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Crescent eclipsing European Union Stars

Islam and the Future of Europe

To celebrate New Year’s Eve in 2017, German authorities sounded more like the vice cops who roam the streets of a few Muslim-majority nations: They created safety zones for women…

Adam and Eve standing on either side of the tree of knowledge with the serpent. In the foreground a cat.

A Dangerous Couple: The Story of Adam and Eve

For the longest time, ever since my early childhood years, I have tried to imagine the lives of Adam and Eve, fashioned, unlike the luminous angels, out of clay. The…

Dinesh D'Souza speaking at the 2016 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in National Harbor, Maryland.

Dinesh D’Souza Defends America

Little did I know that I would finish reading Dinesh D’Souza’s book, The Big Lie, in a Starbucks in Seville, Spain. It speaks to the power of the author’s spell…

Internet map

The Second Machine Age and Its Discontents

Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook and young cyber tycoon, wants the whole world wired and every human being to have access to the Internet. To bring Wi-Fi to people who…

Islam and the Enlightenment

As Iraq, Syria and other parts of the Arab and Muslim world are engulfed in flames, sectarian strife, social turmoil, and just plain misery, I keep wondering if these warring…

Moulay Hicham Ben Abdellah El Alaoui

The Impossible Dreams of a Moroccan Prince

A few years ago, I wrote a review/commentary on The Road from Morocco, a thrilling account by Wafa Faith Hallam, a young, modern Moroccan woman who leads a truly quixotic…

The Past and Future of Israel

The moment I heard about Ari Shavit’s book, My Promised Land: The Triumph and Tragedy of Israel, I hastened to get a copy, then another one when I joyfully shared…

Map of fertile crescent

Whence the Koran?

Much of what Muslims believe is unique to the faith—such as Mohammed being the seal of prophets or besieged believers falling asleep for centuries in a cave—are ideas taken from…

Fresco from the Vardzia monastery depicting Christ, 12th-13th centuries

Jesus and the Fate of Civilizations

The image of Jesus that emerges, somewhat hazily, from Reza Aslan’s new book, Zealot, reminded me of an annotated headshot of Osama bin Laden that appeared in the December 2001…

Theobald von Oer, The Weimar Court of the Muses (1860)

Humans Without Gods

For many years now, I have shared my utter amazement at how human beings living in the 20th and 21st centuries could still believe that the gods of the Bible…