Despite the negative messaging nowadays about the Qur’an (the scripture of the Muslims) among the haters, it is a book replete with love, mercy, warmth and peace (to the extent that Muslims are bewildered by the odd opinions of it among outsiders–most of whom have never read it). My new book, out October 9, explores […]
Month
Category
- Africa (262)
- Asia (1,292)
- Australasia (37)
- Authoritarianism (419)
- Canada (10)
- Culture (616)
- Economy (1,090)
- Agriculture (4)
- Banking (67)
- Boycotts (1)
- Carbon Footprint (6)
- Corporations (56)
- Cryptocurrency (2)
- Debt (21)
- Degrowth (1)
- Democratic Socialism (20)
- Demographic Decline (1)
- Development (26)
- Downward Mobility (1)
- Employment (118)
- Food Insecurity (23)
- Homelessness (18)
- Industry (5)
- Inequality (431)
- Inflation (6)
- infrastructure (11)
- Insurance (2)
- Investment (93)
- Market Crash (12)
- Middle Class (61)
- Monopolies (9)
- Neoliberalism (206)
- Plutocracy (638)
- Poverty (212)
- Poverty (18)
- Regulation (3)
- Retirement (1)
- Sanctions (5)
- Tariffs (5)
- Taxes (38)
- Technology (5)
- Trade (121)
- Weapons sales (8)
- Education (214)
- Energy (1,810)
- Agrovoltaics (4)
- Batteries (54)
- Coal (141)
- Electricity Cost (2)
- Fossil Fuels (338)
- Fracking (50)
- Geothermal (7)
- Green ammonia (5)
- Green Energy (438)
- Green Hydrogen (8)
- Heat Pumps (6)
- Hydroelectric (2)
- Hydroelectric (16)
- Mining (1)
- Natural Gas (109)
- Nuclear Energy (161)
- Petroleum (305)
- Power Grid (12)
- Pumped Hydro (6)
- Solar Energy (453)
- Tar Sands (13)
- Wave Energy (10)
- wind energy (367)
- Environment (2,823)
- Climate Change (1,710)
- Acidification of Oceans (54)
- Agriculture (26)
- Biodiversity (16)
- Climate Refugees (6)
- CO2 (133)
- degrowth (1)
- Dehydration (5)
- Denialism (160)
- Desalinization (5)
- Desertification (163)
- Divestment (2)
- Dust Storms (7)
- Environmental Investment (1)
- Extreme Heat (410)
- Extreme Weather (304)
- Flooding (143)
- Food Supply (3)
- Forests (18)
- Green New Deal (42)
- Green Recycling (2)
- Greenwashing (3)
- Mass Extinction (63)
- Methane (21)
- Net Carbon Zerio (8)
- Nitrous Oxide (2)
- Rainforests (19)
- Rivers (13)
- Sea Level (345)
- Soil Carbon Release (14)
- Super Storms (272)
- wildfires (248)
- Wood Buildings (1)
- Climate Crisis (1,445)
- Drought (303)
- Ecology (2)
- Ecology (12)
- Environmentalism (393)
- Green Transportation (263)
- Ice Melt (145)
- Invasive Species (3)
- Islands (3)
- Oceans (106)
- Oil Spills (8)
- Pollution (234)
- Water (103)
- wildlife (24)
- Climate Change (1,710)
- Europe (1,417)
- Featured (4,509)
- Haiti (1)
- Health (726)
- History (387)
- Human Rights (1,714)
- Apartheid (265)
- censorship (356)
- Death Penalty (32)
- Disappeared (4)
- Displaced and Refugees (590)
- Food Insecurity (33)
- Forced Displacement (1)
- Gay rights (30)
- Genocide (84)
- Human Rights Watch (94)
- Indigenous Rights (1)
- Migrants (4)
- privacy (21)
- Rights (93)
- Slavery and Trafficking (16)
- Starvation (6)
- Torture (105)
- Trans Rights (6)
- Transgender Rights (5)
- Unlawful Imprisonment (112)
- Unlwful Killing (91)
- War Crimes (442)
- War Rape (9)
- International Politics and Economy (2,186)
- Arms Sales (77)
- BRICS (4)
- Corruption (270)
- Crime (133)
- Democracy (341)
- Dissent (475)
- Domestic Terrorism (15)
- Drones (113)
- Espionage (1)
- G20 (1)
- Guns (9)
- Hacking (8)
