NewsTrust - Islam - Most Recent Stories: Opinion (Mainstream)

Is the meaning of hajj being lost?

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

The Guardian - By Syed Neaz Ahmad - Nov. 22 (Opinion) - Hajj is meant to bring Muslims together in brotherhood. But in 2009, more than ever, security is getting in the way "The hajj is one of the great cultural and spiritual events on earth, but one which most of us know far less about than we do about things that happen in outer space and under the sea", says Taran Davies co-producer of Journey to Mecca a new Imax film about the hajj. The hajj, of course, is nothing new. Muslims have been performing this once in a lifetime act of worship for 1430 years. The institution is as old as the Ka?bah itself which according to traditions was established some 4000 years ago in the barren lands of central Arabia. The ceremony is commemorative of Prophet Abraham?s acts of devotion. However, over the centuries perceptions and expectations have changed. This change presents new challenges every year. What with the threat of security, accidents, fire and terrorists, the House of Saud finds every hajj season a bit unnerving and it is not surprising that – ...

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Renouncing Islamism: To the brink and back again

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

The Independent - By Johann Hari - Nov. 16 (Opinion) - In the mosques across the city, I hear a fringe of young men talk dreamily of flocking to Afghanistan to "resist". Yet this whisper never has an immigrant accent. It shares my pronunciations, my cultural references, and my national anthem. Beneath the beards and the burqas, there is an English voice.

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The Missing Link From Killeen to Kabul

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - By Frank Rich - Nov. 15 (Opinion) - THE dead at Fort Hood had not even been laid to rest when their massacre became yet another political battle cry for the self-proclaimed patriots of the American right. Their verdict was unambiguous: Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, an American-born psychiatrist of Palestinian parentage who sent e-mail to a radical imam, was a terrorist.

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Why Hillary Clinton babies Indonesia and bullies Pakistan

Sat, 14 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Christian Science Monitor - By John Hughes - Nov. 14 (Opinion) - When Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton visited Indonesia earlier this year, she said: "If you want to know whether Islam, democracy, modernity, and women's rights can coexist, go to Indonesia." When she visited Pakistan recently, she was polite but much more critical in her words, basically accusing some government officials of sheltering Taliban and Al Qaeda terrorists.

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Does Obama need to speak more harshly about Islam?

Sat, 14 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Slate - By Jacob Weisberg - Nov. 14 (Opinion) - Obama's olive-branch strategy may make America safer over the long term. In the short term, there's no empirical evidence that it has done so.

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The Rush to Therapy

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - By David Brooks - Nov. 10 (Opinion) - The well-intentioned public commentary that followed Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan’s rampage at Fort Hood shrouded the role militant Islam played in his actions.

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'Going Muslim'

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Forbes - By Tunku Varadarajan - Nov. 09 (Opinion) - "Going postal" is a piquant American phrase that describes the phenomenon of violent rage in which a worker--archetypically a postal worker--"snaps" and guns down his colleagues. As the enormity of the actions of Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan sinks in, we

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Islamic countries push a global 'blasphemy' law

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Christian Science Monitor - Oct. 28 (Editorial) - Remember the Danish "Muhammad cartoons" that set off riots by offended Muslims more than three years ago? The debate pitted freedom of press and speech against notions of freedom from insult of one's religion. It rages still – but now in a forum with international legal implications.

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Which Way for Hamas?

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The New York Review of Books - By Nicolas Pelham, Max Rodenbeck - Oct. 22 (Opinion) - Amid the wreckage of Gaza, Hamas's officials struggle to sound upbeat. The burly interior minister, Fathi Hamad, whose predecessor was killed by an Israeli bomb, defiantly shuns security precautions at his makeshift office in Gaza City's main police station. "Claims that we are trying to establish an Islamic state are false," says the minister, who says his preference would be pursuing a degree in media studies. "Hamas is not the Taliban. It is not al-Qaeda. It is an enlightened, moderate Islamic movement."

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The Meaning of Freedom

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - Sep. 29 (Editorial) - The question is far from academic, as illustrated poignantly by the case of brothers Bahtiyar Mahnut and Arkin Mahmud. As reported by The Post's Del Quentin Wilber, the brothers are Uighurs, Chinese Muslims who face oppression, intimidation and often

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Interview: Jaswant Singh

Wed, 02 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Aljazeera - Sep. 02 (Interview) - "Theocentricism", where society is centred on Islam - this is in line whether Pakistan, India or Bangladesh, where faith is of paramount importance. Pakistan is not theocratic in the sense it is not the Mullah that is governing Pakistan ... but Pakistan society is governed by Islam.

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Tumult in Iran Raises Questions About Negotiating Over Nuclear Efforts

Thu, 27 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - Aug. 27 (Editorial) - THE PROTESTERS have been routed from the streets of Tehran, but the political turmoil in Iran continues unabated behind the scenes. The authority of both the country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and its president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is being overtly challenged by religious and secular elites. Given the internal tumult and uncertainty, it looks increasingly doubtful that the regime will respond meaningfully to the Obama administration's deadline of late September to discuss curtailing its nuclear program or risk what Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has called "crippling sanctions."

