Posts under ‘Politics’

Even though 98% of its population practices Islam, the Western African country of Niger is a secular state, protected by laws mostly inherited from the French. In recent years, the government has adopted some woman-friendly policies but rejected a few as well. What’s behind those rejections? What role does Islam play in the politics of [...]

This is a guest post by Dominique Haller, a producer for the Here on Earth show at Wisconsin Public Radio. She is from Switzerland.
The vote banning the construction of minarets in Switzerland leaves that country with many questions. How did it come to this vote? What does the Swiss political system have to do [...]

On November 29th, a referendum was passed in Switzerland to ban the building of minarets. The referendum passed with a 57% majority vote and a 53% voter turnout. Many in the Swiss government have opposed the referendum but according to the Swiss system the referendum will be added to the Constitution.  There are a number of aspects of this recent [...]

“The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose,” Antonio says to Shylock in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice. Religion is often used and misused by politicians to gain power. To understand the intricate relationship between Islam and politics, Brandon Kendhammer, a PhD candidate in political science at UW-Madison, went to Northern Nigeria and studied the [...]

This is a guest post by Uli Schamiloglu, professor in Languages and Cultures of Asia and the Director of UW-Madison’s Middle East Studies Program.
On Wednesday, October 14, 2009 Hillary Clinton traveled to the city of Kazan, capital of the Muslim republic of Tatarstan. On October 9 the Tatar-Bashkir Service of Radio Liberty reported that Hillary [...]

Some people, both inside and outside the Muslim community, question whether Muslims should become involved in politics at all. The portrayal of the intersection of politics and religion in most mainstream media coverage of Islam leads to questions of where a Muslim politician’s loyalties might lie and whether personal faith might interfere with the job [...]

Religion doesn’t just live in sacred books or buildings. Religion lives in people. Therefore, I believe that one of the best ways to understand Islam is to get to know its people. Knowing few Muslims, I set out to find some and ask each of them a simple question: If you had only three words [...]

A few weeks back, I reviewed the “To the Best of Our Knowledge” show “Reclaiming Islam” on which Christopher Caldwell discussed his most recent book, Reflections on the Revolution in Europe: Immigration, Islam, and the West. What Caldwell said during the short segment was not entirely representative of the larger message in the book. However, [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

In what has been widely billed as a major step in his promised effort to reach out to the Muslim community worldwide, President Barack Obama gave a speech entitled “New Beginnings” at Cairo University last week. The president did not, however, directly address conflicts between the West and the Muslim world. Instead, he tried to [...]

Identity and belonging are funny things. They never mean the same thing to everyone. Growing up as a Muslim American, I was exposed to a myriad of experiences, but I definitely cannot say I was exposed to every kind of Muslim or every interpretation of Islam. We are talking about over 1.3 billion people! What [...]

Earlier this year, I wrote a post about punk Islam in response to the LA Times’ “Islam, the Koran, and Lots of Questions.” Michael Muhammad Knight’s book about Muslim youth and the American punk music scene, The Taqwacores, as well as a band called The Kominas were mentioned in the last post. Today, I return [...]

Guest Post – A recent sharia-for-peace deal between militant groups and the civilian government in Pakistan’s quasi-autonomous Swat region has ignited interest in the status of Islamic law in Pakistan.

Today’s guest post is from Daily Beast blogger and author of How to Win A Cosmic War: God, Globalization, and the War on Terror Reza Aslan. If you’d like to learn more about his new book, see the interview posted today by Editor-and-Chief of  altmuslim Shahed Amanullah. Later this month, Dr. Aslan will return as [...]

In an earlier post on Inside Islam, we introduced Senator John Kerry’s proposed series of hearings on “Engaging with Muslim Communities Around the World.”

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

President Barack Obama is expected to visit Kazakhstan soon as part of a wider tour of Central Asia. According to RFE-RL, President Obama met with Toqayev in Istanbul this week and told him he planned to become the first US president to visit the oil-producing country.

President Obama has begun his first official visit to Turkey, his first trip to a Muslim country since he was inaugurated president.

Update: Eboo Patel opened up about President Obama’s decision to expand federal funding and his support interfaith cooperation.