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Koran Redux (1)

It is clear now that the outburst of the Arab Spring was a mere mirage in a sky full of expectation of change in the Arab world. Nothing has changed,…

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…

Islam Without Hadith?

I finally got to reading Turkish journalist Mustafa Akyol’s book, Islam Without Extremes: A Muslim Case for Liberty (2011). It is a well-researched book, very smart, and daring in a…

Mecca and the Koran

Do we really know what the Koran says? Most Muslims, especially Arabic-speaking ones, would probably say that they do. Religious leaders, the imams and muftis, as well as memorizers of…

Mosaic depiction of Mary holding an Arabic text, Convent of Our Lady, Greek Orthodox Church, Sednaya, Syria.

The Vanishing Christians of Islam

Recently, Tawadros II, the Coptic pope of Egypt, said that “even during the darkest ages” of its history, his church was never subjected to the violence it is now suffering at…

Caravaggio, "Sacrifice of Isaac" (c. 1603)

Our Idol Abraham

The prophet Abraham plays a huge role in Islam, but his story also suggests that Islam borrowed heavily from the Jewish tradition, that Islam (as suggested in my latest articles)…

Islam: The Arab Religion

A few months ago, I immersed myself in a kind of reading that I wish was available to me and my teachers when I was in high school in Tangier…

Islam, Arabs and the Hijra

The traditional account of Muhammad’s life tells us that in June of 622, upon getting wind of an assassination plot against him at Mecca, he escaped with some of his…

Distribution of Arabic alphabets

The Language of the Koran

When we look at Late Antique Syro-Palestine and Arabia in the early seventh century, the time when Islam is said to have become a religion, an interesting yet complex mosaic…