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Works

Editorials

Do Not Invite Israeli Apartheid To Your Iftaar Table

Editor

Sha'ban 20, 14452024-03-01

With the approach of Ramadan, Muslims begin to think of items for Iftaar. One of the essential items is dates. Muslims must not purchase and consume Israeli dates that are produced on stolen Palestinian land and packaged under misleading labels. We provide the list.

Editorials

US Military Bases In West Asia

Editor

Rajab 20, 14452024-02-01

The West Asia region bristles with US military bases. It is not difficult to surmise who they are meant against. The illegitimate Arab regimes facilitate these bases to undermine the Islamic Republic.

Editor's Desk

Muslim Regimes’ Betrayal Of Palestinians

Editor

Jumada' al-Akhirah 19, 14452024-01-01

The Qur’an refers to Muslims as “one Ummah”. This places certain responsibilities upon them to assist their suffering brothers and sisters in any part of the world. Yet most regimes in the Muslim world have failed to come to the aid of the Palestinian people.

Editorials

World Beyond The UN

Editor

Jumada' al-Ula' 17, 14452023-12-01

Despite its high-sounding principles, the United Nations has demonstrably failed to prevent wars, protect the weak and provide justice. The reason is that three of the five permanent members of Security Council have hijacked its agenda. It is time to think of establishing an alternative organization.

Editorials

Demonizing Hamas To Justify Israel’s Genocide In Gaza

Editor

Rabi' al-Thani 17, 14452023-11-01

Telling lies is part of politics, especially in the west. Politicians, however, lie to promote the interests of their own countries. In zionist Israel’s case, western politicians tell lies to justify zionist crimes against the Palestinian people. It is truly disgraceful.

Editorials

Suicide Bombings During Prophet’s Birthday Celebrations In Pakistan

Editor

Rabi' al-Awwal 16, 14452023-10-01

Terrorist attacks have become routine in Pakistan. The victims are almost always innocent people. Merely condemnation will not solve the problem; the root causes of terrorism must be addressed. Only a representative government can do that, not an army-imposed regime.

Editorials

Landing On The Moon Does Not Whitewash Indian Crimes On Earth

Editor

Safar 15, 14452023-09-01

All countries try to project their best image to the world. This is done to paper over their less savoury conduct. India may bask in the glory of landing a spacecraft on the moon but its horrific mistreatment of minorities and brutal killings represent its true nature.

Editorials

How To Confront The Qur’an-burning Menace?

Editor

Muharram 14, 14452023-08-01

Muslims must find more creating ways of confronting episodes of Qur’an-burning in Sweden and Denmark. Merely holding demonstrations and shouting slogans, while reflecting Muslim anguish, will not resolve the issue. It requires hitting the offenders in their pockets.

Editorials

The Zionist Disease

Editor

Dhu al-Hijjah 13, 14442023-07-01

Zionism is not only a racist ideology it is also a disease that has infected many people. It has to be eradicated to have a healthy society in Palestine.

Editorials

Dealing With The Zionist Menace

Editor

Dhu al-Qa'dah 12, 14442023-06-01

Since the implantation of the zionist entity in the heartland of Islam, there has been no peace for the people of Palestine or indeed the broader region. The racist ideology of zionism must be defeated for there to be a chance for peace in the region.

Editorials

The End Of Pakistan As A State

Editor

Shawwal 11, 14442023-05-01

A state must fulfill certain conditions: provide security to its citizens as well as food, education and healthcare. Justice is another important aspect. In Pakistan none of these services are available to the people. The state has not only failed but it has withered away.

Editorials

Pakistan’s Gangster Generals

Editor

Ramadan 10, 14442023-04-01

Pakistani generals are a criminal lot. Unable to confront arch-enemy India, they frequently launch wars against their own hapless people. Pakistan’s current political and economic crisis is the direct result of the generals’ illegal interference in politics to block elections from being held because they will return Imran Khan to power who has vowed to go after the corrupt politicians and generals.

Editorials

Reviving The True Spirit Of Ramadan

Editor

Sha'ban 09, 14442023-03-01

Ramadan is a month of fasting, a month of giving but above all, a month of engaging the noble Qur’an in a more profound way. Muslims must address the root causes of the mass poverty that afflicts hundreds of millions of Muslims worldwide amid plenty.

Editorials

Solidarity With Kashmiris Under Indian Occupation

Editor

Rajab 10, 14442023-02-01

Kashmiris are one of the most oppressed people in the world. They are also the longest-occupied people. These necessitate expressing solidarity with the people of Kashmir under India’s brutal occupation and seek ways for their liberation.

Editorials

The Year 2023

Editor

Jumada' al-Akhirah 08, 14442023-01-01

While the war in Ukraine will likely continue to dominate headlines in the year 2023 because that is what the collective west wants, US mischief-making will also continue in full force. Losing their pre-eminent position globally, American warlords are becoming more belligerent.

Editorials

The Year 2022: The Past As Mirror To The Future

Editor

Jumada' al-Ula' 07, 14442022-12-01

Like previous years, 2022 has been a pretty nasty year for most people globally. We look at the bad and the not-so-bad developments of the past year and what it may portend for the future.

Editorials

Pakistan Sinks Into A Blackhole

Editor

Rabi' al-Thani 06, 14442022-11-01

Pakistan has become a sad case of the army fighting against its own people. The deliberately-engineered crisis can be blamed on one man: army chief Qamar Javed Bajwa who is about to retire on November 29. Before he goes, he seems determined to inflict more harm.

Editorials

The UN: A Colossal Failure

Editor

Rabi' al-Awwal 05, 14442022-10-01

The United Nations was established in 1945, even before the Second World War formally ended, with the stated aim of preventing future conflicts, to resolve disputes through peaceful means and prohibited the threat or use of force against other states. The UN has demonstrably failed in all these areas.

Editorials

Pakistan’s Descent into Fascism

Editor

Safar 05, 14442022-09-01

Pakistan has become an absolutely fascist State. People that call for punishing, through legal means those that have indulged in illegal acts, are being arrested, tortured and sexually abused in prison. The main culprits in this sordid affair are the army chief and the criminals and rapists that he has imposed as rulers on Pakistan!

News & Analysis

Europe Faces Dark, Cold Winter

Editor

Muharram 03, 14442022-08-01

Devastated by the pandemic, Europe has suffered another blow: sanctions against Russia over its war in Ukraine has caused the latter’s reduction in gas supplies to the continent. Massive price rises and civil unrest have followed. Will the winter witness a flood of European refugees to the Middle East? It cannot be discounted.

Editorials

Who should Administer the Affairs of Hajj?

Editor

Dhu al-Hijjah 02, 14432022-07-01

After two years of restrictions, Muslims were looking forward to performing Hajj but the Saudis have imposed new restrictions especially for pilgrims from North America, Europe and Australia. We have long argued that Hajj administration should be taken out of Saudi control. They are not the owners of Hajj and unfit to run its affairs.

Editorials

Imam Khomeini, Islamic Revolution and The Imposed World Order

Editor

Dhu al-Qa'dah 01, 14432022-06-01

June marks another anniversary of Imam Khomeini’s departure from this temporary abode to join heavenly company. In bringing about the Islamic revolution, he challenged the global order imposed by the victors of the Second World War. It has revolutionized people’s thinking worldwide.

Editorials

Quds Day Rallies are Back!

Editor

Ramadan 30, 14432022-05-01

After a hiatus of two years because of restrictions imposed by the worldwide pandemic, Quds Day rallies are back this year.

Editorials

Lessons from the Ukraine War

Editor

Sha'ban 29, 14432022-04-01

Despite US bluster, America and NATO regimes are not about to send their troops into Ukraine to fight against Russia. The reason? Russia is a nuclear power and NATO forces would trigger a third world war. The lesson is clear: being a nuclear-armed state deters would be aggressors.

Editorials

50 years of Crescent International

Editor

Rajab 28, 14432022-03-01

We in the Crescent International are proud to mark an important landmark: 50 years of publication despite great difficulties. We thank Allah and our small but dedicated list of supporters. That Crescent International is the only international Islamic English language magazine in the world today is reflective of the sad state of journalism in the Muslim world.

Editorials

Pandemic Turns Billionaires into Trillionaires!

Editor

Jumada' al-Akhirah 29, 14432022-02-01

During the pandemic at least 160 million people have fallen into poverty but the billionaire class, all of them Americans except one, have increased their wealth and have turned into trillionaires. This is not the result of being smart; they manipulate the system to their advantage.

Editorials

One More Wall to Imprison Palestinians

Editor

Jumada' al-Ula' 28, 14432022-01-01

By erecting another wall, this time around the already besieged Gaza Strip, the Zionist regime merely reveals its weaknesses. If the Palestinians have not been subdued by military might, how can a wall, albeit a hi-tech one, can subdue their spirit of resistance and yearning for freedom?

Editorials

Britain Declares War on Hamas

Editor

Rabi' al-Thani 26, 14432021-12-01

British home secretary, a Hindu extremist and Zionist, has declared even the political wing of Hamas as a “terrorist” organization. Hamas heads a duly elected government in Gaza but for Ms. Priti Patel, that is not good enough. She is doing her Zionist masters’ bidding.

Editorials

Imperatives of Muslim Unity

Editor

Rabi' al-Awwal 25, 14432021-11-01

Muslim unity is a Qur’anic command although unfortunately there are some Muslims that have fallen into the trap of sectarianism and has caused much damage to the Ummah. Disunity among Muslims has also given an opportunity to predatory powers to destroy many Muslim countries.

Editorials

Prospects for Peace and Stability in Afghanistan

Editor

Safar 24, 14432021-10-01

Barring the defeated powers (US, NATO and India), the rest of the world wants peace and stability in Afghanistan. If Afghanistan’s immediate neighbours put their heads together and coordinate policies, peace is not only possible, it is highly desirable.

Editorials

Taliban’s Peaceful Takeover of Power Demolishes Gloomy Forecasts

Editor

Muharram 23, 14432021-09-01

The lightning speed and peaceful way in which the Taliban took control of the country, including the capital city Kabul indicates their brilliant planning and wide support among the masses.

Editorials

Facilitating peace in Afghanistan

Editor

Dhu al-Hijjah 22, 14422021-08-01

Unlike distant powers, Afghanistan’s neighbours, especially Pakistan, Iran, China and Russia have a huge stake in a stable and peaceful country. They should assist the Afghans to come to a suitable arrangement in which all ethnic groups are represented and do not feel alienated.

