Occasionally, I come across remarkable Americans who remind me of the spirit that has made the United States an exceptional nation, one that has injected an earthshaking dose of heroism…
Religion
Zineb’s War on Islamic Fascism
In August 2011, in the midst of the Arab Spring, Zineb El Rhazoui, a young Moroccan-French woman, stood in a packed forum on human rights in the Arab world and…
A Prophet in His Own Land
I just finished reading an eye-opening book by the Tunisian scholar Hela Ouardi, a professor of French literature who has waded brilliantly into Islam’s canonical texts, written by Sunnis and…
Trump, Islam and the West
Understandably, Donald Trump’s suggestion that non-US Muslims seeking entry into the United States should be barred until we figure out what is going on with Muslims and the United States…
The Koran Fragments of Birmingham
The recent discovery of fragments of a Koran dating back to the early decades of Islam was major news around the world and a source of great excitement to Muslims…
Religion Against People
I continue to be baffled by the persistence of religions, even when their effects on human beings and our world are nothing short of cataclysmic. In Muslim-majority nations, Islam has…
Mimouna: Moroccan Jews Trusting Their Muslim Neighbors
The vast majority of people in the Christian and Muslim world know very little, or nothing at all, about the history of the Jewish communities in the Muslim world. The…
How to Deal with ISIS
As the world awakens to the destruction of the ancient Mesopotamian cultural heritage and more killings of Christians by the Islamic State or ISIS, most people will just simply sigh…
Terrorism and the Failure of Patriotism
Many people are asking what, exactly, is causing Muslims to be behind so many acts of terror and whether something could be done to change the situation for the better….
Murderous Fictions
The terrorist massacres in Paris on January 7th, and now the complaints about the portrayal of Islam’s prophet Mohammed on the surviving cover of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, are…