- Immigration (22)
- Immigration (5)
- Islamophobia (387)
- Migrants (2)
- military (125)
- nationalism (119)
- NATO (41)
- Neocolonialism (1)
- Peace (152)
- Policing (3)
- Politics (318)
- Politics&Culture (22)
- Propaganda (14)
- Race (4)
- Smuggling (1)
- Juan Cole (272)
- Latin America (122)
- media (496)
- Middle East (10,522)
- Arab World (5,407)
- Iran (1,453)
- Israel (1,014)
- Israel/ Palestine (3,971)
- Israel/Palestine (9)
- Kurds (298)
- Red Sea (1)
- Turkey (615)
- Turkiye (142)
- Patriarchy (12)
- racism (479)
- religion (1,558)
- robots (3)
- Romance (1)
- science (178)
- Secular (West) (9)
- Secularism (30)
- Spirituality (22)
- Statelessness (15)
- Stranded Assets (1)
- Surveillance (286)
- Terrorism (1,102)
- Tolerance (6)
- Uncategorized (8,088)
- United Nations (192)
- Urbanization (4)
- US Foreign Policy (1,457)
- US politics (5,687)
- Anti-War Movement (13)
- Campaign Finance (31)
- Censors (22)
- Central Intelligence Agency (63)
- Charity (1)
- Civil Rights (96)
- Congress (82)
- Conspiracy Theories (24)
- Constitution (425)
- Courts (16)
- crime (12)
- Democratic Party (980)
- Democratic Socialists of America (26)
- Domestic Terrorism (20)
- Drone Warfare (27)
- Espionage (124)
- Ethnicities (400)
- Far Right (409)
- FBI (48)
- Federal Government (1)
- Foreign Policy (204)
- Gay Rights (17)
- Guns (97)
- Immigration (260)
- Israel Lobbies (131)
- Marijuana (4)
- Militarization (275)
- National Security State (478)
- Native Americans (42)
- Nuclear arsenal (8)
- penitentiaries (6)
- Pentagon (584)
- Police (43)
- prison reform (10)
- Private Prisons (4)
- Progressive Politics (15)
- Puerto Rico (30)
- Religious Right (16)
- Reproductive Choice (69)
- Republican Party (3,246)
- South Asian-Americans (1)
- Supreme Court (133)
- USAID (1)
- Voter suppression (36)
- Whistleblowers (7)
- Xenophobia (9)
- Veterans (36)
- Voting Rights (16)
- War (645)
- White Supremacists (243)
- wikileaks (8)
- women (577)
- workers (237)
- Writing (5)
- Youth (220)
Qur'an
Surprise! On how Muhammad never preached “Jihad”
The word “jihad” has become pervasive in English. The Western Right wing is trying to use the term to replace the Communist Manifesto as the ultimate in the threatening Other. It figures prominently in FBI charges against militants. It is often glossed as “holy war.” People, especially those who dislike Islam, think that it means […]
New Light on the Arabian Religious Background of Islam?
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 […]
Peace in Islam: Qur’an 73:10 on Patience as Tolerance
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Chapter 73 of the Qur’an, “The Robed” (Al-Muzammil), contains what is probably the earliest Islamic injunction to turn the other cheek. 8 Remember the name of your Lord and devote yourself to Him wholeheartedly– 9 the Lord of the East and the West. There is no god save He, so […]
A mid-6th Century (Christian?) proto-Arabic Inscription from N. Arabia Mentioning Al-Ilah
(Politically oriented readers of IC please excuse this reprint of a path-breaking but extremely technical discussion in Arabian religious and linguistic history. It is highly important for the study of the beginnings of Islam, since it discusses an inscription from al-Jawf, Saudi Arabia dated to 548 CE, i.e. some sixty years before the beginning of […]
© 2026 All Rights Reserved