal education is a fraud. What children are learning (and not learning) everywhere is a big scandal. Yet the curriculum wars are not about improving schools all over the world. They are about forcing one party’s myths as the official dogma

Warming Up to a Dictator
President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair want us to think that Gaddafi's conversion on the road to Washington and London was due to the fear that he would end up in the same jail cell as Saddam Hussein.

The Terror of Beheadings: Who Is Responsible?
Today, the terror tactics used by the British and other European colonizers to break the will of their captive populations are being used by a new group of people—the Al Qaeda terrorists who have infiltrated the freedom fighters trying to get rid of new occupations.

Star Spangled Terrorism: Klan and Al Qaeda Bear a Striking Resemblance
While some of the people that I talk to continue to condemn the actions of Al Qaeda (rightfully so), they seem to suffer from a severe case of amnesia as well. It wasn’t too long ago that the Ku Klux Klan, which is a home grown terrorist organization, conducted themselves in a similar manner.

The Lies of War: How the Bush Administration’s Deceptions Fuel Conspiracy Theories
For the past three years, President Bush has painted the world in stark black and white tones—you are either with us or with the terrorists, he told the world soon after the September 11th tragedy. Taking him at his word, major international events are the provenance of either “them” or “us,” so people can be excused if they begin drawing conclusions that if facts indicate that certain catastrophic events have not been perpetrated by “the terrorists,” that they then must have been committed by “us.”

Usama bin Reagan
Communists were bad in those days. But Mujahideen were good. Reagan was not just the president of the United States. He was also the Grand Ghazi, the Head Shaykh, the Murshid Effendi and the Master Mufti of the jihad against the Soviets.

It’s ‘Fanatics Week’ in Malaysia!
Now it appears that ‘fanaticism’ has become a major problem in Malaysia—so dangerous is it that the powers-that-be have seen fit to direct the state-controlled media services to run a week-long series of mini ‘info-teries’ on TV (at prime time no less) to educate and warn the public about the dangers of religious extremism.

Are Australian Institutions Failing Muslims?
In late May 2004 two incidents occurred that could potentially complicate the relationship between Australia’s Muslims and the country’s political institutions.