Editorials

The Deadly Consequences of Islamophobia

Editor

Dhu al-Qa'dah 20, 14422021-07-01

Islamophobia is a global phenomenon. It is also the last respectable form of racism. Even in a country like Canada that prides itself on being multicultural, Muslims are attacked and murdered in cold blood. Unless Islamophobia is declared a hate crime, Muslims will continue to suffer and die.

Editorials

Victory for Islamic Resistance in Palestine

Editor

Shawwal 20, 14422021-06-01

Despite inflicting horrific damage on Gaza and killing hundreds of innocent civilians the Islamic resistance movement in Palestine was able to change the equation by forcing the Zionist aggressors to sue for ceasefire. The Islamic resistance has created a new reality.

Editorials

Ramadan, Charity and Institution Building in Islam

Editor

Ramadan 19, 14422021-05-01

Islam considers giving in the way of Allah and feeding the hungry and poor as meritorious act especially in the month of Ramadan. There is, however, another aspect that most Muslims have not paid attention to: the reasons for poverty and the need to alleviate it.

Editorials

Global Merchants of Death

Editor

Sha'ban 18, 14422021-04-01

While it is well known that global spending on weapons is extremely high, in the last five years this has reached a staggering total of $1.92 trillion. The US leads the world in military spending with an annual budget of $732 billion, far out-spending its nearest rival China at $261 billion.

Editorials

The Iran Nuclear Deal

Editor

Rajab 17, 14422021-03-01

There is much talk about how to save the Iran nuclear deal. There is a simple solution: the US must lift all sanctions illegally imposed on Iran when Donald Trump walked away from the deal in 2018. Joe Biden says Iran must take the first step. That is a non-starter; he must snap into reality.

Editorials

Biden: Obama 2.0, Minus the Soaring Rhetoric

Editor

Jumada' al-Akhirah 19, 14422021-02-01

A new (even if rather old) face in the White House has led to the mistaken belief among some people that the US would return to normalcy now. Apart from some cosmetic changes, America’s policy of belligerence, militarism and exploitation is unlikely to change.

Editorials

Will 2021 be Any Different Than 2020?

Editor

Jumada' al-Ula' 17, 14422021-01-01

The year 2020 will go down in history as one of the worst nightmares for most people. Will the year 2021 be any different? We look at some possible developments.

Editorials

2020: A Disastrous Year

Editor

Rabi' al-Thani 16, 14422020-12-01

The year 2020 has been disastrous. It started with the US assassination of General Qassem Solaimani of Iran and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis of Iraq. On November 27, Dr Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was assassinated. In-between Covid-19 has ravaged societies. Can it get any worse?

Editorials

The post-Pandemic world

Editor

Rabi' al-Awwal 15, 14422020-11-01

Despite the devastation it has caused in many parts of the world, the pandemic also offers opportunities to the victims of US aggression to formulate policies and strategies to overcome such bullying.

Editorials

End of the American Empire!

Editor

Safar 14, 14422020-10-01

The US is not only in terminal decline, the empire is dead. As it faces a serious threat of civil war, many American commentators have written its obituary realizing that the American (half)-century is over.

Editorials

Pakistan: Time to Cast Aside the Saudi Albatross?

Editor

Muharram 13, 14422020-09-01

For Pakistan, Kashmir is of vital importance yet it has received little support from the Saudi-dominated OIC. Fed up with Saudi foot-dragging, Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi demanded that the Saudis either act or Pakistan will go elsewhere for support.

Editorials

Racism But No Racists in Canada?

Editor

Dhu al-Hijjah 11, 14412020-08-01

If there is racism in Canada, there has to be racists but some racists are taking exception to this designation. It proves how deeply ingrained racism is that its proponents refuse to even acknowledge it. People of color have a tough fight ahead for equality and justice.

Editorials

Hajj Amid the Pandemic

Editor

Dhu al-Qa'dah 10, 14412020-07-01

The Saudi regime will allow about 1000 people from the kingdom to perform Hajj this year but not Muslims from outside because of the pandemic. Muslims must work to end Bani Saud’s illegal occupation of Makkah and Madinah and challenge their distortion of Hajj rites to please their mushrik masters.

Editorials

Imam Khomeini’s Struggle Against Imperialism and Zionism

Editor

Shawwal 09, 14412020-06-01

Emerging from the roots of Islam, Imam Khomeini (ra) whose thirty-first anniversary falls on June 3, understood the nature of imperialism and zionism better than Western-educated Muslims. It was his complete faith in Allah that enabled him to bring about the Islamic revolution in Iran.

Editorials

COVID-19 Ushers Global Power Shift

Editor

Ramadan 08, 14412020-05-01

The pandemic has exposed the US as a failed state. Others have done far better looking after their citizens. Dramatic changes are underway with countries realigning their policies and relations moving away from reliance on the US.

Editorials

Ramadan, The Noble Qur’an and Muslims’ Responsibility

Editor

Sha'ban 07, 14412020-04-01

This Ramadan is likely to be very different from the Muslims’ past experiences. Since the revelation of the noble Qur’an is intimately linked with Ramadan, Muslims should utilize this opportunity to understand the Divine message to implement it in their lives.

Editorials

The US Surrenders to the Taliban!

Editor

Rajab 06, 14412020-03-01

The four-point agreement signed between the Taliban and the US in Doha, Qatar on February 29, 2020 was remarkable in more ways than one. If there is a single take-away from the agreement, it is that another superpower has had its nose rubbed in the dust by the rag-tag band of Afghan Taliban.

Editorials

India’s Racist Laws

Editor

Jumada' al-Akhirah 07, 14412020-02-01

Narendra Modi and his fascist followers are hell-bent on turning India into an exclusive Hindu state with no room for other religious groups. Their first target India’s 200 million Muslims but it will not end there. Modi’s racist policies have aroused Indians from a broad cross-section challenging its slide into absolute fascism.

Editorials

The Elusive Afghan Peace

Editor

Jumada' al-Akhirah 07, 14412020-02-01

There have been many false starts about peace in Afghanistan but there may be guarded optimism this time that may be, just maybe, there will be peace. The next few weeks will tell but unless there is actual peace, it is prudent to be cautious.

Editor's Desk

New Islamic Summit in Kuala Lumpur

Editor

Jumada' al-Ula' 06, 14412020-01-01

The Arabian potentates were livid at the temerity of Malaysia, Turkey and Qatar to hold an Islamic Summit in Kuala Lumpur. The Arabian rulers forced Pakistan not to attend but the summit also exposed their incompetence and subservience to imperialism and Zionism.

Editorials

Nationalism’s Disastrous Impact on Muslims

Editor

Jumada' al-Ula' 06, 14412020-01-01

Nationalism has no basis in Islam yet the overwhelming majority of Muslims are taken in by its rhetoric and debilitating influence. Injected by the colonialists into the body politic of Islam, this poisonous ideology continues to afflict every Muslim society with disastrous consequences.

Editorials

Anti-Semitic Smear

Editor

Jumada' al-Ula' 06, 14412020-01-01

The Zionists and their supporters are getting desperate. Israeli crimes against Palestinians are now widely known and condemned worldwide leading to Zionist hysteria. Criticism of Israeli crimes is now being equated with anti-Semitism.

Editor's Desk

Distinction between Judaism and Zionism

Editor

Rabi' al-Thani 04, 14412019-12-01

Pro-Israeli groups go to extreme lengths to present Zionism and Judaism as the same. They are not. Critics of Zionism must also be careful not to conflate the two. There are many good and decent Jewish people that are equally appalled at the excesses of Zionism and speak out against them.

Editorials

Zionists Kill Palestinians and Steal Their Land

Editor

Rabi' al-Thani 04, 14412019-12-01

Israel’s killing of Palestinians has become so routine that it hardly evokes a yawn. 300 unarmed Palestinian protesters have been killed and another 30,000 or more injured in Gaza since March 2018, but the Zionists intensified attacks on Gaza with missiles and bombs that killed another 34 and injured 110 others in two days last month.

Editorials

Islamic Iran and the Jewish People

Editor

Rabi' al-Thani 04, 14412019-12-01

The Zionists and their supporters deliberately misrepresent statements of Iranian officials about Israel. Iran’s leader, Imam Seyyed Ali Khamenei clarified on November 14 that when Iran calls for the “elimination of Israel”, it is the regime not the Jewish people that it wants removed.

Editor's Desk

America’s Multiple Wars on Muslims

Editor

Rabi' al-Awwal 04, 14412019-11-01

People are aware of US wars against Muslim countries, many of them ruined beyond repair. There is another, equally insidious war the US is waging against Muslims living in the West through the policy of no fly and watch lists.

Editorials

Unending Agony of the Kashmiris

Editor

Rabi' al-Awwal 04, 14412019-11-01

The eight million people of Indian occupied Kashmir continue to suffer horrific crimes at the hands of Indian troops. The 24/7 lockdown, lack of food and medicines and suspension of Internet and cell phones have caused immense suffering to the Kashmiris already reeling from decades of Indian brutality.

Editorials

Islamophobia and the Media

Editor

Rabi' al-Awwal 04, 14412019-11-01

Islamophobia is a vast and thriving industry backed by people and organizations with a specific policy agenda. It will require an equally serious effort to confront and defeat it.

Editor's Desk

Trouble for Pharaoh on the Nile

Editor

Safar 02, 14412019-10-01

In a surprising development, the people of Egypt have shed their fear of the brutal Sisi regime and come out in the streets to demand his ouster. They responded to the call from an unlikely source: a former military contractor familiar with widespread corruption. He is currently living in exile.

Editorials

Kashmiri Suffering, Global Indifference

Editor

Safar 02, 14412019-10-01

The suffering of the people of Kashmir at the hands of Indian occupation forces is well known yet the indifference of governments worldwide to their plight is absolutely shocking.

Editorials

Iran’s Message of Hope

Editor

Safar 02, 14412019-10-01

Amidst threats of war and in some instances actual wars against innocent people, especially Muslims, Islamic Iran has offered a peace initiative aimed at ending conflict and developing good neighborliness in the region.

Editorials

Strategic Shift in Global Politics

Editor

Muharram 02, 14412019-09-01

When Iran’s Foreign Minister Javad Zarif appeared at the G7 summit in France, it took most people by surprise. He had come at the express invitation of French President Emmanuel Macron signaling that the US no longer calls the shots in global politics.

Editorials

Rise of Fascism

Editor

Muharram 02, 14412019-09-01

Hindu fascism and its attendant horrors are found in many other parts of the world. We can name a host of other fascists in power: Trump, Netanyahu, Bin Salman and their ilk. The world is a more dangerous place with their grubby hands on the levers of power.

