Is western civilisation collapsing?
MOST CONTEMPORARY historians and philosophers of history believe that civilisation is characterised in general by the emergence of a number…
Islamist terrorism: active, or reactive? – 2
FOR AS LONG as terrorists draw from the same sources, the difference between the thinking maintained by those bearing weapons…
A Manifesto for Reform
REFORM IS A QUR’ĀNIC TERM, where it appears ten times mostly in the sense of ‘reparation’ between men, or ‘restoration’…
The Qur’ān – between the Meccan and Madinan sūras
THE SCHOLARS OF LAW say that the Qur’ān was revealed over a period of 23 years. This can be divided…
The Verse of the Sword and the jurisprudence of violence
IN THIS ESSAY I shall attempt to present three Islamic readings of this verse according to the historical conditions in…
Is there a way in for democracy in Arab Muslim societies?
AT THE BEGINNING of the 20th century the first motor car entered Baghdad arriving from Aleppo, and at the wheel…
Why religious narcissism impedes modernity
NARCISSISM, AS A MENTAL SICKNESS, is a delirious self-love that makes the ego despise all other egos. Modern psychology takes…
‘Umar’s Pact Conditions – A present caged in tradition
IF WE MAKE AN EXCEPTION of the Qur’ān, the eternally preserved word of God and of the (very limited in…
Only an alternative mindset can defeat ISIS and its ilk
IT IS CERTAIN that the events that took place in Kuwait and Tunis and France on Friday 26 June 2015…
The Arabs and Islam – 2
ARAB ISLAMIC CIVILISATION is, as Hāmid Abū Zayd put it: ‘a civilisation of the text’, or as Muhammad ‘Ābid al-Jābrī…