Politics, tech and media issues from a Muslim perspective
Criticism of the Ottoman Sultans | Global Intifada Jinnzaman has an interesting feature on scholarly criticism of the Ottoman empire, which was not as simplistic as some Muslims portray it, by calling all of...
Marcel Berlins: Rights and responsibilities bill is all wrong (from the Guardian) Marcel Berlins in today's Guardian on one big flaw in the proposed "charter of rights and responsibilities": Adding responsibilities to rights will...
Now that the boom years are over and thousands of people are losing their jobs, the government announces more restrictions on people claiming unemployment benefits, with accompanying cheerleading in the popular press which print...
Technorati Tags: ben goldacre, bad science Ben Goldacre is a doctor who writes a column called Bad Science in the Guardian every Saturday, and has also got a blog by the same title as...
Harry’s Place » A Single Step The above post at Harry's Place is by the infamous Shiraz Maher (this is the guy who says he got involved in Islamism after 9/11 and changed his...
Misha Glenny, a noted author of books on the underworld, suggests that the Bombay-Karachi mafia known as "D-Company" may have been involved in last week's attacks, as they were in earlier bombings. The "kingpin"...
So, it seems a lot of Muslims disagree with me and Umar over the perceived need to condemn the recent terrorist attacks in Bombay. Amad at Muslim matters was one of the first Muslims...
A list of reasons why American Muslims should not fall over themselves to condemn the terrorist attacks in Bombay (I refuse to use the name Mumbai; although it is correct in two of the three local languages, this blog is in English, not Marathi or Gujarati, and I refuse to honour a Hindu nationalist renaming), and I think much the same applies to other western Muslims.
Edward Stourton (of BBC Radio 4) in the Catholic Herald, on myths about "political correctness" commonly parroted in the British media, such as the "Winterval" event which supposedly replaced Christmas in Birmingham (the full...
The other day a British tabloid, the Sun, reported that Michael Jackson (you know, the guy that had a few hits in the 1970s and early 1980s but is now best known for his...
In the Evening Standard yesterday, we were told that tens of thousands of jobs were likely to be lost in the UK in the very near future, the biggest single number of which were...
Moving on from health fascists to real fascists, the news yesterday told us that the entire membership list for the British National Party from 2007, complete with addresses and phone numbers, had been published...
BBC NEWS: ‘Nazi’ remark presenter is sacked Long-time readers will know that I do not have a very high opinion of Jon Gaunt, the former BBC London talk show presenter. I posted this after...
Recently, I had discussions on two blogs about the legitimacy of takfeer, meaning calling someone a non-Muslim, against people who appear to be Muslims but who have deviant beliefs or opinions about a matter...
The past few years, I've mostly been working as an agency driver. That was after a very inactive 18 months after leaving university, during which I tried to get office work, and never succeeded...
I’m sure nobody will be surprised that I’m pleased that Barack Obama has won the election. I’ve got various cousins in the USA (of the two I actually know, one lives in North Carolina...
Recently a young female was executed for adultery in Kismayo, Somalia. Initially we were told that she was 23, and had gone to the Shabaab militia, who control that part of the country, to...
Tomorrow, the UK House of Commons is to vote on an amendment to the employment bill, restoring the right of trade unions to refuse to admit, or to expel, British National Party members (more...
Nick Cohen has a column in today's Observer, in which he goes from the tendency of American conservative Evangelicals away from the Republicans, featuring one Richard Cizik of the National Association of Evangelicals who...
George Monbiot, in the Guardian last Tuesday, on the link between religious belief and the anti-intellectualisation of US politics: Ignorant politicians are elected by ignorant people. US education, like the US health system, is...