Islam

Will Muslim-Majority States recognise the Afghan Taliban’s ‘Islamic’ regime? thumbnail image

Politics & Society

Will Muslim-Majority States recognise the Afghan Taliban’s ‘Islamic’ regime?

By Islamic standards, the Taliban regime is unusually narrow and destabilising. Security-conscious Muslim-majority states should pause before deciding to recognise it

Hagia Sophia reigns serene thumbnail image

Arts & Culture

Hagia Sophia reigns serene

Istanbul’s 1,500 year-old Hagia Sophia has a tumultuous history and its return to being a mosque is only the latest twist for a building that has long rolled with the times

How Arabic is a window on the world thumbnail image

Arts & Culture

How Arabic is a window on the world

A chance find in a Damascus bookshop is a reminder that to study Arabic is to be drawn into a wider and vibrant multicultural world

The oddities of existing things thumbnail image

Arts & Culture

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Podcast

The oddities of existing things

Between the eighth and thirteenth centuries, Islamic thinking and literature was at its height, and one text in particular attempted to catalogue life, the universe and everything

India’s alliance politics thumbnail image

Politics & Society

India’s alliance politics

In 2014, the BJP rode the Modi-wave to come to power. With the Modi magic waning, and no wave in sight, the 2019 elections will be a story of alliances and partnerships

Pariah to partner: The West’s premature embrace of Myanmar thumbnail image

Politics & Society

Pariah to partner: The West’s premature embrace of Myanmar

Although Myanmar has faced condemnation over a violent military crackdown on the minority Rohingya Muslims, the former military dictatorship is still enjoying a growing embrace by the West

Twisting the law on the way to the battlefield thumbnail image

Arts & Culture

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Podcast

Twisting the law on the way to the battlefield

How the US stretches international and domestic laws to wage war on non-state Islamist forces, and how those forces invoke Islamic law to justify their own actions