religion

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Ilhan Omar, a refugee and a Somali-heritage Muslim woman who veils, has won the Democratic primary for Minnesota’s Fifth District congressional seat, hoping to succeed Keith Ellison. The district, which includes Minneapolis, typically votes heavily Democratic, so she has a good shot at winning the seat. Somalia is one of […]

United Kingdom

UK Labour’s Corbyn Refutes Netanyahu’s Smears, Calls out Policy of Shooting Gaza Kids

Middle East Monitor

London (Middle East Monitor) – Israel’s nation-state law discriminates against the country’s Palestinian minority, British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn said Monday, Anadolu reports. Corbyn made the remarks on Twitter in reply to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who joined the criticism against Corbyn over his alleged participation in a wreath-laying ceremony in Tunisia four […]

Islam

Love in the Qur’an: 19:96

Juan Cole

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 […]

Featured

Surprise! On how Muhammad never preached “Jihad”

Juan Cole

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 […]

Buddhism

Army of Buddhist Burma made ‘Systematic’ Crackdown Plan for Muslim Rohingyas

AFP

Bangkok (AFP) – Myanmar’s military engaged in “extensive and systematic” preparations for a bloody crackdown on Rohingya Muslims, a rights group said Thursday, in a damning new report that it says justifies a genocide investigation. A bloody military campaign that started last August forced some 700,000 of the effectively stateless minority over the border into […]

Featured

New Light on the Arabian Religious Background of Islam?

Juan Cole

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 […]

Donald Trump

Why do Evangelicals Keep Falling for the Trumps and Nixons?

Randall J. Stephens

Newcastle-upon-Tyne (The Conversation) – More than 81% of the US’s protestant evangelicals voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 election. A year and a half into his presidency, they seem as dedicated to him as ever – and just as ready to make excuses for his decidedly un-Christian misdeeds. Many Christian rightists, among them “family […]

Climate Change

Shorter Pope Francis to Big Oil: You’re Going to Hell if You don’t Go Green

Juan Cole

Pope Francis on Saturday forthrightly reminded Big Oil that climate change is a moral issue. The Pontiff quoted his Encyclical, Laudato Si, to representatives of ExxonMobil, Total, BP and many others, saying, “There is no time to lose: We received the earth as a garden-home from the Creator; let us not pass it on to […]

Antisemitism

On how there is no Tradition of anti-Semitism in Islam

Peter Wien

College Park, Md. (Qantara.de) – Some are suggesting that Muslims are bringing anti-Semitism to Europe. However, it was in fact Europeans who took anti-Semitism to the Arab world in the first place. Diplomats in particular played an contemptible role. Holy books are what people make of them: after all, even the word of God needs […]