9/11: islamic worlds

The inner world of the 9/11 fanatics is part of Islam’s history, says Murat Belge. German-Iranian scholar Navid Kermani illuminates its nihilist dimension. The problem is a twisted theology, says the US Muslim leader Muqtedar Khan. Omar al-Qattan and Malise Ruthven see bin Ladenism as an outgrowth of modern social tensions, while Gema Martín-Muñoz deplores a western policy that reinforces Muslim alienation.
Thursday 19th January

Uncertainty looms amid progress in talks with the Taliban

Arif Rafiq, 19 January 2012
The Afghan Taliban and the United States have begun talks, advancing prospects that coalition forces can withdraw from Afghanistan. But there are many potential pitfalls on the road to peace: a real risk of a political and military stalemate in Afghanistan, forcing the United States to leave the region under uncertain and possibly dangerous terms.

Thinking about war with Iran

Michael Doliner, 19 January 2012
The real Iranian threat is not its nuclear capacity but its independence. If Iran continues to stand as a model of defiance for increasingly poverty-stricken and restless populations of family fiefdoms in the Gulf, the current US-backed setups will either fall or be forced to democratise. These potentially catastrophic losses of empire go a long way to explaining the rising beat of war drums in the region.
Thursday 5th January

Iran in the straits?

David Madden, 5 January 2012
How are recent events in Iran to be interpreted? History has a lot to teach us, argues David Madden
Wednesday 13th July

Google's big idea against extremism needs to learn the important maxim of political violence: "no justice, no peace"?

Jonathan Githens-Mazer, 13 July 2011
Google Ideas, Google's think-and-do-tank, wants to combat violent extremism by having extremists and policy makers learn from those who have renounced violence. All fine until you get to the detail: the program is to understand violence as a result of psychological need rather than taking seriously the claims of injustice made. Whatever we may learn from the exercise, peace is unlikely to come from it. The author and a colleague have resigned from their role in the project.
Thursday 10th September

"Born-again" Muslims: cultural schizophrenia

Malise Ruthven, 10 September 2009
The Qur'an as training-manual in a war on unbelief. Plus: Omar al-Qattan tours Disneyland Islam, Murat Belge tracks the fundamentalist mind (archive)
Tuesday 18th June

Arab states, Islamism and the West

Gema Martín-Muñoz, 18 June 2002
"Think, America. Why do we hate you?" This sentiment, which appeared in the first demonstrations against the ‘war on terrorism’, expresses two essential requirements of a new Western approach to the Muslim world: to think and to know.
Wednesday 3rd April

Recognising the Taliban

David Loyn, 3 April 2002
Forgetfulness can be fatal: according to this BBC correspondent, alienation of the Taliban by the west led directly to the events of 11 September.
Wednesday 27th February

Where is the 'W' factor? Women and the war on Afghanistan

Fadia Faqir, 27 February 2002
Since 11 September, the images of the war against terror which have been presented to us by the hegemonic western media are predominantly masculine on all sides: George Bush, Colin Powell, Tony Blair, Mohammad Atta, Osama Bin Laden and the male soldiers launching the missiles to smoke out the terrorist. Again and again men have appeared on our TV screens, flexing their muscles, raising their rhetoric to put fear in the heart of their enemy.

The terrorists may still be hiding out in caves, but the caveman mentality is widespread among all the participants in this war.

Thursday 21st February

Roots of terror: suicide, martyrdom, self-redemption and Islam

Navid Kermani, 21 February 2002
After 11 September 2001 I was frequently asked, as many scholars of Islamic studies probably were, why certain people are prepared to hijack an aeroplane and plunge themselves and all the other passengers to certain death. I do not have an answer. What I have done instead is to tell three stories – about the cult of martyrdom in Shi’ite Islam, about modern fantasies of salvation through self-sacrifice, and about power politics in the Middle East – which together assemble the elements of a fourth: the unfinished story of the modern world.
Wednesday 24th October

A plea to American Muslims

Muqtedar Khan, 24 October 2001
The essence of Islam is the pursuit of moral perfection. That is not contingent on what the US or Israel does. For Muslims in America, 11 September is a challenge to self-reflection about the culture of hatred in their midst.
Wednesday 17th October

Disneyland Islam

Omar al-Qattan, 17 October 2001
The struggle of the self-defined pure Islam that launched the assaults on America is itself a product of contradictory modernity. A recognition of its evasion of this reality leads beyond the fantasy it offers, says Omar al-Qattan.
Sunday 14th October

The view from Palestine

Ghassan Khatib, 14 October 2001
In the war over Kuwait in 1991, and now the ‘anti-terrorist’ war, the Palestine issue has been invoked by Arab and Taliban radicals to lend legitimacy to their struggle with the US. From the Palestinian viewpoint, this is a dubious blessing. The editor of Palestine Report examines the war’s impact on the internal struggle between the Palestinian Authority and its Islamic opponents.
Wednesday 3rd October

Radical Islam and 9/11: inside the fundamentalist mind

Murat Belge, 3 October 2001
The abstract universalism that produces extremist violence is rooted in the modern intellectual and psychological complexes of the Islamic world, says Murat Belge.
Wednesday 26th September

A new apartheid in the making?

Hazhir Teimourian, 26 September 2001
The long journey from the Kurdish mountains has taught this distinguished journalist painful lessons about the mismatch between Islam and democracy – and the pitfalls of multiculturalism.
Monday 17th September

A time to rethink

Samir Kassir, 17 September 2001
With the current temptation to give in to the idea of a “clash of civilisations”, a complete ideological re-think becomes ever more urgent.
Friday 14th September

Terror and globalisation: Islam outside the state

Roger Scruton, 14 September 2001
The only way to grasp the nature of the challenge represented by Osama bin Laden and its followers is via a true understanding of globalisation. But that will take the champions of this idea into uncomfortable territory, says Roger Scruton.

Bloody Tuesday

John Torpey, 14 September 2001
At this stage in globalising history “America” has come to be seen by many as a stand-in for the “cosmopolitanism” that was once associated with Jews. “America” represents some kind of soulless, materialistic, rootless way of life that they detest.
Thursday 13th September

The suicide of fundamentalism

Maruf Khwaja, 13 September 2001
The speed, reach and supports of today’s Islamic terrorism owe much to globalisation. But there is a silent majority building in the Islamic world, and among the young people of its diaspora. Can they take the fanaticism out of fundamentalism?
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