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The Taliban and music

Wed, 05 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Dawn - By Zubeida Mustafa - Aug. 05 (Opinion) - In her latest book, The Case for God, Karen Armstrong describes music as ‘the limit of reason.’ She finds it inseparable from religious expression when religion is at ‘its best.’ We do not get the best demonstration of this connection in the Taliban brand of Islam. The faith practised by the Sufis, however, shows an intrinsic link between the two.

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In the name of religion

Wed, 05 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Dawn - By Yaqoob Khan Bangash - Aug. 05 (Opinion) - This month we will be commemorating for the 62nd year running the carnage which engulfed the subcontinent in the name of religion — violence in the name of religion refuses to dissipate.

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Negligence or complicity?

Tue, 04 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Dawn - By Naveen Naqvi - Aug. 04 (Opinion) - The lesson is clear; the blasphemy law not only violates fundamental principles of justice, it distorts law into an instrument of sectarian witch-hunts and also of collective and individual reprisal. Its victims have ranged from an innocent Hafiz who was burned to death by a frenzied mob, to Pakistan’s most renowned social engineer Dr Akhtar Hameed Khan who suffered years of harassment, death threats and litigation for unsubstantiated allegations of blasphemy

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Today, I too am a minority

Tue, 04 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Dawn - By Nadeem F. Paracha - Aug. 04 (Opinion) - why is the Pakistani media referring to the recent attack by Muslims on the Christian community in the Gojra area as ‘communal riots?’ They were not riots, but an attack. An assault by an arrogant majority on a low-lying minority.

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Pakistan's real battle: government vs. Army

Sat, 25 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Christian Science Monitor - By Kathryyn Allawalla - Jul. 25 (Opinion) - A few months ago, Pakistan looked as though it was falling apart. The Taliban were solidifying their hold on territory in the north and staging shocking attacks deeper and deeper in Pakistan's heartland. Though the situation in Swat Valley is improving, the success of the Army is upsetting Pakistan's fragile internal balance of power.

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Why isn't the Muslim world speaking up in defense of the Uighurs?

Tue, 14 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Foreign Policy - By Moisés Naím - Jul. 14 (Opinion) - ... in different countries, mullahs, imams, and assorted clerics have found the time to issue fatwas condemning among other practices, Pokémon cartoons, total nudity during sex for married couples, and the use of vaccines against polio, not to mention Salman Rushdie. They have yet to find the time to say anything about China's practices toward Uighurs.

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Iran on the brink?

Sat, 20 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Aljazeera - By Mark LeVine - Jun. 20 (Opinion) - In 15 years of writing about the Middle East, I have never encountered a situation that changed so fast that one could write an article that becomes outdated in the time it takes to write it.

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Can Iran's Clerics Stop the Protests?

Wed, 17 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Newsweek - By Michael Hirsch - Jun. 17 (Opinion) - The Supreme Leader's clear misreading of the situation—his initial embrace of the election results as a "divine" victory for Ahmadinejad followed by a jittery call for an investigation into the vote—has amply demonstrated his fallibility

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Don't call what happened in Iran last week an election.

Tue, 16 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Slate - By Christopher Hitchens - Jun. 16 (Opinion) - Any newspaper referring to the subsequent proceedings as an election, sometimes complete with rallies, polls, counts, and all the rest of it, is the cause of helpless laughter among the ayatollahs.

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Muslims Will Judge Obama by Actions More Than Words

Fri, 05 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Helene Cooper - Jun. 05 (Comment) - But one thing is already clear. While Mr. Obama’s strong words may resonate today, on the Arab street and in the madrassas and the tea shops and dining tables where the world’s 1.5 billion Muslims congregate, the future actions of Mr. Obama will be far more important.

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Can A New President Make A New World?

Fri, 05 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

National Public Radio - By Ron Elving - Jun. 05 (Opinion) - In his effort to reach out to the Muslim world from a lectern in Cairo, President Obama relied on the stark differences separating him from former president George W. Bush. This was at once the underlying strength of the speech, and its ultimate weakness. Those who heard the speech, or who will hear of it, cannot fail to note the change of regime. For the Muslim world, and others disenchanted with the previous American president, nothing could be more welcome.

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Obama’s Speech a Start to Repairing Muslim Relations

Fri, 05 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Newsweek - By Michael Hirsch - Jun. 05 (Opinion) - as Obama himself seemed to acknowledge, his speech won't have a shelf life of more than a few days unless it is accompanied by real policy changes. There have been some signs of that, notably the administration's stark rhetoric toward Israel about freezing West Bank settlements and the president's commitment to withdraw from Iraq by the end of 2011. But this is really only the beginning. For if Obama's outreach is ever to amount to anything more than swiftly forgotten words, he needs to begin to roll back nearly a century's worth of Arab-Western history.

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Women and Islam

Thu, 04 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Frontline - Jun. 04 (Interview) - The veiling is not only just covering the head; it indicates a way of behavior, which is called to be more modest, more pure--Puritan maybe--which means you limit your presence in public life. For instance, the way you look at people. You have to cast down the eyes. The way your body occupies the space in public. That means you shouldn't be too loud--laughing, for instance. So it means a way of behaving, more modest behavior. It comes from hija, meaning being more cautious, being more modest. So I think it's not only just a kind of dress code, but a dress code which indicates a set of manners, bodily manners, in relation to the other sex, but in relation also to public behavior. Also, culturally, it means a more civilized behavior--civilized in the sense that you are more controlled. It's a kind of self-control in public life.

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