What Salman Rushdie’s Attacker Shares with Insurrectionist Ashli Babbitt
Several years ago I happened to sit next to Salman Rushdie at dinner when he…
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The Vile Attack on Salman Rushdie Reminds Us of the Value of a Free Society — But is Our Outrage More About the Criminal Than the Crime?
When it was published in 1988, The Satanic Verses wasn’t immediately controversial. But the charged…
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The “Religion” Episode: Aziz Ansari and the Cultural Politics of Muslim Self-Representation
To call Aziz Ansari’s Netflix series Master of None “peak TV” is not to do…
Read MoreMargaret Thatcher: A Muslim’s Perspective
Did you hear the one about Margaret Thatcher’s funeral?
Read MoreIranian Musician Receives Death Threats
But it’s politics, not religion, at stake here.
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A Writer’s Murder Raises Fears of Death-by-Decree
Kadivar’s condemnation of all fatwas that call for the death of a “blasphemer” or “apostate” is in the spirit of his general approach to Islamic law. In his opinion as a legal scholar, an interpretation of Islam is fully compatible with the provisions of the UN declaration of Human Rights. When I asked him if he was optimistic about the possibility of reform in the Islamic Republic of Iran, a reform that would bring Islam into congruence with Human Rights ideas, he answered affirmatively and assertively. “Yes,” he said, “I am optimistic. That is why I am writing.”
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The Heresies of Christopher Hitchens
Christopher Hitchens cannot be accused of being a name-dropper. The names come positively flinging off the pages of his newly-released memoir, Hitch-22, but can he be blamed for befriending some of the most interesting and influential figures of his time, like Salman Rushdie, Edward…
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Satanic or Silly: Does Yale Press Censorship of Cartoons Insult Muslims?
While the rioting over the Danish cartoons seems to be well behind us, Yale University Press recently removed the images from a new scholarly work on the topic. Do Muslim extremists need a scholarly book as pretext with two wars being fought in Muslim nations and an ongoing crisis in Gaza? The problem isn’t with these images, but with the ubiquitous Islamophobia in the United States.
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