Editor's Desk

Lest We Forget Al-Aqsa

Editor

Muharram 02, 14412019-09-01

Despite troubles in many parts of the Muslim world, the Zionist threat to Masjid al Aqsa cannot be overlooked. The Zionists are making furious efforts to take it over. They must not be allowed to do so.

Editor's Desk

India, Israel: Two Criminal Regimes

Editor

Dhu al-Qa'dah 29, 14402019-08-01

In India Hindu fascists are lynching innocent Muslims in public while in Occupied Palestine, the Zionists are killing and maiming Palestinians. Both regimes share a lot in common.

Editorials

US-UK Threats of War Against Iran

Editor

Dhu al-Qa'dah 29, 14402019-08-01

The Americans and the British continue to indulge in illegal acts against Iran while threatening “grave consequences” if Tehran does not submit to their demands. Iran refuses to surrender its sovereignty and dignity.

Editorials

Calls to Boycott Hajj

Editor

Dhu al-Qa'dah 29, 14402019-08-01

Calls to boycott Hajj are getting louder and more widespread. These have to do with the Saudis’ belligerent policies such as in Yemen killing innocent people as well as the Saudis’ terrible conduct at home.

Editorials

Bani Saud’s Rogue Regime

Editor

Shawwal 27, 14402019-07-01

The UN human rights investigator has fingered Mohammad bin Salman, Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, as the principal culprit in the gruesome murder of Jamal Khashoggi. Inside the kingdom, the clown prince is planning to execute scholars that still have a conscience to terrorize people into submission.

Editorials

Ditching the Dollar (Editorial)

Editor

Shawwal 27, 14402019-07-01

Russia and China have both signaled that they are fed up of the US using the dollar to blackmail other countries into towing Washington’s diktat. They have, together with a number of countries, decided to ditch the dollar.

Editor's Desk

Trump, Advisors, ‘Mental Retards’

Editor

Shawwal 27, 14402019-07-01

Only a mental retard will say he wants to negotiate and impose sanctions on the other side at the same time. This is what Donald Trump has done vis-a-vis Iran and then he expresses surprises that Tehran is not taking up his offer of talks.

Editor's Desk

The Heart-Breaking Story of 5-year-old Palestinian Girl

Editor

Ramadan 27, 14402019-06-01

Five-year-old Aisha Lulu living in Gaza’s al-Bureij locality had brain tumor and needed surgery at al-Maqasid Hospital in Jerusalem. The Zionists refused to give her mother a visa to go with her. A stranger took her but the poor child died soon after returning because of the trauma that she suffered, showing the Zionists callousness.

Editorials

Iran Unfazed by US threats

Editor

Ramadan 27, 14402019-06-01

After huffing and puffing like the big bad wolf for several weeks against the Islamic Republic of Iran, Donald Trump was forced to make a climb-down. On a visit to Tokyo on May 27, Trump said he was not after “regime change” in Iran; he only wanted to make sure they do not have nuclear weapons. Iran does not, but who gave Trump the right to decide that anyway?

Editorials

Pakistan in the IMF Debt Trap

Editor

Ramadan 27, 14402019-06-01

Pakistan debt continues to climb and going to the IMF for another bailout package is not a good omen for the future.

Editor's Desk

US blocks ICC War Crimes Probe

Editor

Sha'ban 25, 14402019-05-01

When the International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor tried to investigate US war crimes in Afghanistan to question American soldiers, the regime in Washington revoked the prosecutor’s visa to enter the US!

Editorials

Steps Toward Muslim Cooperation

Editor

Sha'ban 25, 14402019-05-01

The pathetic Arabian regimes will never work for Muslim cooperation or unity but there are hopeful signs that some other countries may be able to move in that direction.

Editorials

Warmongers’ Elections

Editor

Sha'ban 25, 14402019-05-01

Last month, there were two noisy and violent elections—one in Zionist Israel and the other in Hindu India. In both, war criminals sought reelection. The Indian farce is still underway. These elections once again confirm that they are only meant to rubberstamp war criminals back into power.

Editor's Desk

Quds Day, Toronto City Hall, and Racism

Editor

Jumada' al-Akhirah 24, 14402019-04-01

Under pressure from pro-Israeli groups, Toronto City Hall has come out swinging against the annual Quds Day rally and want to deny it public space that the fascists, racist, zionists and white supremacists enjoy without any hindrance.

Editorials

Zionist War Crimes in Gaza

Editor

Rajab 25, 14402019-04-01

The UN Human Rights Council’s special investigation commission says Israel may have committed war crimes in Gaza. The next step should be to bring charges against Israeli rulers—civilian and military—at the International Criminal Court.

Editorials

Kashmir: The Real Cause of Conflict

Editor

Rajab 25, 14402019-04-01

Last month, India and Pakistan came to the brink of full-blown war. At the root lies the unresolved issue of Kashmir. Unless this long-festering problem is resolved according to the wishes of the people of Kashmir, the risk of war remains.

Editorials

Pakistan Rehabilitates Bin Salman

Editor

Jumada' al-Akhirah 24, 14402019-03-01

Shunned by the rest of the world in the wake of the Jamal Khashoggi murder, Muhammad bin Salman was embraced and feted by the Pakistanis. This may turn out to be a costly mistake for Pakistan.

Editorials

Last Man in Kabul

Editor

Jumada' al-Akhirah 24, 14402019-03-01

The Americans have lost to the Taliban in Afghanistan. What is euphemistically referred to as “negotiations” are really the terms of American surrender to be able to safely withdraw their forces from Afghanistan.

Editor's Desk

Priests Sexually Abuse Nuns!

Editor

Jumada' al-Akhirah 24, 14402019-03-01

The Catholic Church is ridden with sexual scandals but in the past, these were swept under the rug. The problem has now become so serious that nuns have publicly spoken out about priests raping them and the Pope has admitted that some priests held nuns as “sexual slaves”. Will the Church take practical steps to correct the situation?

Editor's Desk

Why the Taliban Distrust the US

Editor

Jumada' al-Ula' 26, 14402019-02-01

The Americans are dishonest to the core. Not surprisingly, the Taliban do not trust them one bit. The Americans want to retain military bases in Afghanistan; the Taliban will have none of this. Who can blame them?

Editorials

Press TV Anchor was Held Hostage by US!

Editor

Jumada' al-Ula' 26, 14402019-02-01

By kidnapping Press TV anchor Marzieh Hashemi and holding here hostage, the US regime has once again exposed its true face: it is not a regime governed by the rule of law; gangsters run this lawless state.

Editorials

European Disintegration

Editor

Jumada' al-Ula' 26, 14402019-02-01

Brexit, Yellow Vest and the rise of fascist parties all across Europe signal trouble for the continent of 500 million people. Can disintegration be far behind?

Editor's Desk

Arabian Potentates Make up with Syria

Editor

Rabi' al-Thani 24, 14402019-01-01

With the regime-change plot in Syria biting the dust, Arabian potentates are rushing to kiss and make-up with Syria’s Bashar al Asad. It is a sea change from the beginning of 2011.

Editorials

Syria: Victory for the Resistance Front

Editor

Rabi' al-Thani 24, 14402019-01-01

Donald Trump claimed the US has ‘defeated’ ISIS so he is pulling the 2,000 troops out. The US has done no such thing; ISIS is a US creation. It has been defeated by the resistance front, period!

Editorials

Khalilzad’s Delusional Proposals

Editor

Rabi' al-Thani 24, 14402019-01-01

Staring defeat in the Hindu Kush mountains, the Americans have come up with other delusional proposals to destabilize neighboring Pakistan and stay in war-torn Afghanistan.

Editor's Desk

US- and Zionist-occupied Golan Heights

Editor

Rabi' al-Awwal 23, 14402018-12-01

Occupation of other people’s land is illegal under every law and convention. This rule, however, does not seem to apply to the Zionists and imperialists as witnessed in the recent UN resolution about the illegality of Zionist occupation of the Syrian Golan Heights.

Editorials

Yemen: Suffer the Little Children

Editor

Rabi' al-Awwal 23, 14402018-12-01

Every 10 minutes a child dies in Yemen because of the total siege imposed by the US-UK-Saudi and their allies. There is also widespread famine, entirely man-made, due to the war imposed on the country.

Editorials

Sanctions War

Editor

Rabi' al-Awwal 23, 14402018-12-01

America is the only country in the world that uses sanctions as a weapon of war. The list of sanctioned countries is growing but apart from creating mass starvation and deaths, the Washington warlords have achieved little.

Editor's Desk

Yemen in the News, Finally!

Editor

Safar 23, 14402018-11-01

While Khashoggi’s brutal murder has spotlighted the dark conduct of Saudi rulers, it has also forced Western media outlets to look a little closer at the horrors perpetrated in Yemen.

Editorials

Shifting Global Alliances

Editor

Safar 23, 14402018-11-01

The world is changing fast. This can be witnessed in the new alliances that are emerging to challenge US hegemony.

Editorials

Kashmir Black Day

Editor

Safar 23, 14402018-11-01

October 27 is observed as Black Day in Kashmir. This year was no different except that the Indian occupiers surpassed even their past gory record.

Editor's Desk

Foreign-backed Terrorists Attack Iran

Editor

Muharram 21, 14402018-10-01

Arabian officials do not make even a pretense of condemning terrorism. They are openly applauding it as was evident in the September 22 terrorist attack in Ahvaz that killed 29 people including women and children.

Editorials

Fascism on the March, Again

Editor

Muharram 21, 14402018-10-01

There is something in the Europeans’ gene propelling them toward fascism. Europe has the dubious distinction of having given birth to many demonic ideologies but fascism remains its enduring legacy.

Editorials

Shaykh Zakzaky’s Illegal Incarceration

Editor

Muharram 21, 14402018-10-01

Shaykh Ibrahim Zakzaky, leader of the Islamic Movement in Nigeria has been held illegally for nearly three years now. The Nigerian regime is beholden to Zionism and Wahhabism and the Shaykh is the victim of external pressure on the Abuja regime.

Editor's Desk

Shaykh Zakzaky’s Long Ordeal

Editor

Dhu al-Hijjah 21, 14392018-09-01

The Nigerian regime has no case against Shaykh Zakzaky and his wife but they are incarcerated because the regime is beholden to Zionist Israel and Saudi Arabia as well as afraid of the Shaykh’s popularity among the masses.

