Category: Muslim world

Hatred is not a phobia

The term Islamophobia was popularised, as I recall, in the 1990s to refer to hostility to Muslims in the European context. The logic behind it seems to be that people were hostile to Muslims...

Tunisia and tyranny: just part of life?

The Guardian reported today that the electoral commission in Tunisia, controlled by the president who staged a coup against his own government and the country’s elected parliament last year, has reported that more than...

A graph showing the rise in the belief that "the economy is weak under democracy". The percentage who agree is around 70% in Iraq and Tunisia, 60-65% in Palestine, Libya and Jordan, a little over 50% in Lebanon and just under 50% in Sudan and Morocco.

Are democracies’ economies weaker?

Arabs believe economy is weak under democracy (BBC News) Last week the BBC highlighted the results of a survey conducted in a number of Arab countries which found that people are losing faith in...

Not just a child

Last week the UK’s Supreme Court ruled that Shamima Begum, the “ISIS bride” who ran away from home to join the self-styled Islamic State aged 15 in 2015, had no right to come back...

Should we cut ties with Saudi Arabia?

Yesterday there was a debate at Intelligence Squared in London on whether the West should cut ties with the kingdom of Saudi Arabia because of its use of torture and such crimes as the...

Polygamy and “violent societies”

I saw this video being tweeted out by the Economist, a London-based weekly news magazine, this morning. It posits the idea that polygamy is strongly linked to violence in a society. Polygamy is still...

What is a revolution anyway?

I’ve been seeing trailers on BBC TV for a documentary on the changes being forced upon Saudi Arabia by the new crown prince, Muhammad bin Salman (his father, the actual king Salman is believed...