Posts under ‘Middle East’

One of the assumptions about Islam that never seems to dissipate is that Islamic law is this rigid and incredibly harsh system that exacts punishments that are beyond what is tolerable in Western societies. Moreover, so the common discussion goes, when this law falls on women, it often means that they will be unfairly subjugated. [...]

Islam, which comes from the same root as the word for peace, continues to be perceived as a religion that condones–even encourages–violence. It is also seen by many as a static and rigid faith with no room for discussion or change. Both of these assumptions, which stem from longstanding stereotypes of the Middle East and [...]

It is interesting how the context you grow up in can determine a lot of what you come to learn in your life. Growing up in a Sunni family and mostly Sunni community, I knew very little about Iran except that it was a Muslim country–Shia predominantly, near Iraq, and that the language spoken was [...]

Jerusalem, al-Quds in Arabic, is one of the most contested places on earth. The city and its significance to the three Abrahamic faiths cannot be emphasized enough. Sometimes, however, in the midst of the political battles around the Palestinian/Israeli conflict, the importance of the sacred city within Islam is lost. Many people assume that only [...]

I recently listened to a show from “To the Best of Our Knowledge,” a sister program to Inside Islam’s Here on Earth on Wisconsin Public Radio. The show titled “Reclaiming Islam” aired on June 12th, 2009, and featured a number of interesting guests: Reza Aslan, Tissa Hami, Christopher Caldwell, Youssou N’Dour & Chai Vasarhelyi, and [...]

Where can someone start with the story that has occupied Egyptian news media outlets for the past few days? It sounds so outrageous and so sad. How can a 32-year-old pregnant woman get murdered in a courtroom in Germany in full view of  witnesses? But it did happen and now Muslim communities around the Middle [...]

When hundreds of thousands of Iranians took to the street to protest against the presidential election results last month, many of them also flooded to Twitter, a popular social networking tool, to distribute information and voice their opinions. In the torrent of tweets from Iran, one voice stands out with its Persian prose and poetic [...]

How does a Muslim woman really assert her rights? This seems to be an underlying question in many discussions on Islam worldwide and touches on issues of choice and self-determination. However, questions like this can never be answered in one way because of the diversity of Muslim communities that cannot be defined by one culture, [...]

In President Obama’s speech in Cairo, we heard something perhaps unprecedented for an American president: references to the Qur’an—positive references! Quoting verses from the Qur’an was significant because it brought the holy text into the discussion in a way that reflects its real spirit–especially for the over 1.3 billion Muslims worldwide.

Giancarlo Casale, a reader of Inside Islam: Dialogues and Debates writes about the afterglow of President Obama’s visit to Turkey.

A past program in the Inside Islam radio series “Reaching Out to the Muslim World” covered President Obama’s promise to alter the course of the Bush administration’s war on terror in his inaugural address. Informed Comment blogger and Middle East historian Juan Cole joins host Jean Feraca Wednesday at 3 pm on Here on Earth: [...]

Today on Here on Earth: Radio Without Borders the crew that also produces the Inside Islam radio series will air a related program about the German and Iranian women’s soccer teams at 3 pm Central. The show will focus on the documentary film Football Under Cover. For information on how to listen and to find [...]

The first radio program in the Inside Islam series was “Heavy Metal Islam” on September 25, 2008. One of our guests on that show, Suroosh Alvi, co-directed a the documentary Heavy Metal in Baghdad. In the film (which is now available to view online for free) we meet Acrassicauda, the only heavy metal band in [...]

Sexual revolution may indeed be a developing political movement. It’s also a reminder that Islamic reform could take diverse interpretations.

Social networks such as Facebook are increasingly used to organize political demonstrations like this April 6, 2008 strike and promote their coverage in mainstream news reports.

Today Here on Earth: Radio Without Borders will air a program about the hidden lives of the women of Kandahar, Afghanistan. Host Jean Feraca will be joined by photojournalist Paula Lerner.

We would love to hear your thoughts on this video, not the titillating and voyeuristic elements, but what it might say about the interaction between interpersonal relationships and religion in Iran and elsewhere. Does this controversy change your opinion at all? Is this just another example of government-level hypocrisy that we see all over the world or does it have some special meaning in the context of Iran?

The Accolade, an all-female Saudi rock band has received big-time media attention, including an interview with NPR and a feature in The New York Times. Despite the fact that the band cannot play in public because of their gender, Dina, Dareen, Lamia, and Amjad have developed a large virtual following on Facebook and MySpace.

To conclude our commemoration of Eid, Tarek Amr from Egypt joins us on Inside Islam as a guest blogger to write about Eid, the hajj, and symbols associated with the feast of sacrifice. Tarek is a bilingual blogger who writes about technology in English on Gr33nData and in Arabic on another site called Kelmeteen, or [...]

Queen Rania Al Abdullah of Jordan joined Fareed Zakaria for an interview aired on CNN last October. Scroll down below to see part one and two later on in this post.