Fondamentalisme 32

Expectations from the Muslim Woman

Prior to beginning my lecture, I would like to propose some practical suggestions. Speaking about women’s rights, women’s personality and Islam’s view of women differs a great deal from the realization of the actual value which Islam gives to human beings, and to women, in particular. Most often we are satisfied by pointing out that Islam gives great value […].

Shari’a et fatwa : Un regard musulman

Les mots shari’a et fatwa reviennent souvent dans les dépêches d’actualité. Rares sont pourtant les lecteurs des grands journaux et les téléspectateurs qui en connaissent réellement la signification. Il paraît donc important d’obtenir à ce sujet quelques éclaircissements. Peu de chercheurs sont aussi compétents pour nous les offrir que le professeur Muha […].

Antiaméricanisme et radicalisme islamique

Suite aux attentats qui endeuillèrent New York, d’innombrables auteurs cherchèrent à dégager les causes profondes de cet antiaméricanisme, à cerner les motivations des auteurs des opérations du 11 septembre et à analyser le discours d’un radicalisme islamique dont les schèmes de pensées et les références religieuses demeuraient incompréhensibles aux popula […].

“The Fiction of Life”.

Conversation with Azar Nafisi (1). by Elizabeth Wasserman (2) In 1979, Azar Nafisi returned to her native Iran after a seventeen-year absence. From the moment she stepped off the plane, she found herself in a place that was dark and unfamiliar. The cheerful and cosmopolitan Tehran airport that she remembered from her youth, with its terraced restaurant […].

Inside the Jihad.

Interview with Ahmed Rashid. Few governments are as shrouded in secrecy as the ruling Taliban in Afghanistan. Ever since these mysterious bearded clerics emerged from obscurity in 1994 to overrun almost the entire country — imposing a radical version of Islamic law that forbids women from employment and education, bans entertainment such as card-pl […].

“Islamic Societies”.

Conversation with Ira Lapidus. Institute of International Studies, UC Berkeley. 1/14/03 1-Background Ira, welcome back to Berkeley. Thank you, Harry. Where were you born and raised? I was born in Brooklyn, New York, and raised there. I went to high school there, and then I went to college and graduate school at Harvard. Looking back, how did your pa […].

Upbeat on democracy in Iran.

Shirin Ebadi, the 2003 Nobel Peace Laureate, visited Indonesia last week. In her presentations she came across as a person who spoke out for what she believed in — the people’s fight for freedom, rooted in her conviction that this is the basic message of her religion, Islam. Ebadi’s conviction has brought her to odds with both authorities and acti […].

The Clash of Fundamentalisms

Tragedies are always discussed as if they took place in a void, but actually each tragedy is conditioned by its setting, local and global. The events of 11 September 2001 are no exception. There exists no exact, incontrovertible evidence about who ordered the hits on New York and Washington or when the plan was first mooted. This book is not primarily conc […].

Back to Iran.

I don’t like posting full articles or interviews unless that their reading is highly significant to Iranians and to the lay observer of Iranian affairs. That being said this is an interview published in the New Scientist concerning Soroush’s decision to return to Iran after a six year hiatus. For those of you who don’t know much about Soroush, he’s conside […].

The Contradictions of the Islamic World

Tariq Ramadan, controversial Professor of Islamic Studies at the University of Fribourg, argues that instead of blaming only the West, Muslims need to start to criticise themselves in order to strengthen their position. For almost a century the Arab world seems immobilised, rooted in its failures as much as in its divisions. No other region in the world […].

Jihad International Inc

The violence of Islamism has emerged as a subject of anxious concern throughout the world, especially the Muslim world. In the United States, the Islamic resistance to Israel’s occupation of Lebanon, the West Bank, Gaza, and Golan and such incidents as the alleged plot to blow up the International Trade Center in New York City, have aided the media and oth […].

Whither Political Islam?

Thinking of modern jihad as simply a cultural extension of Islam is a common, and unfortunate, mistake. Two new books by Gilles Kepel and Olivier Roy offer better historical and sociological explanations, but they are only a start. The War for Muslim Minds: Islam and the West. By Gilles Kepel. Cambridge: Belknap, 2004, 336 pp. $23.95. Globalized Islam: […].