MER Article Pakistan’s Collateral Damage from the Wars in Afghanistan In late November 2008, international media attention was riveted by a series of highly orchestrated attacks across India’s financial capital, Mumbai, which left at least 173 people dead and hundreds more injured. The only attacker taken alive by Indian security forces disclosed his membership in Lashkar-e-Tayaba, the militant wing Humeira Iqtidar • 9 min read
Current Analysis Want to Fight Terrorism? Think Globally, Act Locally Militant Islam is under global scrutiny for clues to conditions that foster its rise, and to strategies for reversing that growth. But the key is not in Islamic doctrine, US foreign policy or formal ties to various nations, as many analysts have asserted. It lies at the community level, with clan an Khalid Mustafa Medani • 2 min read
MER Article Young Brothers in Cyberspace In September 2007, the Society of Muslim Brothers, Egypt’s largest organized political force, released a draft political party platform to a select group of around 50 Egyptian intellectuals. The response was scathing. Planks such as those advocating formation of a “higher council” of religious scholars with what looked like Marc Lynch • 24 min read
Current Analysis Harbingers of Turkey’s Second Republic On July 23, the day after the ruling Justice and Development Party won Turkey’s early parliamentary elections in a landslide, Onur Öymen, deputy chairman of the rival Republican People’s Party (CHP), interpreted the results as follows: Kerem Öktem • 14 min read
MER Article Comrades and Brothers Emad Mubarak is a busy man. Director of the Association for Freedom of Thought and Expression, and a lawyer with the Hisham Mubarak Law Center, the leftist Mubarak cannot hold a meeting without being interrupted by the ring of his cell phone. The calls these days come from student members of the Mus Hossam El-Hamalawy • 12 min read
MER Article The Association of Muslim Scholars in Iraq The October 15, 2005 referendum on the new Iraqi constitution, like other stages in the US-sponsored political transition after the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime, drew fresh attention to the many opponents of that transition and the US occupation who are not directly involved in the ongoing insurg Roel Meijer • 15 min read
MER Article Maxime Rodinson on Islamic "Fundamentalism" With the death of Maxime Rodinson at the age of 89 on May 23, 2004, one of the last great figures disappeared in an exceptional lineage of Western scholars of Islam -- including Régis Blachère, Claude Cahen and Jacques Berque, to mention only Rodinson’s fellow Frenchmen. Rodinson belonged to this g Gilbert Achcar • 8 min read
MER Article Uzbek Islamism Addressing a joint session of Congress and a national TV audience on September 20, 2001, George W. Bush declared that the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) had “links” to Osama bin Laden, prime suspect in the September 11 attacks in the United States. Henceforth, the US would consider the IMU an Alisher Ilkhamov • 17 min read
MER Article Gender and Islamism in the 1990s In response to the patriarchal tendencies of the Islamist cultural revolution, a small group of Islamist and other Muslim women have reclaimed Qur’anic and other textual interpretation for their own purposes. The result is a new space for women within the Islamic tradition. Mervat Hatem • 13 min read
MER Article The Paradox of Islamist Politics With the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, a group which is argued to represent Islamism is thought to have carried out an action of unprecedented scale against one of its enemies. In light of the September 11 events, those outside the field of Middle East studies Salwa Ismail • 14 min read
MER Article Islam and the Theology of Power Since the early 1980s, commentators have argued that Islam is suffering a crisis of identity, as the crumbling of Islamic civilization in the modern age has left Muslims with a profound sense of alienation and injury. Challenges confronting Muslim nations -- failures of development projects, entrenched authoritarian regimes and the Khaled Abou El Fadl • 16 min read
MER Article Islam and the Politics of Community and Citizenship Islam is in the news again, associated with international terrorism. Popular sentiment in many parts of the Muslim world manifests support for Osama bin Laden, alleged mastermind of the September 11 attacks in the United States. Ironically, this episode comes at a point when political Islam, in itself, is no Sami Zubaida • 20 min read
