Past controversies Saudi diplomats in Germany have confirmed that the King-Fahd-Academy, a Saudi-financed educational institution in Bonn, will be closed by the end of the school year 2016/2017. The construction of a second academy in Berlin will reportedly also be abandoned.1 The King-Fahd Academy, opened in 1994, had long been criticised as a hotbed of…
The killing of a priest during morning mass at a Catholic church near Rouen on July 26 has sent new shockwaves through France—a country that prides itself on its secularism, but in which religion still plays a large part in many communities. The rapid succession of attacks on French soil claimed by Islamic State (IS), from the truck…
Omar Mateen – who shot dead 50 people in an Orlando gay club – was both an Islamist terrorist and a violent homophobe. These things are not mutually exclusive. They are concomitant. Mateen attacked the West in general but targeted gay people in particular. Inevitably some people say Islam is incompatible with Western life because…
Following the wave of attacks in France at the beginning of 2015, it seems the worst should be expected. Recently, an online message clip was published by the media branch of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula on YouTube. Ibrahim al-Rubaish, one of the group’s leaders, indicated that France is his “number one enemy.” With the…
A review of Jocelyne Cesari’s new book from the Journal of Muslims in Europe. [PDF DOWNLOAD]
