One hundred years after the Levant embarked on a journey to build modern political societies, our experiment has failed and we are now back to square one.  Lebanon collapsed in the 1970s, Iraq disintegrated in the 1990s and 2000s, and Syria is in the process of tearing itself apart. Unlike Egypt, Tunisia, and several More »

The past week marked the second anniversary of the resignation of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia, an event that in many ways turned unrest in Tunisia from a purely national affair to what the media dubbed the Arab Spring. That Arab Spring was seen as a broad rising of the Arab masses against aging More »

Just days ago, Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah made history when he named thirty women to the kingdom’s Shura Council, an appointed advisory body that cannot enact legislation but is still the closest institution to a parliament in that country. He also amended the Shura Council’s law to ensure that women would make up no less than More »

Saudi King Abdullah is poised to appoint* women for the first time as members of the country’s Majlis al-Shura (Consultative Council). The move is symbolically important, but the assembly itself lacks real power. The king first announced his intention to appoint women to the Majlis al-Shura over a year ago, and, since that time, newspaper reports More »

At the dawn of the New Year President Bashar al-Assad and his regime remain committed to pursuing a corrosively destructive sectarian survival strategy, one enjoying a critical assist from an increasingly radicalized and politically directionless armed opposition.  Left to their own devices – as both the West and Russia seemed inclined to leave them – More »

Egyptians from all walks of life and all corners of the nation rose up in the January 25, 2011, revolution to reclaim their freedom and the civil, political, economic, social, and cultural rights stolen from them for 30 years under Mubarak’s 1981 emergency law. Despite the wealth of the legislative system, Mubarak’s regime failed More »

In an interview with Al Jazeera last year, the young Pakistani peace activist Malala Yousafzai said, “If this new generation is not given pens, they will be given guns by terrorists.” Yousafzai, who was shot October 9 by the Taliban and is being honored globally today by what the United Nations established as Malala Day, More »

While the image of women participating in last year’s Arab uprisings has been repeatedly used to provide a narrative for the Arab uprisings, the outcome of what was dubbed the “Arab Spring” did not turn out to be that positive for women. In Egypt, women hold two percent of parliamentary seats in comparison to 12 More »

- Disappointment with peace efforts in Syria. What next? - The Iranian Navy docks in Sudan, as tensions rise with Israel - Egypt’s Coptic Christians move closer to having a new pope - Legal issues cast doubt on the return of Christians to Turkey’s More »

-        Air strikes in Damascus undo last day of truce -        Mali situation discussed in Algeria -        Free speech v. offensive speech in D.C.    More »

In recent weeks, people the world over have heard a great deal about divisions and conflict between Muslim communities and America. Yet looking more deeply at American history shows how much American tradition actually runs in the opposite direction. In today’s seemingly divisive world, I cannot help but think of the values of America’s More »

- Notion of U.S. coordinating military assistance for Syrian rebels called “ludicrous” - Syrian refugees struggle in Jordanian camps - The U.S. and Israel hold military exercises - Turkish beach resorts cater to pious More »

As someone who writes and lectures about women and gender in Islam, I am often asked if women had any role in the making of the Islamic tradition. Happily, the answer is always yes. There were in fact many prominent women in the early history of Islam. At the top of the list would have More »

Our source for this post, Mousab Alhamadee, by his own account, is a school teacher and an activist serving as an international media spokesman for the Local Coordination Committees of Syria. He purportedly works under the protection of the Free Syrian Army in the mountains near Hama. He also says he is a former translator More »

Egypt is deep into the messy process of drafting its new constitution. In the past few weeks, two different drafts were released within days of each other. Not surprisingly, there are several areas of major contention. At the heart of the matter are profoundly different views between religious conservatives and secular liberals on such More »

The fate of Egypt’s Constituent Assembly tasked with drafting a new constitution is now in the hands of the country’s Supreme Constitutional Court, with many political parties and movements hoping for a verdict which would bring about the assembly’s dissolution. At the same time, the Muslim Brotherhood is fighting to keep the current makeup More »

In horror, I followed the events that led to the recent attacks on U.S. diplomatic missions in Cairo, Benghazi, Tunis, Khartoum and other cities. Given the eruption of similar reactions in the past, I was not surprised over the attacks per se as I was over the ability of some Muslims to cause so More »

Abu Leila Halabi, by his own account a citizen journalist inside Syria, reports that in the battle for Aleppo, long-time Christian communities are caught in the middle of a political conflict that threatens to turn into a sectarian war. Among the Christian communities, Armenian leaders steadfastly insist they remain neutral in spite of being More »

Bosnian Mufti Mustafa Efendi Ceric, in an exclusive interview with VOA’s Bosnian Service, commented on the anti-America protests around the world, including smaller rallies in Bosnia and the Serbian province of Sanjak, triggered by a U.S. amateur-made YouTube video and French cartoons lampooning the Prophet Muhammad. Below are some excerpts of his comments. The More »