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There is a key problem with our sources on early Islam. Aside from the Qur’an itself, all the sources we have were written down after the Abbasid Revolution of 750 against the Umayyads. The first author to compile a complete biography of Muhammad (d. 632), the chronicler Muhammad ibn Ishaq of Medina, was born around […]

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No, Iran’s Grand Bazaar Protest doesn’t mean the Government or Economy is Collapsing

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Tuesday’s protests at the Grand Bazaar in Tehran were in many ways the opposite of the small-town clashes that broke out last January. These were rallies of the economically privileged, such as people who sell foreign smartphones to Iran’s middle classes, and members of those middle classes themselves. Neither protest […]

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Warning to US: Erdogan has used same techniques as Trump to de-Democratize Turkey

Juan Cole

Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the president of Turkey, began his legitimate political career at the turn of this century with a push for more political pluralism in a Turkey that had long been dominated by an elite, secular military. Now that he has won another term, Erdogan’s rise as an authoritarian strong man is a key […]

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Sarah Sanders complains about not being served in Restaurant after Urging same Treatment of Gays, Immigrants

Juan Cole

Sara Sanders complained on Twitter about not being served at the Red Hen restaurant in Lexington, Virginia. WaPo reports that the owner, Stephanie Wilkinson, insisted that patrons uphold standards of honesty and compassion, and that Sanders flacks for an “inhumane and unethical” administration, defending Trump’s “cruelest policies.” Wilkinson’s grounds for not serving the White House […]

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The American March to Inequality: Why the UN Alston Report Alarms the Trump Plutocrats

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – It is no surprise that flacks for the plutocrats in charge of the US like Nikki Haley are squawking about the report on American poverty just issued by UN Special Rapporteur Philip Alston. It throws loads of light on how unequal a society America is, how it is marching rapidly […]

Children

#Bringbackourgirls: How Trump made the US into Boko Haram

Juan Cole

Trump campaigned in 2016 on being tougher against radical Muslim movements such as ISIL, al-Qaeda and Boko Haram. He even went so far as to blame all of the world’s 1.8 billion Muslims for these tiny groups (which have largely been defeated by other Muslims). But one of the horrible practices of these radical groups […]

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Not only Is Trump’s Refugee Policy Morally Wrong, it is Illegal in US and Int’l Law

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Family Separation Policy that Trump has “temporarily” set aside (in favor of indefinite detention of entire families) has in some ways obscured what is really going on in Trump’s refugee policy overall. In essence, the Trump administration is attempting gradually to abolish the acceptance by the US of asylees, […]

Climate Change

Climate Terror Stalks us, and We Yawn– 3 Decades Later

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The American (and world) public was informed about the dangers of global heating 30 years ago this week, on June 23, 1988, by climate scientist James Hansen. It turns out that Big Oil and other hydrocarbon industries were convinced of the dangers privately even before that, but hid their scientists’ […]

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It’s all about the Midterms: Trump took those Children Hostage to Stoke his Base

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Journalists have almost certainly misunderstood the Trump White House when they pen this morning’s flurry of articles and television commentary about the White House abruptly being “worried” about the fall-out of the Family Separation Policy announced in May by John Kelly and reaffirmed this month by Attorney General Jeff Sessions […]