By Sam Harris and Salman Rushdie As you read this, Ayaan Hirsi Ali sits in a safe house with armed men guarding her door. She is one of the most poised, intelligent and compassionate advocates of freedom of speech and conscience alive today, and for this she is despised in Muslim communities throughout the world….
In recent years, scholarly attention has shifted away from debates on ethnicity to focus on issues of migration and citizenship. Inspired, in part, by earlier studies on European guestworker migration, these debates are fed by the new “transnational mobility”, by the immigration of Muslims, by the increasing importance of human rights law, and by the…
Bassam Tibi knows the obstacles a Muslim faces in Germany, where he has lived for 45 years and has been a citizen for two decades. As an internationally acknowledged expert on Islam, Tibi often appeared in the German media to discuss the Gulf War and was introduced as a Syrian holding a German passport. But…
By Jane Perlez LONDON: As part of his series of farewells, Prime Minister Tony Blair on Monday addressed a government-organized conference on Islam and declared that the “authentic voices” of the religion should be given a stage over the voices of extremism. Blair, who has said he will take a special interest in interfaith affairs…
CLICHY-SOUS-BOIS, France – In the United States, the word “suburb” may conjure up images of bedroom communities with neat, tree-lined streets and good schools – a haven from the hustle and flow of city life. Not so in France. This Paris suburb ( banlieue ), a tinderbox of crime, sky-high youth unemployment and minority disaffection,…
