The Struggle for Syria’s Body & Soul!

According to Shaaban Abbod of An-Nahar, thestrugglebetween Islamists and secularists in Syria is intensifying. The recent sign in this regard can be seen in the open Letter to the President sent by Syria’s foremost Islamic scholars and Imams proclaiming the existence of an official conspiracy against Islamic education in the country. The leaders of this conspiracy seem to the secular forces in the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Religious Endowment (?), where the new Minister has just issued an edict against admitting students into religious schools at the preparatory level. Continue reading →

Wet Dreams and Dry Realities!

The recentarticleby Shaaban Abboud on Islamic Movements in Syria highlights the fact that, in the final analysis and after all is said and done, these movements are formed along provincial rather than ideological lines, with personalities playing a huge role in this regard. Different sheikhs have different followers, disciples and devotees. They will compete with each other, and vilify each other, now somewhat quietly but tomorrow quite overtly, but they will eventually agree on one thing: the Shariah. Continue reading →

Asking all the wrong questions

First posted on my short-lived blog Tharwalizations.

Ever since the Danish Cartoon Controversy, a spate of alarmist articles and reports on Islam and the Muslim communities in western societies appeared in various newspapers and journals across the world, all warning against the danger posed by Islam as such and all asserting that Islam as a faith is inherently violence. Continue reading “Asking all the wrong questions” →

Secularists & Islamists – The Promise & the Dread

This is the paper that I have prepared during my second stint as a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution (October 2005-March 2006). It, too, was too whimsical for publication as a Brookings policy paper. So, here it is. Continue reading “Secularists & Islamists – The Promise & the Dread” →