Clash of Straw Men
by George WeigelTwo recent speeches by senior Vatican officials whose responsibilities involve wrestling with world politics suggest that some default positions need a reset in the Holy See. Continue Reading »
What Makes ISIS Appealing?
by Ayman S. IbrahimWith widespread news about ISIS selling kidnapped women and girls as sex slaves, smiting necks of non-Muslims or expelling them from their homes, one would assume that everyone on the planet views ISIS as wicked. Yet not only in the Muslim-majority countries, but also in Europe, Australia, and even the U.S., ISIS has drawn support. The group is obviously successful in continually recruiting Muslim men, women, even children as its members. What in the world makes these individuals love ISIS? Here are three possibilities. Continue Reading »
Regensburg Vindicated
by George WeigelOn the evening of Sept. 12, 2006, my wife and I were dining in Cracow with Polish friends when an agitated Italian Vaticanista (pardon the redundancy in adjectives) called, demanding to know what I thought of “Zees crazee speech of zee pope about zee Muslims.” That was my first hint that the herd of independent minds in the world press was about to go ballistic on the subject of Benedict XVI’s Regensburg Lecture: a “gaffe”-bone on which the media continued to gnaw until the end of Benedict’s pontificate. Continue Reading »
“I am a Christian, and I Will Remain a Christian”
by Gabriel Said ReynoldsIn August 2013 the Sudanese authorities arrested Meriam Ibrahim, daughter of a Sudanese Muslim man and an Ethiopian Christian woman, after a Muslim relative informed them of her marriage to Daniel Wani, a Catholic from South Sudan and an American citizen. The authorities considered Meriam to be a Muslim because of her Muslim father, even though she had lived her whole life as a Christian. And as Islamic law forbids a Muslim woman from marrying a non-Muslim man (although it permits a Muslim man to marry a non-Muslim woman), her marriage was not a marriage at all in Sudan, where matters of personal and family law are controlled by religious courts. She was therefore guilty of zina, or fornication. Continue Reading »
Please, Leave the Hagia Sophia Alone
by Wesley J. SmithIn November 2012, my wife and I visited Hagia Sophia, the great former Eastern Orthodox basilica. For me, it was an emotional pilgrimage. I converted to Eastern Orthodoxy in 2007, and Hagia Sophia is to us what St. Peter’s is to Roman Catholics, and to a far lesser degree I suppose, what Mecca is to Muslims. Continue Reading »
Mideast Christians, Dhimmis Once More?
by Mark MovsesianRecently, an Islamist group in the Syrian opposition, the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), captured the town of Raqqa and imposed on its Christian inhabitants the dhimma, the notional contract that governs relations with Christians in classical Islamic law. The dhimma allows Christian communities to reside in Muslim society in exchange for payment of a poll tax called the jizya and submission to social and legal restrictions. In Raqqa, for example, Christians have “agreed,” among other things, to pay ISIL a tax of $500 per person twice a year—poorer Christians can pay less—and to forgo public religious displays. Continue Reading »
Islam's Origins
by Maria Massi DakakeIn the Shadow of the Sword The Birth of Islam and the Rise of the Global Arab Empire by tom holland doubleday, 526 pages, $29.95 Islam is widely understood by both Western and Islamic scholars to have substantially engaged with the intellectual traditions of the late antique Near East’s . . . . Continue Reading »
Westernizing Islam and the American Right
by Ross McCulloughAt the end of The Searchers, John Wayne stands framed by the darkened doorway of a cabin, and with the dry scrub and John Ford vastness behind him he contemplates the house his successful search party has just entered. He looks inside for a second, half smiles, turns, and walks with his John Wayne . . . . Continue Reading »
The Qur’an and historical criticism
by David LaymanIn response to a well-known examination of the historical problems of The Koran, written before 9-11 by Toby Lester in The Atlantic, Seyyed Hossein Nasr said The acceptance of the Koran as the word of God suggests that the so-called historical and textual study of the Koran is tantamount to . . . . Continue Reading »
Is the Qur’an Analogous to Christ?
by David LaymanOne of the central tropes of Islamic responses to Christianity is that the Qur’an is not the Muslim equivalent of the Christian scriptures, but of Christ. Thus Mahmoud A. Ayoub says:The Qur’an is, for Muslims, the literal and timeless divine Word which entered our time. It became a book . . . . Continue Reading »
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