Editorials

US-Zionist Threats Against Iran and Hizbullah

Editor

Dhu al-Hijjah 21, 14392018-09-01

While there is marked increase in threats from the US and Zionist Israel against Islamic Iran and Hizbullah, should either of the aggressors blunder into launching an attack, they will find the outcome very grim for them.

Editorials

Bin Salman’s Crumbling Sand Castles

Editor

Dhu al-Hijjah 21, 14392018-09-01

Whatever Bin Salman touches turns to dust. The latest disaster to befall the doomed kingdom is the failure of his “Vision 2030” whose lynchpin was floating 5% of Aramco shares. There were no takers and the venture has had to be shelved!

Editor's Desk

Kites and Missiles Over Gaza

Editor

Dhu al-Qa'dah 19, 14392018-08-01

The Zionists are terrified of Palestinian youth flying kites over Gaza. They have used missiles fired from drones as well as artillery fire against the youth flying kites.

Editorials

New Law Confirms Israel as Apartheid State

Editor

Dhu al-Qa'dah 19, 14392018-08-01

With the passage of the New State Law last month, Zionist Israel has confirmed that it is an apartheid state. Palestinians and justice-loving people everywhere had known this but the Zionist entity itself confirmed this.

Editorials

American Paranoia

Editor

Dhu al-Qa'dah 19, 14392018-08-01

The US annual military budget at $719 billion is more than the next nine countries put together. IS the US really ‘secure’ or is it deliberately induced fear in order to justify massive outlays on weapons to line the pockets of greedy politicians, generals and contractors?

Editor's Desk

Child Abuser Trump!

Editor

Shawwal 17, 14392018-07-01

By separating children from parents, especially mothers, Trump has exposed himself yet again as a callous, selfish beast.

Editorials

The Kashmiris’ Unending Agony

Editor

Shawwal 17, 14392018-07-01

The UN High Commission for Human Rights issued a scathing report about Indian atrocities in Kashmir but the Hindu rulers are unperturbed.

Editorials

Why Peace Eludes Afghanistan

Editor

Shawwal 17, 14392018-07-01

The Taliban control much of the country and America has lost the war in Afghanistan but the Yankees are not going home, yet!

Editor's Desk

Hizbullah-led Alliance Wins in Lebanon

Editor

Ramadan 16, 14392018-06-01

In the confessional ridden political set-up in Lebanon, the Hizbullah-led alliance still emerged on top despite US, Zionist and Saudi manipulation and disruption.

Editorials

Zionists Massacre Palestinians in Gaza

Editor

Ramadan 16, 14392018-06-01

Killing unarmed Palestinians is routine for the Zionists, as is the unqualified support of Western regimes for such war crimes.

Editorials

Trump Abandons Iran Nuclear Deal

Editor

Ramadan 16, 14392018-06-01

By pulling out of the multilateral Iran nuclear deal, Donald Trump has shown the US has no shame or honor. Will the Europeans maintain their end of the deal?

Editor's Desk

Bypassing the US Dollar

Editor

Sha'ban 15, 14392018-05-01

The US has successfully used the dollar to undermine countries that refuse to kowtow to its diktat. Now, some of the countries—Islamic Iran, Turkey, Russia and China—have decided to bypass the dollar.

Editorials

Killers and Rapists of Muslim Children

Editor

Sha'ban 15, 14392018-05-01

Muslim children are not only killed by in some instances even being raped before slaughtering them. Not only the US but its puppets and allies—Afghanistan, India and Israel, for instance—are guilty of egregious crimes.

Editorials

The Real Victims of Terrorism

Editor

Sha'ban 15, 14392018-05-01

Statistics released by the Global Terrorism Index show that Muslims are the greatest victims of terrorism even though they are blamed for acts of terrorism.

Editor's Desk

Western Regimes Backtracking on Iran Nuclear Deal

Editor

Rajab 14, 14392018-04-01

Not just Donald Trump but other Western regimes are also backtracking on the nuclear deal with Iran. This confirms yet again that Western regimes cannot be trusted to uphold agreements that they sign.

Editorials

Bin Salman’s US Pilgrimage

Editor

Rajab 14, 14392018-04-01

Among many others, Muhammad bin Salman’s basic reason for visiting the US was to seek Trump’s permission to become king!

Editorials

Saudi War on Yemen Enters Fourth Year

Editor

Rajab 14, 14392018-04-01

The Saudi-led war on Yemen has caused massive civilian casualties and led to the greatest humanitarian disaster in history. The Bani Saud are guilty of war crimes.

Editor's Desk

Saudis Want Their Terrorists Back!

Editor

Jumada' al-Akhirah 13, 14392018-03-01

In one of the most glaring admissions of its role as sponsor of terrorists, Saudi Arabia asked Iraq to extradite 400 of its citizens captured in the fight against Da‘ish and convicted of terrorism by Iraqi courts

Editorials

Stoking Fear to Wage Wars

Editor

Jumada' al-Akhirah 13, 14392018-03-01

Ignorance of the people a strong factor in inducing fear to justify America’s endless wars.

Editorials

UN Hypocrisy Over Syria

Editor

Jumada' al-Akhirah 13, 14392018-03-01

The US and allies’ selective concern for civilians in Eastern Ghouta designed to protect their favorite terrorists in Syria. No such concern has been expressed for Syrian civilians elsewhere.

Editor's Desk

Shaykh Zakzaky’s Unending Suffering

Editor

Jumada' al-Ula' 15, 14392018-02-01

In prison since December 2015, a badly wounded Shaykh Zakzaky and his wife continue to be held illegally despite a court order to release them.

Editorials

The Real Axis of Evil in the World

Editor

Jumada' al-Ula' 15, 14392018-02-01

Imperialism, Zionism and Hindu Nazism have emerged as the real axis of evil in the world.

Editor's Desk

Muslims Need Clarity of Thought and Purpose

Editor

Rabi' al-Thani 13, 14392018-01-01

Muslims need to undergo a revolution in thought in order to determine their true destiny. This must begin by shedding Western ideas that they imbibed during the colonial era.

Editorials

Jerusalem and the Muslim World

Editor

Rabi' al-Thani 13, 14392018-01-01

Ordinary Muslims have vigorously protested Trump’s Jerusalem move but some Muslim regimes, especially those in the Muslim East have sided with the enemies of Allah and His Prophet.

Editorials

What Future for Arabian Regimes?

Editor

Rabi' al-Thani 13, 14392018-01-01

The Arabian regimes do not have legitimacy since they are a creation of colonial intrigue. Now they have also exposed their treachery against Islam and Muslims thereby short-circuiting their existence.

Editor's Desk

Gathering of Arabian dinosaurs in Cairo

Editor

Rabi' al-Awwal 12, 14392017-12-01

The Arab League is a non-entity but it is periodically resurrected in order to massage the ego of one or another Arabian potentate. This was the case last month when the Najdi Bedouins called its meeting to condemn Iran. With Zionist Israel, the Arabians are in bed.

Editorials

Saudi War Crimes in Yemen

Editor

Rabi' al-Awwal 12, 14392017-12-01

The vicious war the Najdi Bedouins launched in March 2015 has taken a heavy toll of Yemen’s civilian populations. There are increasing calls even from within the UN for war crimes charges against those responsible in the medieval kingdom.

Editorials

India’s New Song on Kashmir

Editor

Rabi' al-Awwal 12, 14392017-12-01

Far from respecting the wishes of the people of Kashmir, Indian rulers keep throwing up gimmicks to hoodwink the world into believing that it is doing something about the ongoing uprising in Kashmir. The Kashmiris are not fooled.

Editor's Desk

Kashmiris, friends observe ‘Black Day’

Editor

Safar 12, 14392017-11-01

October 27 is commemorated ‘Black Day’ by the people of Kashmir and their friends worldwide. It was on this date 70 years ago that the maharaja supposedly signed the ‘Instrument of Accession’ to India against the express wishes of the people.

Editorials

Balfour’s bitter legacy

Editor

Safar 12, 14392017-11-01

The British had no right or authority to promise Palestine to the Zionists. Arthur Balfour’s infamous letter of a century ago has led to endless turmoil in the region.

Editorials

The Kurdish dilemma

Editor

Safar 12, 14392017-11-01

By allowing themselves to be used by such unsavory characters as the imperialists and Zionists, the Kurds have undermined their own cause. They have only themselves to blame for their misfortunes.

Editor's Desk

Former Ikhwan leader passes away

Editor

Muharram 11, 14392017-10-01

Dr Mohammed Mahdi Akef, the former Murshid (spiritual guide) of the Ikhwan al Muslimeen, died in an Egyptian hospital where he was moved from prison. Suffering from cancer, the military regime refused to provide him medication. He was 89.

Editorials

Rulers in Muslim countries fail Rohingya Muslims

Editor

Muharram 11, 14392017-10-01

More than half the Rohingya Muslim population has been ethnically cleansed from Myanmar. The genocidal Buddhists are hell-bent on killing or expelling the rest.

Editorials

Nuclear lepers

Editor

Muharram 11, 14392017-10-01

Most people in the world are opposed to nuclear weapons as was evident from the vote in the UN General Assembly last month but the main culprits—the US and Zionist Israel—insist on maintaining their monopoly.

Editor's Desk

The ME’s unexploded time bomb: ‘Independent’ Kurdistan

Editor

Dhu al-Hijjah 10, 14382017-09-01

With the failure of imperialist-Zionist instigated mayhem in the Muslim East, their attention has now turned to use the Kurds for their nefarious agenda. Will the Kurds fall into this trap and cause more chaos and confusion?

Editorials

India’s cow vigilantes

Editor

Dhu al-Hijjah 10, 14382017-09-01

Hindu fascists target Muslims accusing them of killing cows and eating their meat because Hindus consider the cow as their mother. Yet the largest exporters of beef in India are Hindus, not Muslims!

Editor's Desk

Grim Anniversary of Massacre in Egypt

Editor

Dhu al-Qa'dah 08, 14382017-08-01

It was three years ago that the Egyptian army perpetrated a bloodbath against innocent civilians in Cairo. General Sisi was and remains head of the military regime. Far from condemning the killings of innocent, Sisi is welcomed in Western capitals.

Editorials

Masjid al-Aqsa Under Siege

Editor

Dhu al-Qa'dah 08, 14382017-08-01

The cowardly Arabian rulers have maintained a deathly silence even as Masjid al Aqsa is under a Zionist siege. Is there any insult that will move these despicable creatures to action?

