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January 6 protester holds giant image of White Jesus in a Make America Great Again cap.

America Appears to be Heading for a Religious Civil War

By Nilay Saiya

…violence around the world in settings as diverse as Egypt, India, Myanmar, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. At first blush, it may seem that the United States shares little in common with these developing countries. Yet I have found unsettling similarities. In all these countries, the widespread adoption of a more militant approach stemmed centrally from fears that a historically and culturally dominant religious group was in danger of losing its privileg…

Should We Expect to See a Rise in Christian Nationalist Violence in the US?

By Nilay Saiya

…unding gender and sexuality, increasing religious diversity, and declining numbers of Christians—are disrupting the religious landscape and leading to a sense of angst among American Christians that their country is turning its back on what they believe to be its Christian heritage. Accordingly, Christian nationalist rhetoric is deeply cloaked in threat narratives, prompting efforts to retain Christianity’s hegemonic status, sometimes through viol…

Will the Taliban Actually Remain Somewhat Moderate This Time?

By Mark Juergensmeyer

…freedom-loving urban constituency. Throughout Afghanistan people have cell phones and access to the internet. It’ll be difficult to have the same kind of social control two decades later. Another factor is the way the Taliban came to power in recent months. In February 2020, then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo represented President Donald Trump in meetings with Taliban representatives in Qatar. Trump essentially surrendered to the Taliban in excha…

The Facts About ‘Sharia’ May Surprise You

By Sumbul Ali-Karamali

…put them there. The British littered their empire with blasphemy laws. In Pakistan, blasphemy laws date back to 1860 laws the colonial British introduced. In fact, England didn’t abolish blasphemy as a crime until 2008, and Ireland had criminal blasphemy laws on its books until January of 2020. No earthly penalties for blasphemy or apostasy are specified in the Qur’an. Under shariah, blasphemy is often conflated with apostasy, which is a crime in…

A Tiny Little Mecca for
the West

By Haroon Moghul

…t neighborhoods of Mostar, shiny new Croatian flags jut out from every telephone pole. When we drove into Republika Srpska later that day, a shiny tricolor flag hung horizontally, and because the order of the colors seemed reversed, I thought I was looking at Russia’s flag. This is not just nationalism, but something more elemental: Much like Pakistan, it seems there’s no Bosnia without a Muslim identity. (What is a Bosniak, if Catholic Bosnians a…

Tony Perkins will Fit Right in at Religious Freedom Commission

By Caroline Matas

…saying in an email that hiring Ghori-Ahmad to analyze religious freedom in Pakistan would be the equivalent of “hiring an IRA activist to research the UK twenty years ago.” Ghori-Ahmad claimed that her treatment by the USCIRF was part of a broader “pattern of bias against Muslims” on the part of the commission. Indeed, former USCIRF commissioner Khaled Abou El Fadl, a Muslim who teaches at UCLA School of Law, told the Washington Post that “[USCIRF…

No Fireworks, Only Candles: Our Work as Americans and Muslims

By Ayesha Mattu

…y by a streetlamp, filled with sadness for those who have died in America, Pakistan, Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere, and apprehension at the terrorism-related deaths to come. Our work as Americans and Muslims is far from done. The next morning, all I want to do is read news articles and listen to NPR, but the baby is grouchy, refusing food and wanting to be held. The more he grabs at my legs, the more irritated I become. Aggrieved, I take him to…

Can Interfaith Dialogue Cure Religious Violence?

By Lucia Hulsether

…arguments in favor of ongoing military campaigns in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan; domestic spying programs; and the adoption of policies like the one that recently invoked to deny Dzhokhar Tsarnaev a reading of his Miranda Rights. Binary formulations, regardless of content, erase complexity. When we cast the Tsarnaev brothers as “the worst elements of our communities” who should be “separated from the rest,” we have desensitized ourselves to th…

Was Islam Responsible for the Boston Bombings, or Was “Internet Islam”?

By Ivan Strenski

…d physician, dug into some cave on the borderlands between Afghanistan and Pakistan, can declare fatwas whenever he chooses, we can understand how and why Sunnis are in disarray. When a gang of former Ghaddafi “guns” can desecrate the tombs of Muslim saints in Mali honored for centuries, and declare a Sharia-based state there, we know something is amiss. Who appointed them? And, about Boston: the older Tsarnaev brother, Tamerlan, is reported to ha…

Gingrich on Obama’s “Kenyan, Anti-Colonial Behavior” and “American Exceptionalism”

By Sarah Posner

…t 17 years of his life—off the American mainland, in Hawaii, Indonesia and Pakistan, with multiple subsequent journeys to Africa. Because, as we all know, Hawaii isn’t America? Apparently not. And Obama doesn’t understand the founders’ intentions: A good way to discern what motivates Obama is to ask a simple question: What is his dream? Is it the American dream? Is it Martin Luther King’s dream? Or something else? It is certainly not the American…