Articles

We must look to the French Revolution if we are to understand the origin of the ideology and violence of the Islamic State. For some weeks now there have been insinuations that the Islamic State and its ideologies are some kind of throwback to a distant past. Frequently couched in language such as that used last week by British Deputy …

Spain surprised, without warning, by making public its intention to grant Spanish nationality on a discretionary basis to approximately a quarter of a million Sephardim, the Jews who were expelled from Spain during the reign of the Catholic Monarchs, Isabella and Ferdinand, who were the promoters of the Inquisition tribunals. In principle, the Spanish decision is not at all surprising, …

We are all shocked and terrified by the images and news coming out of Gaza showing the burned and mutilated bodies of our Muslim brothers and sisters, men, women and children, trapped with nowhere to flee or hide, killed in their own homes with lethal bombs and missiles. The images break our hearts; and how could they not when it …

Introduction City life and the many occupations have led communities of Muslims to make use of time sheets and schedules marking the timing of salawat. In them, two fields that were familiar from post-classical antiquity have been made to coincide, with greater or lesser fortune, fiqh and astronomy. As is well known, belief fostered scientific knowledge-particularly mathematics and astronomy-in a …