Editorials

Hindu India, Zionist Israel

Editor

Dhu al-Qa'dah 08, 14382017-08-01

Hindu India and Zionist Israel, fellow travelers on the path of Nazism, have embraced each other even tighter. This was evident during Narendra Modi’s visit to Israel last month.

Editor's Desk

First anniversary of Burhan Wani’s martyrdom

Editor

Shawwal 07, 14382017-07-01

Burhan Wani was a young charismatic Kashmiri freedom fighter. He was martyred on July 8, 2016 but his sacrifice led to the reinvigoration of the struggle for freedom in Kashmir.

Editorials

Trump’s dangerous escalation in Syria

Editor

Shawwal 07, 14382017-07-01

Donald Trump has brought the prospects of war with Russia that much closer by his belligerent and reckless policy in attacking Syria. He is trying to protect the takfiri terrorists that are on the run.

Editorials

Darkness over Gaza

Editor

Shawwal 07, 14382017-07-01

The besieged enclave of Gaza has been plunged into darkness as a result of Israel’s cutting off electricity to the two million people bottled up there.

Editor's Desk

Al-Quds, Hamas and Palestinian hunger strikers

Editor

Ramadan 06, 14382017-06-01

While al-Quds remains under Zionist occupation and 1600 Palestinian prisoners endure 45 days of a hunger strike, Hamas leadership under the influence of Arabian potentates all but abandons the struggle for the liberation of Palestine.

Editorials

Ignorant men threaten more wars

Editor

Ramadan 06, 14382017-06-01

Saudi Deputy Crown Prince and Defence Minister Muhammad bin Salman has found a real daddy in Donald Trump. Both are warmongers and want to blow up the world.

Editorials

Slow progress in Syria peace talks

Editor

Ramadan 06, 14382017-06-01

Syrian opposition groups oppose the creation of no-conflict zones in the country even though these would provide much needed food and medicines to the besieged people.

Editor's Desk

The real Axis of Evil

Editor

Sha'ban 04, 14382017-05-01

Hindu India, Zionist Israel and imperial America form the real axis of evil.

Editor's Desk

Zionist apartheid State and the UN

Editor

Rajab 04, 14382017-04-01

That Zionism is racism and based on the system of apartheid against the Palestinian people is now widely recognized but the UN dare not say so or else…

Editorials

The hierarchy of human suffering

Editor

Rajab 04, 14382017-04-01

Among the many tragedies afflicting the Muslim Ummah is also the fact that the West determines for us whom we can support and those we must not help.

Editorials

Hindu Nazis tighten grip on India

Editor

Rajab 04, 14382017-04-01

State elections in India have enabled the Hindu Nazis to tighten their grip on the political process in India leading to fears among religious minorities.

Editor's Desk

Crescent International’s new milestone

Editor

Jumada' al-Akhirah 02, 14382017-03-01

With its new outlook more in keeping with contemporary times, the Crescent International has taken another step on its long and often difficult journey. But there will be no compromise in its bold and cutting edge analysis.

Editorials

China and Iran in US crosshairs

Editor

Jumada' al-Akhirah 02, 14382017-03-01

The Trump regime’s policy of courting Russia is designed to de-link it from China and Iran, two countries being targeted by the US. Will it succeed?

Editorials

New Hamas leadership to renew resistance

Editor

Jumada' al-Akhirah 02, 14382017-03-01

Hamas’ new leader in Gaza, Yahya al-Sinwar is a veteran of armed resistance and has spent many decades in Israeli dungeons. Under his leadership, the resistance front is expected to be re-activated after a period of quietude.

Editor's Desk

Donald Trump reigns by executive orders

Editor

Jumada' al-Ula' 04, 14382017-02-01

Donald Trump is acting as a bulldozer demolishing everything that comes in his way. He has especially targeted Muslims barring citizens of seven Muslim majority countries to enter the US as well as renewed his pledge to build a wall along the US-Mexico border.

Editor's Desk

Thousands of Saudi terrorists active abroad

Editor

Rabi' al-Thani 03, 14382017-01-01

In an astonishing admission, the Saudi Interior Ministry admitted to Al Hayat newspaper that there are thousands of Saudi terrorists operating in different countries. This is what this newsmagazine had repeatedly stated. The Bani Saud have now confirmed this.

Editor's Desk

30,000 more illegal settlements in Palestine

Editor

Rabi' al-Awwal 01, 14382016-12-01

The Zionists are continuing to create facts on the ground by a furious campaign of illegal settlements on lands stolen from the Palestinian people.

Editor's Desk

Racist teachers in Canadian schools

Editor

Safar 01, 14382016-11-01

Canada is a multicultural country but this is no guarantee against racist teachers. The case of one School principal in York Region (same locality where Crescent is based) has brought to the fore the danger of such people poisoning young minds.

3
Editor's Desk

Kashmir cause undermined by Pakistani journalists

Editor

Dhu al-Hijjah 29, 14372016-10-01

What should Pakistan do? Nothing, as far as these journalists are concerned. They are more interested in whiskey and being in the company of Bollywood actresses. What a disgrace!

1
Editor's Desk

Erdogan’s mixed signals after the failed coup

Editor

Dhu al-Qa'dah 29, 14372016-09-01

July’s failed coup attempt in Turkey has exposed more than the coup plotters. Turkish President Recept Tayip Erdogan has realized that Western rulers and Nato members are not his real friends. Russia and Iran are.

Editor's Desk

Light at the end of Libya’s dark tunnel?

Editor

Shawwal 27, 14372016-08-01

The people of Libya have suffered for more than five years since the Western Crusaders destroyed the regime of Colonel Muammar Qaddafi. His son, Seif al-Islam who was sentenced to death last year is now seen as a savior of Libya.

2
Editor's Desk

Erdogan sells martyrs’ blood for $20 million

Editor

Ramadan 26, 14372016-07-01

Turkish President Recept Tayip Erdogan has caved in to US-Zionist pressure and accepted an insulting offer of $20 million as compensation for the victims of Zionist crimes on the Mavi Marmara on May 31, 2010. He also restored diplomatic and trade links with the Zionist entity without getting the siege of Gaza that he had made so much noise about.

Editor's Desk

Crimes of the Bangladeshi regime

Editor

Sha'ban 25, 14372016-06-01

Hasina Wajed, the Bangladeshi prime minister, is on a witch- hunt. She is executing political rivals after putting them through kangaroo trials. She is dredging up old hatreds that will cost her dearly as well.

Editor's Desk

Zionist crimes against Palestinian children - I

Editor

Rajab 24, 14372016-05-01

While the Muslims’ attention is fixated on the tragic events in places like Syria, Yemen, Iraq etc, the Zionists are busy killing children in Palestine.

Editorials

Ramadan Moon Data for Toronto and Vicinity

Editor

Rajab 24, 14372016-05-01

With the month of Ramadan approaching, a host of Saudi agents masquerading as self-styled experts will emerge from the woodwork to try and convince unsuspecting Muslims about moonsighting claims. Their agenda is to conform to Saudi claims completely disregarding Qur’anic injunctions and the Prophetic Sunnah.

Editor's Desk

Resistance economy key to Iran’s success – Rahbar

Editor

Jumada' al-Akhirah 23, 14372016-04-01

The Rahbar, Imam Seyyed Ali Khamenei of Iran has repeatedly drawn attention to the importance of developing a ‘Resistance economy’. This includes reliance on indigenous talent and production to eliminate the need for imports or external support.

Editor's Desk

Crescent reaches 45 in the age of the internet

Editor

Jumada' al-Ula' 21, 14372016-03-01

With this issue Crescent International enters its 45th year of publication. It has not been an easy journey by any stretch. That we have survived so long is due to the mercy of Allah and the support of our readers for which we are extremely grateful.

1
Editor's Desk

Global inequalities sharpen as rich get richer

Editor

Rabi' al-Thani 22, 14372016-02-01

It is incredible that the 62 richest people in the world own as much wealth as half of the world’s population; that is 3.5 billion people. This half (3.5 billion) experienced 41 percent decline in their wealth while the rich increased theirs by 44 percent. Is this fair or tolerable?

Editor's Desk

Zionist barbarities against Palestinians

Editor

Safar 19, 14372016-01-01

At a time when the wars on Syria and to a lesser extent on Yemen have dominated media headlines, the Palestinians’ suffering has fallen off the radar screen. They continue to suffer even if the media would not report it.

Editor's Desk

Turkey as NATO’s doormat?

Editor

Safar 19, 14372015-12-01

Turkey’s shooting down of a Russian plane over Syria is an act of great provocation. It has increased the threat of global war several notches.

Editor's Desk

Zionists openly backing takfiri terrorists in Iraq, Syria

Editor

Muharram 19, 14372015-11-01

There is conclusive proof, if proof indeed were needed, of Zionist participation in the takfiris’ crimes against governments in Iraq and Syria. On October 22, the Iraqi security forces captured Colonel Yusi Oulen Shahak from Israel’s Golani Brigade.

Editor's Desk

Canada’s murky arms deal with Saudi Arabia

Editor

Dhu al-Hijjah 17, 14362015-10-01

Only one political leader, Tom Mulcair of the NDP, has spoken out against the Conservative government’s $15-billion arms deal with Saudi Arabia. Muclair, however, is facing pressure from a union at the manufacturing plant that says its members would lost jobs if the deal were cancelled. Jobs are clearly more important than Muslim blood of lives! ...

Editor's Desk

Hamas and the dilemma facing Islamic movements

Editor

Dhu al-Qa'dah 17, 14362015-09-01

As an Islamic resistance movement, there are certain expectations from the Hamas leadership. It must conduct itself in a manner that evokes confidence not only among its members but also its supporters elsewhere.

Editor's Desk

Zionist army gives itself clean bill of health

Editor

Ramadan 14, 14362015-07-01

It kills innocent people including children but refuses to accept any responsibility. The Zionist military insists it has done “nothing wrong”. The reality is different.

Editor's Desk

Western regimes oppose nuclear-free Muslim East

Editor

Sha'ban 14, 14362015-06-01

While drum beating about Iran’s non-existent nuclear weapons program, Western regimes hypocritically refuse to make the Muslim East a nuclear-free zone because the Zionist regime possesses hundreds of weapons.

Editor's Desk

‘Moderate’ Syrian rebels’ message to Zionist Israel

Editor

Rajab 12, 14362015-05-01

The ‘moderate’ Syrian rebels have provided proof, if proof indeed were needed, that they are agents of Zionism and imperialism. They sent a letter to the Zionist regime thanking it and pledging allegiance.

