Pulling back from the brink
The family of nations is balancing on the edge of an abyss as mushrooming religious and ethnic intolerance becomes the norm.
Western as well as...
Whither Muslim solidarity and moderation?
Former Saudi intelligence chief Prince Turki AlFaisal Al Saud must have gotten his tenses mixed up when he asserted in a recently published memoir...
South Asia replaces the Middle East as the epicentre of Muslim religious ultra-conservatism
As Middle Eastern states attempt to manage their political and security differences, Muslim-majority countries are regrouping along a fault line that separates proponents of...
How much is religious soft power worth? Jokowi searches for answers in Abu Dhabi
An Indonesian promise to work with the United Arab Emirates to promote ‘moderate’ Islam raises questions of what constitutes moderation and how it can...
Ultraconservative triumph puts Pakistan at risk
Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan may have averted for now further violence by caving in to demands of a militant, supremacist religious group. But...
Sudan and the UAE: Pulling Sudanese strings
Sudan is the exception to the rule in the United Arab Emirates’ counterrevolutionary playbook.
In contrast to Egypt or Yemen, where it went out of...
Religious ultra-conservatism has a field day in Pakistan. It puts Saudi Arabia on the Spot
Sunni Muslim ultra-conservatism is having a field day.
Barely three months after the Taliban claimed victory in Afghanistan, Pakistan, the second most populous Muslim-majority state,...
The pendulum gradually swings towards international engagement with the Taliban
The Taliban and Pakistan, both viewed warily by the West and others in the international community, appear to be benefitting from mounting concerns about...
Turkey and Iran find soft power more difficult than hard power
The times they are a changin’. Iranian leaders may not be Bob Dylan fans, but his words are likely to resonate as they contemplate...
Iran poll contains different messages for Biden and Raisi
“It’s the economy, stupid.” That is the message of a just-published survey of Iranian public opinion.
However, the substance of the message differs for newly...