Rounded Analysis On Contested Issues; Spotlighting Blind Spots; Politics, Religion, Travel, Books
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini developed wilayat al-faqih (the rule of the jurist theory), the basis for the Iranian political system, during his 15-year exile in a small house in the warren alleys ringing the shrine of the Prophet's son-in-law, Caliph Imam Ali, in Iraq's Najaf
The country’s westernized founding fathers and those who helmed it for the first three decades loved to have a drink and sat on the periodic demands for prohibition in Pakistan
As the faithful prayed at the mosque in Dubai's Barsha Heights, their right to worship did not impinge on the rights of those going about their business in the vicinity, including women in shorts and mini-skirts
A culture of openness, pluralism, and innovation has transformed the United Arab Emirates into one of the most advanced countries
The interest that the Saraswati statue on the premises of the Indoneisan embassy in Washington DC generated pushed me to know more about Indonesia, which is home to 12.7 percent of Muslims globally and is governed by five foundational principles including humanitarianism, democracy, and social justice
Medieval Europeans felt inferior to the then vastly advanced Muslim world before they outshined and rejected its scientific legacy besides writing Islamic civilization out of their intellectual history
Scholar Abdallah bin Mahfudh ibn Bayyah crafted the legal framework that inspired the declaration connecting early Islamic sources and the Prophet Muhammad's Charter of Medina with international human rights law for a model of equal, contractual citizenship as an Islamic principle
Nahdlatul Ulama, the world’s biggest Islamic organisation, is an antithesis of the Taliban but it is hardly known perhaps because its progressive ideas do not fit into the dominant narrative about Islam particularly when Islamophobia is lucrative and many demagogues globally have tapped into it for political power
Pakistan's minister of state for foreign affairs Hina Khar traveled to Kabul without adhering to the Taliban’s dress code for women by dressing typically stylishly and covering only the back of her head with her dupatta leaving much of her hair visible
The Crusades were not just any other wars or an ordinary event in world history, but a theologically-justified attempt to erase Islam and the Islamic civilisation