Editor's Desk

Syria-Iraq meeting and Obama’s confession

Editor

Jumada' al-Akhirah 12, 14362015-04-01

Amid all the doom and gloom, Iraq and Syria have taken steps to mend fences. This comes at about the same time as Barack Obama’s admission that the takfiris arose because of George Bush’s foolish decision to invade Iraq in 2003.

Editor's Desk

Kashmir’s strange political alliance for power

Editor

Jumada' al-Ula' 10, 14362015-03-01

The People’s Democratic Party (PDP) has entered into an electoral alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to form the government in Jammu and Kashmir. This gives the Hindu fascist outfit, the BJP a foothold in the disputed state. Many Kashmiris are horrified by this development.

Editor's Desk

Takfiris and imperialists: partners in crime

Editor

Dhu al-Hijjah 06, 14352014-10-01

The takfiri project is created by the Americans and zionists and financed by the puppet Arabian regimes of the west. Few are taken in by the latest US propaganda ploy

Editor's Desk

Resistance forced Israel to accept truce on its terms

Editor

Dhu al-Qa'dah 06, 14352014-09-01

Hamas and Islamic Jihad, showing resilience and determination, have forced the zionists to accept their terms for a truce. Israel failed to achieve its objectives in its onslaught on Gaza.

Editor's Desk

Latin states withdraw envoys from Tel Aviv, not Muslims!

Editor

Shawwal 04, 14352014-08-01

While five Latin American states have withdrawn their ambassadors from Tel Aviv, Muslim regimes that have diplomatic ties with the racist entity have not done so. Why?

Editor's Desk

Libya’s ‘elections’ fail to attract voters

Editor

Jumada' al-Akhirah 01, 14352014-07-01

Parliamentary elections were held in Libya on June 25 but few people bothered to cast ballot. They had more weighty things on their mind: the growing security problem, lack of food and fuel and total chaos that has gripped the country since the US-Nato alliance “liberated” it from the clutches of Colonel Qaddafi.

Editor's Desk

Elections, elections everywhere, but…

Editor

Rajab 02, 14352014-05-01

Several countries have had elections, are going through them or are about to hold them. Do elections bring change or maintain the status quo?

Editor's Desk

The mystery of Malaysia’s Flight MH370

Editor

Jumada' al-Akhirah 01, 14352014-04-01

There is something really curious about the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370. How can a huge plane like Boeing 777-200 simply disappear into thin air without a trace?

Editor's Desk

Iran launches “resistance economy” for self-reliance

Editor

Rabi' al-Thani 29, 14352014-03-01

To overcome the effects of illegal US-led sanctions, the Rahbar, Imam Seyyed Ali Khamenei calls for reduced reliance on oil exports and reconfigure the economy to knowledge-based exports.

Editor's Desk

More death sentences, and turmoil in Bangladesh

Editor

Rabi' al-Thani 01, 14352014-02-01

The regime of Hasina Wajed who just “won” a fraudulent election in Bangladesh, appears determined to kill all its opponents either through flawed judicial processes or by making scandalous allegations against opponents. The result is turmoil that may perhaps lead to civil war.

Letters To The Editor

Modi Nazi

Editor

Rabi' al-Thani 01, 14352014-02-01

Bollywood actors and actresses have jumped on the Narendra Modi bandwagon signaling the rise of Nazism in India.

Editor's Desk

India’s Nazi on the way to power

Editor

Rabi' al-Awwal 01, 14352014-01-02

Contrary to popularly peddled myths, India’s Hindu ideology is very close to Nazism. In fact, the Hindu and Nazi symbols are identical yet observers in the Indian-dotting West have deliberately obfuscated this fact.

Editor's Desk

More Zionist encroachments in Masjid al-Aqsa

Editor

Muharram 27, 14352013-12-01

The Zionists never give up. Not only have they stolen almost all of Palestine but they have also intensified their encroachment and attacks on the Haram al-Sharif that contains the Masjid al-Aqsa. Muslims worldwide should take note of this and prevent the Zionists from succeeding.

Editor's Desk

Alarming rise in dowry-related deaths in India

Editor

Dhu al-Hijjah 27, 14342013-11-01

India claims to be the world’s largest democracy and that it is making great economic progress but none of this has trickled to the women of India. Dowry-related deaths have increased alarmingly and are drawing attention.

Editor's Desk

Bahraini regime tortures adults and children

Editor

Dhu al-Qa'dah 25, 14342013-10-01

The US and Saudi-backed regime in Bahrain continues to torture not only adults but also children. There is ample evidence about its horrible behaviour although it would be difficult to find much discussion of this in the Western media.

Editor's Desk

Weapons of mass destruction, now in Syria…

Editor

Shawwal 24, 14342013-09-01

The allegation of the use of chemical weapons in Syria has aroused the jingoistic instincts of American warmongers. Without waiting for proof or identifying the guilty party, there are preparations to attack Syria. Should it materialize, the chances of the entire region being set ablaze cannot be ruled out.

Editor's Desk

EU labelling of Hizbullah politically motivated

Editor

Ramadan 23, 14342013-08-01

The European Union’s designation of the military wing of Hizbullah as a “terrorist” organization is a political move that has no relation to ground realities in Lebanon.

Editor's Desk

Nelson Mandela’s life-struggle and legacy

Editor

Sha'ban 22, 14342013-07-01

Nelson Mandela will no doubt go down in history as one of the towering figures of the 20th century. Looking at the situation in South Africa, some observers ask whether apartheid has truly ended since social and economic apartheid is still in place even if the Black majority has gained the right to vote.

Editor's Desk

US-liberated Libya sinks into a blackhole

Editor

Rajab 22, 14342013-06-01

Has Libya been ‘liberated’ from the clutches of Muammar Qaddafi’s tyranny or plunged into chaos by the thugs and hoodlums trained and armed by the west? Life for ordinary Libyans has become extremely grim.

Editorials

The real reason for US drone attacks

Editor

Jumada' al-Akhirah 20, 14342013-05-01

Drone attacks kill innocents and create enemies. This is precisely what the American war industry wants: endless supply of enemies for endless war.

Editor's Desk

Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s desperate acts

Editor

Jumada' al-Akhirah 20, 14342013-05-01

Hamid Karzai is a desperate man. He knows his time is running out and he is running around from pillar to post in an attempt to save his skind—and head. He may be wasting his time.

Editor's Desk

Erdogan’s open embrace of zionism

Editor

Jumada' al-Ula' 20, 14342013-04-01

Barack Obama was able to ‘persuade’ the ass-like stubborn Benjamin Netanyahu to call his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan and offer an ‘apology’ for the killing of nine Turkish peace activists. The move exposed Erdogan as much as it did Netanyahu.

Editor's Desk

Another milestone for Crescent at 42

Editor

Jumada' al-Akhirah 20, 14342013-03-01

With this issue, Crescent International enters it forty-second year of publication. This in itself is a milestone. No other Islamic magazine claiming global readership has survived this long.

Editor's Desk

Winners and losers in Israel’s war on Gaza

Editor

Muharram 17, 14342012-12-01

Zionist Israel was not the only loser in the eight-day war on Gaza. Almost all the Arabian regimes as well as Turkey also lost. The clear winners were Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Islamic Iran and Hizbullah.

Editor's Desk

America’s favorite terrorist outfit: the MKO

Editor

Dhu al-Hijjah 16, 14332012-11-01

The Mujahideen-e Khalq Organization (MKO) is one of America’s favourite terrorist outfits. It was de-listed from the State Department list last month after sustained lobbying efforts and bribing many congressmen/women, former spy chiefs as well as generals in the US. The tale is quite sordid.

Editor's Desk

Drone attacks killing civilians, say US legal experts

Editor

Dhu al-Qa'dah 14, 14332012-10-01

A study by American legal experts from Yale Law School and New York University Law School is a stinging rebuke of US Drone warfare. The study focuses on Pakistan and show that while only 2% of those targeted can be considered “militants” the rest are civilians. This, the report concludes, has led to alarming increasing in anti-Americans in Pakistan.

Editor's Desk

Defections raise Anwar’s hopes in Malaysia

Editor

Shawwal 14, 14332012-09-01

Are the political fortunes of Anwar Ibrahim, a former deputy Prime Minister who fell out of favour with Dr Mahathir Mohammad, about to change? Recent developments in Malaysia have boosted his party’s hopes.

Editor's Desk

Zionists quick to blame Iran for Bulgarian attack

Editor

Ramadan 12, 14332012-08-01

Without even waiting for official confirmation, the Zionists were quick to make accusations against Islamic Iran for the Bulgarian but attack. Was it another Israeli false flag operations?

Editor's Desk

Why are the Iran-P5+1 talks getting nowhere?

Editor

Sha'ban 11, 14332012-07-01

Western governments have strange ways of dealing with others. They start with the claim that they represent the will of the international community.

Editor's Desk

Pakistan’s self-inflicted unending agony

Editor

Rajab 11, 14332012-06-01

If Pakistan only faced external enemies, it would be easy to understand its problems. The real tragedy is that its rulers are the greatest enemies the state and the people have to face.

Editorials

Twentieth anniversary of the grim war on Bosnia

Editor

Jumada' al-Akhirah 09, 14332012-05-01

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the brutal war imposed on Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Editor's Desk

Afghanistan and the US-NATO military endgame

Editor

Jumada' al-Akhirah 09, 14332012-05-01

As the US and its NATO allies head to Chicago (May 20–21) to discuss the future of Afghanistan, several issues have become clear.

Editor's Desk

Democratic deficit of Western “democracies”

Editor

Jumada' al-Ula' 09, 14332012-04-01

Western governments not only claim to have the best system — democracy — they also want to export it to the rest of the world. They send observers to other countries to ensure free and fair elections. Yet the claimant to the strongest democracy in the world — the US — has a serious democratic deficit. Its two party system is easily manipulated by people with money.

Editorials

Arabian monarchs and the crisis in Syria

Editor

Rabi' al-Thani 08, 14332012-03-01

Editorials

Besieged Gaza engulfed in darkness

Editor

Rabi' al-Thani 08, 14332012-03-01

Haniyeh was planning to visit Cairo on February 26 (after Crescent goes to press) to request Egypt to supply diesel directly to Gaza instead of sending it through the Israeli pumping station. Israel routinely shuts down supplies to punish the Palestinians. The Zionists have also threatened to cut off water to Gaza. That would be catastrophic.

