by miriam cooke for BOUNDARY 2 (International Journal of Literature and Culture/Duke University Press) on MAY 17, 2013: The tiny peninsula state of Qatar is building an empire. Ever since the current emir Shaykh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani wrested power from his father in 1995, he has worked ceaselessly to place his tribal shaikhdom on the [...]
by ANDREW HAMMOND for OPEN DEMOCRACY on APRIL 25, 2013: Tension with its Gulf neighbours began to rise from 2006 when Qatar and Al Jazeera stood with Lebanese Shi’ite group Hizbullah during its war with Israel, while western allied states clearly hoped to see the Iranian-backed militia wiped out. Secular activists and politicians in Egypt [...]
GARRETT NADA for IRAN PRIMER (UNITED STATES INSTITUTE OF PEACE) on MARCH 28,2013: Iran’s political limelight is increasingly focused on whether former President Mohammad Khatami will run again. On March 16, 91 reformist leaders published an open letter calling on Khatami, who was president from 1997 to 2005, to run again in the June [...]
by REMZIYA SULEYMAN for ISLAMiCommentary on MARCH 27, 2013: The 10th anniversary of the start of the Iraq War is here, and as a Kurdish-American I still feel conflicted. I am haunted by the images of devastation, violence, death and tragedy that still continue. As an American, I, like my fellow countrymen question the [...]
by OMID SAFI for RELIGION NEWS SERVICE on MARCH 24, 2013: The most senior Syrian scholar of Islam, Shaykh Muhammad Sa’id Ramadan al-Bouti, was killed in a large-scale bomb blast in Damascus on March 21, 2013. Shaykh al-Bouti was offering religious instructions inside a mosque when he and dozens were killed, with many more wounded. Al-Bouti was [...]
Negar Mottahedeh — `Abdu’l-Bahá’s Journey West:The Course of Human Solidarity
by JULIE POUCHER HARBIN, EDITOR, ISLAMiCommentary, on APRIL 17, 2013: Born in 1844 in Persia (Iran), `Abdu’l-Bahá is best known as the eldest son of Mírzá Ḥusayn-`Alí Núrí, Bahá’u’lláh (1817-1892), the prophet- founder of the Bahá’í Faith. But in a new volume, edited and introduced by Negar Mottahedeh — `Abdu’l-Bahá’s Journey West: The Course [...]
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