Rounded Analysis On Contested Issues; Spotlighting Blind Spots; Politics, Religion, Travel, Books
Pakistani Parsis are far fewer but much like in India the Parsi community's achievements are extraordinary also in Pakistan, where they own the only brewery, the oldest shipping firm, and a chain of hotels besides being regarded as makers of the country's financial hub of Karachi
Pakistan's Westernized founding fathers and their successors loved to have a drink and sat on the periodic demands of a ban on alcohol until the 1970s when the prohibition—at least on paper—was imposed
The West embraced rationality, science, and liberal multiculturalism to become the guiding light for the world but dehumanizing constructions of Muslims embedded in its consciousness as internalized beliefs and practices continue to fuel Islamophobia
Shrines of Prophet Muhammad's grandson Imam Hussain in Karbala and his father, Imam Ali, in Najaf funded the Saraya al-Atabat and deployed them for their protection as well as to fight ISIS
Tribalism, corruption, and the absence of modern institutions have been blamed for Afghanistan's troubles, overlooking political modernization and the creation of features of a modern secular state by the 1970s before foreign interventions unmade them
The biradari system is among the crucial factors in Pakistan's elections particularly in rural areas of the Punjab province, which sends 55% of lawmakers to the National Assembly
Former Oxford professor Avi Shlaim’s book Three Worlds: Memoir of an Arab-Jew uncovers what he calls ‘undeniable proof' of Zionist involvement in the attacks that forced Iraqi Jews to emigrate to Israel after over 2,500 years of presence in Babylon
Republican Senator Joseph R McCarthy died in 1957 but the terms McCarthyism and McCarthy's tactics entered the political lexicon to describe witch hunts involving public accusations of disloyalty or subversion without sufficient proof
The words—'Mr Gorbachev, tear down this Wall'—that moved the world would have been edited out from Reagan's Berlin Wall Speech had it not been for the US President's insistence in the face of objections from mandarins
Mukhayyam al Husayni Mosque, over 400 metres from Imam Hussain's shrine, stands at what is believed to be the site of the encampment of the Prohet's grandson and his family during the Battle of Karbala