Editorials

Thirty-third anniversary of Iran’s Islamic revolution

Editor

Rabi' al-Awwal 09, 14332012-02-01

This month marks the 33rd anniversary of the victory of the Islamic Revolution in Iran. The US- and Zionist-backed puppet Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (Shah of Iran) was driven from power by a tidal wave of mass uprising led by the charismatic and muttaqi leader, Imam Khomeini (may Allah (swt) comfort him) in February 1979.

Editorials

Obama’s desperate attempt to save his presidency

Editor

Rabi' al-Awwal 09, 14332012-02-01

State of the Union addresses by US presidents are occasions for chest thumping and blowing the American trumpet. Barack Obama tried to do just that on January 24 but he did it against the backdrop of a crippled economy and his own approval ratings hovering at 45.9%. That the approval rating of the Republican controlled Congress is even lower — at 13.3% — will offer him little consolation.

Editor's Desk

More Qur’an burnings by American soldiers

Editor

Rabi' al-Awwal 09, 14332012-02-01

It seems the Americans never miss an opportunity to get sadistic pleasure out of humiliating Muslims. If it is not physical abuse like torture and rape, they are busy burning copies of the Qur’an.

Editor's Desk

Torture and murder in NATO “liberated” Libya

Editor

Safar 07, 14332012-01-01

The truth about what is happening in “liberated” Libya is finally seeping through. Both Amnesty International and Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors without Borders) have confirmed that prisoners suspected of being Qaddafi sympathizers have been systematically tortured and killed.

Editor's Desk

Markham counsellor accused of theft

Editor

Safar 07, 14332012-01-01

Howard Shore, a counsellor at the Town of Markham (home base of the Crescent magazine as well as one of its editorial staff members) has been accused of involvement in a spate of thefts.

Editorials

UN, IAEA, IMF: instruments of US imperialism

Editor

Muharram 06, 14332011-12-01

There are a host of organizations — the United Nations (UN) with its Security Council, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) — that are touted as world bodies whose function is to maintain peace, security and stability — financial and nuclear — in the world. The UN and IMF were created around the time of World War II.

Editor's Desk

SIMI Muslim youth not behind Malegaon terrorism

Editor

Muharram 06, 14332011-12-01

One of the more bizarre cases of terrorism, which reflects more the criminal nature of Indian police, is coming to a close. Seven of the nine Muslim youth accused in the September 8, 2006 Malegaon blast, were granted bail on November 16 by a Special Court in Mumbai. The blast killed 37 people and wounded hundreds of others. That most of the victims were Muslims did not bother the police or the anti-terrorism squad.

Editor's Desk

Saudi destruction of the historic sites of Islam…

Editor

Dhu al-Qa'dah 03, 14322011-10-01

Some two million Muslims are assembled in Makkah al-Mukarramah for the performance of Hajj. If the past is any guide, this Hajj will also be performed as a set of rituals in which the hujjaj go through various motions without realizing why they are doing this.

Editorials

It’s a crime to protest Israeli envoy’s speech!

Editor

Dhu al-Qa'dah 03, 14322011-10-01

How free is the US and what does it mean to have freedom of speech? Some people now call the US a police state but freedom of speech appears limited only to those that abuse Islam, Muslims, and their revered personalities. Heaven help if you want to criticize Israel or its representatives.

Editor's Desk

Zionists’ favourite activity: killing Palestinian children

Editor

Shawwal 03, 14322011-09-01

Even as Zionist Israel loses international support because of its cruel siege of Gaza, and is internally convulsed by strikes, one policy constant is its attacks on unarmed civilian Palestinians. On August 18, a series of airstrikes were launched against Gaza killing almost a dozen people including several children.

Editorials

Corporate-owned media’s deliberate lies

Editor

Ramadan 01, 14322011-08-01

Most people with even limited understanding of how media outlets spin news can see through the lies dished out by the likes of Fox News and CNN. But how does one explain the lies habitually repeated by such supposedly venerable institutions as the BBC, the New York Times or the Washington Post? All of them in their own right are considered paragons of wisdom and their word is considered sacrosanct.

Editorials

Muslim East: revolutions and counter-revolutions

Editor

Ramadan 01, 14322011-08-01

Power is not given up voluntarily, at least not by those who have usurped it by force in the first place. The Muslim East (Middle East) is witnessing unprecedented uprisings by peoples that were hitherto considered too apathetic to move. There was a sense of resignation until, that is, the uprising in Tunisia sparked by the self-immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi, the street vendor who could not take the public insults of a female police officer any longer, changed everything.

Editor's Desk

Why family courts are failing couples in Ontario…

Editor

Rajab 29, 14322011-07-01

Divorce is never easy either for husband or wife. The breaking point is reached after months or years of difficult relationship. While almost out of fashion in the West, even among those who opt for marriage, a very high percentage end up in divorce.

Editor's Desk

US war on Islam and Muslims

Editor

Rajab 29, 14322011-07-01

Throughout history, Americans have targeted minorities in their midst — Native and African Americans, Chinese and Japanese, to name a few — and blamed them for all their troubles. Muslims in the US are the latest victims.

Editorials

Bahrain: Harsh Sentences After Brutal Crackdown

Editor

Rajab 29, 14322011-07-01

Emboldened by military, political and diplomatic support from the US and Saudi Arabia, Bahrain’s unrepresentative minority ruling family handed down harsh sentences to pro-democracy activists in the island-state on June 22. Eight were sentenced to life in prison for “plotting to overthrow the government.”

Editorials

Some disturbing facts about Mid-East uprisings

Editor

Rajab 29, 14322011-07-01

The Muslim East (Middle East) has been in the throes of revolutionary fervor for more than six months. Two dictators have been driven from power; others are teetering on the brink while some are also fighting back with mixed results.

Editorials

Third Serbian war criminal finally apprehended

Editor

Jumada' al-Akhirah 28, 14322011-06-01

General Ratko Mladic, the third Serbian war criminal, was finally apprehended in Serbia on May 26. Wanted by UN prosecutors for war crimes during Serbia’s war on Bosnia, he was one of the principal architects of the gruesome massacre at Srebrenica in July 1995.

Editorials

Al-Jazeera unmasked by coverage in Libya and Bahrain

Editor

Jumada' al-Ula' 27, 14322011-05-01

In Libya, al-Jazeera is on the side of the Libyan rebels. Their cause is championed even if Western planes are bombing Libyan positions including the April 26 assassination attempt on Libyan leader, Colonel Muammar Qaddafi.

Editorials

Saudi-Bahraini atrocities against peaceful protesters

Editor

Ramadan 14, 14362011-05-01

Given its tiny size (1.215 million population and 290 sq. miles of territory), Bahrain would not warrant a second glance yet its un-elected, tribal rulers rub shoulders with leaders at the world stage. Originally from Kuwait, the Khalifah family moved to Bahrain displacing Banu ‘Utbah nearly 200 years ago.

Editor's Desk

Fast-breaking news and the Crescent…

Editor

Jumada' al-Ula' 27, 14322011-05-01

This issue of Crescent International is late going to press because of global events over which we have no control. One problem is that people do not check with us before planning their important events such as weddings.

Editor's Desk

Israel’s ongoing killing of Palestinians in Gaza

Editor

Rabi' al-Thani 27, 14322011-04-01

While the world and indeed much of the Muslim world’s attention is diverted to the uprisings sweeping the Islamic East, Zionist Israel is using the regional political turmoil as a cover to do what it has always done best: kill innocent Palestinians in Gaza with its weapons of mass destruction and disinformation.

Special Reports

Canada becoming safe haven for thieves of the Ben Ali clan?

Editor

Muharram 26, 14322011-01-01

Family members of the ousted Tunisian dictator, General Zine el-Abidin Ben Ali have arrived in Montreal, Canada even as France and the US have refused them entry.

Editor's Desk

His cover blown, CIA station chief flees Pakistan…

Editor

Muharram 26, 14322011-01-01

Jonathan Banks, the CIA station chief in Pakistan, left Islamabad in a hurry after his cover was blown. Banks had a “business” visa but operated from the US embassy from where he coordinated drone strikes on North and South Waziristan.

Editorials

The crude language of US diplomats

Editor

Dhu al-Qa'dah 24, 14312010-11-01

American officials are scurrying to various capitals to advise “friendly” governments that the undiplomatic, indeed nasty language used by their diplomats and officials about other leaders should not be taken too seriously.

Editor's Desk

WikiLeaks: Saudi king urged US to attack Iran

Editor

Dhu al-Qa'dah 24, 14312010-11-01

As Crescent was about to go to press, WikiLeaks released some 250,000 secret cables between US diplomats and the State Department up to the year 2009. Among them was one dealing with a plea to Washington from Saudi king Abdullah, currently undergoing medical treatment in the US, to attack Iran.

Editor's Desk

Omar Khadr gets kangaroo court justice at US gulag

Editor

Shawwal 22, 14312010-10-01

Tortured endlessly, deprived of sleep for 21 days, attacked by dogs and threatened with rape, Omar Khadr, now 24, was handed one last piece of vigilante justice: guilty plea to all charges because confessions extracted under torture

Editor's Desk

Commonwealth games: India not in big league…

Editor

Shawwal 22, 14312010-10-01

Sport has become a popular means to project a country’s image. Wannabes are quick to jump on the opportunity. India is one of the emerging wannabes but as its lack of preparation for the Commonwealth games shows, it does not belong in the big leagues.

Editor's Desk

Turkish Muslims open hearts, wallets for Pakistan

Editor

Rajab 18, 14312010-09-01

While in Istanbul, we witnessed a remarkable display of brotherhood of Islam. Everyday, there were scores of public iftars organized by officials of various districts in the city, starting with the mayor of Istanbul.

Editor's Desk

US kidnapping of Iranian professor Shahram Amiri

Editor

Rajab 18, 14312010-07-01

Professor Shahram Amiri’s kidnapping ordeal finally ended on July 12 when he escaped from his American captors in Virginia and took refuge in the Iranian Interest Section at the Pakistan Embassy in Washington, DC. Kidnapped by CIA agents working in tandem with Saudi intelligence.

Editor's Desk

Kyrgyzstan demonstrates how not to run a state

Editor

Jumada' al-Akhirah 18, 14312010-06-01

Last month witnessed more bloodletting in Kyrgyzstan, poorest of the Central Asian republics. Sandwiched between Russia, China, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, its borders were arbitrarily drawn up by Joseph Stalin...

Editorials

BP oil disaster: another unconnected event?

Editor

Jumada' al-Akhirah 18, 14312010-06-01

Allah (swt) says in the Qur’an, “[Since they have become oblivious of their Lord], disintegration has appeared on land and in the sea as an outcome of what men’s hands have wrought; and so He will let them taste [the end result of] some of their doings...

Editorials

Opposition to the G8/20 summits

Editor

Jumada' al-Akhirah 18, 14312010-06-01

For three days (June 25–27), Toronto was turned into an armed camp. An estimated 15,000 police and other forces were mobilized to provide security for leaders of G20 countries to talk about the world’s economic problems...

Editorials

Tehran nuclear deal: Iran–2, US–0

Editor

Jumada' al-Ula' 16, 14312010-05-01

How to remain relevant is a dilemma that confronts all Western women in old age. This is particularly acute for Hillary Clinton whose husband is a well-known philanderer and who was rebuffed by the Democratic Party for the presidential nomination

Background

The Imam’s life and legacy

Editor

Jumada' al-Ula' 16, 14312010-05-01

June 3rd marks the 21st anniversary of Imam Khomeini’s passing into heavenly company. Amid his many achievements was the success of the Islamic Revolution in Iran, establishing the first Islamic state in modern times...

Editor's Desk

International institutions: instruments of the West

Editor

Jumada' al-Ula' 16, 14312010-05-01

There are numerous international institutions with high-sounding names and even higher sounding principles. Led by the United Nations, others include the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), etc...

Editorials

Westerners’ obsession with niqab

Editor

Rabi' al-Thani 16, 14312010-04-01

Politicians in the West love to play wedge politics. Picking on the weakest members of society is their favourite ploy but the recent hysteria about niqab — the full facial and body covering, except an opening for the eyes, worn by some Muslim women — is quite out of proportion with what is perceived as a “threat” to Western freedoms and liberties...

Editorials

Zionist Israel: the root cause of Middle East conflict

Editor

Rabi' al-Thani 16, 14312010-04-01

In the 62 years since its creation and numerous wars later, the Zionist entity has engulfed virtually the entire Middle East into flames...

Editorials

The Vatican’s child-molesting priests

Editor

Rabi' al-Thani 16, 14312010-04-01

Among the many skeletons in the Vatican’s vast closet, the one that keeps rattling most frequently is that of child-molesting priests. The most recent revelations involve one Rev. Marcial Maciel Dagellado, the charismatic founder of the Legionaries of Christ, a close ally of the late Pope John Paul II...

Editorials

Zionist, Arabian rulers aligned against Islamic Iran

Editor

Rabi' al-Thani 16, 14312010-04-01

To understand the Arabian regimes’ open alliance with Israel, and open hostility to the Islamic State of Iran, one must consider their origins...

Editor's Desk

Deconstructing the divine right of Zionist mythology

Editor

Rabi' al-Thani 16, 14312010-04-01

In this issue, we take a closer look at Zionist mythology and the true nature of the Zionist State. Several myths have been peddled to camouflage the real character of the colonial settler entity. Wrapped in the messianic notion of God’s promise to the “Chosen People”...

Editor's Desk

Neo-con tribal warfare erupts after Obamacare

Editor

Rabi' al-Thani 16, 14312010-04-01

David Frum, George Bush’s former speechwriter, is not the kind of person one would invite to dinner. Like all Zionists, he is arrogant, pushy and full of himself. He coined the infamous phrase “axis of evil” used in Bush’s State of the Union address...

Editorials

Anniversaries a grim reminder of Ummah’s plight

Editor

Rabi' al-Awwal 15, 14312010-03-01

Several anniversaries fall in the month of March, both local and international but it is difficult to say anything positive about them. Let us review them. In March 1924, Mustafa Kemal abolished the khilafah, breaking the last organic link with the Islamic State established by the noble Messenger of Allah (s) in Madinah nearly 1,400 years ago.

Editorials

Worried about Egypt’s old Pharaoh

Editor

Rabi' al-Awwal 15, 14312010-03-01

There is much concern in Western capitals about what would happen in Egypt when the aging Pharaoh, Husni Mubarak dies. He is in his mid-eighties and not in good health. He has ruled Egypt with an iron fist since he became president in October 1981 after his predecessor, Anwar Sadat, was executed by his own soldiers during a military parade. Mubarak has ruled Egypt through a state of emergency that is renewed every six months.

Editor's Desk

The gulag at Guantanamo defines US values

Editor

Muharram 15, 14312010-01-01

US President Barack Obama’s January 22 deadline for closing the Guantanamo torture chamber has come and gone...

Editorials

Impediments in the path of Muslim unity

Editor

Dhu al-Hijjah 14, 14302009-12-01

Two laments are common among Muslims: lack of unity and negative projection of Muslims in the Western media. Most Muslims believe cooperation between Muslim rulers and governments constitutes unity...

Editorials

Intensification of war on Muslims in the US

Editor

Dhu al-Hijjah 14, 14302009-12-01

The US has intensified its war on Muslim citizens. This was clearly expected because its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are not going well. In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, one could understand that US policy would be driven by fear...

Editor's Desk

Gaza: the contemporary Karbala

Editor

Safar 19, 14372009-12-01

Muslims worldwide have just commemorated the tragic events of Karbala when more than 1,300 years ago Imam Husain, his family and a small group of committed Muslims were massacred by the army of Yazid...

Editorials

Torture as US state policy

Editor

Ramadan 11, 14302009-09-01

Since the election of Barack Obama as President, US rhetoric about war on terror has been toned down but the policies instituted by his discredited predecessor continue...

Editorials

Rabbis involved in organ sales

Editor

Ramadan 11, 14302009-09-01

At the end of July when 10 people, among them several rabbis, were arrested in New Jersey, USA, it was assumed that this was little more than a case of tax fraud by another charity.

Editor's Desk

Michael Jackson’s funeral and the petty US Muslim “leaders”…

Editor

Ramadan 11, 14302009-09-01

Michael Jackson’s burial on August 29, more than two months after his death, will finally allow his soul to rest in peace. But there is a troubling side to his troubled life and equally troubling death...

Opinion

Understanding Iran

Editor

Rajab 08, 14302009-07-01

After a week of sporadic protests in Tehran, the Rahbar, Imam Seyyed Ali Khamenei issued a stern warning on June 19th during the Friday Khutbah attended by two million people to desist from trying to overturn the results of presidential elections through street protests.

Editor's Desk

Russia's clients in the Caucasus face pressure

Editor

Rajab 08, 14302009-07-01

The Caucasus region has never had peace or stability for more than 200 years. Despite a brutal Russian crackdown on Chechnya, the Muslim republic remains in turmoil, as does neighboring Ingushetia.

Editorials

Obama on the Nile…

Editor

Rajab 08, 14302009-07-01

US President Barack Obama’s much-anticipated speech to the Muslim world delivered in Cairo on June 4 was quite rhetorical duly impressing his audience. He touched all the right emotional buttons: commencing his address with the traditional Muslim greeting of Assalamu alaikum and quoting verses from the Qur’an.

Editorials

…And Americans in the Hindu Kush

Editor

Rajab 08, 14302009-07-01

On the political front, it appears the US has resigned itself to the fact that there is nobody capable of replacing Karzai at present.

Editorials

Ahmedinejad: speaking truth to power

Editor

Jumada' al-Ula' 06, 14302009-05-01

The West has a peculiar attitude to global problems. In addition to its favourite bogey—war on terror—there is much talk about human rights, respect for the rule of law, the will of the “international community” and fighting racism yet it remains in denial about its own misdeeds.

Editorials

Obama’s Nowruz overture falls short

Editor

Rabi' al-Thani 05, 14302009-04-01

US President Barack Obama’s Nowruz video message to “the people and leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran” on March 20 created quite a stir globally but it did not impress Iran’s leadership, its intended audience. The reasons are clear but first let us look at some of the positive aspects of Obama’s message. He is perhaps the first US president to address the country by its correct name: the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Editorials

US prints dollars to ride crisis

Editor

Rabi' al-Thani 05, 14302009-04-01

Every day brings more bad news about the state of the US economy, and indeed that of much of the rest of the world. Not only is America’s economy the largest in the world, its currency—the dollar—is also the global reserve currency with 63 percent of the world’s central bank reserves held in dollars.

Editorials

Wall Street as safe haven for US terrorists

Editor

Rabi' al-Awwal 04, 14302009-03-01

Even while the economic tsunami hit the US, George Bush insisted that economic fundamentals were strong. When asked about the collapsing US economy at his last press conference as president, he replied, “I am not an economist; neither are you, by the way. I am an optimist and I believe the economy will eventually turn around.”

Editorials

Erdogan’s walkout at Davos

Editor

Rabi' al-Awwal 04, 14302009-03-01

By challenging Israeli President Shimon Peres in Davos on January 29, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan captured the imagination of millions of people, especially Muslims, around the world. His 56-word response to Peres echoed globally: “You are older than me and your voice is very loud. The reason for your raising your voice is the psychology of guilt. I will not raise my voice that much.

Editorials

Palestinians persevere amid Zionist brutalities

Editor

Safar 05, 14302009-02-01

Israel’s three-week long offensive on the tiny desert patch called Ghazzah has once again revealed the barbaric nature of the zionist state. Showing complete disregard for civilian lives, many of them children, whom they deliberately and repeatedly targeted, the zionists stand exposed as war criminals.

Editorials

Other dimensions of the Mumbai carnage

Editor

Muharram 04, 14302009-01-01

The official Indian version of the November 26–28 Mumbai attacks is well known. Ten members of Lashkar-e Taiba, a Pakistani paramilitary organization banned in 2005 as a terrorist organization, came in rubber boats — unnoticed by the Indian Navy that was conducting naval exercises in the area at the time — to attack Mumbai landmarks.

Editorials

Muslim world waits to see how Obama changes US policy after failure of neo-con approach

Editor

Dhu al-Hijjah 03, 14292008-12-01

The celebrations in large parts of the US and most of the rest of the world following the election of Barack Obama as next president of the USA were perhaps understandable, even though there was very little chance of his failing to be elected, given the totality of the failure of the neo-cons under George W. Bush over the previous eight years.

Occupied Arab World

Mossad link to 9/11 hijackers established

Editor

Dhu al-Hijjah 03, 14292008-12-01

Last month the Lebanese army smashed an Israeli spy ring and discovered something that may have far reaching implications for another terrorist operation: the 9/11 attacks on the US. Two brothers, Ali and Youssef al-Jarrah, operating in Jlela region of the Beqaa Valley near the Syrian border, were found in possession of spying equipment while operating under the cover of the National Association for Medical Services and Vocational Training and claiming to run a humanitarian mission.

Editorials

Whoever succeeds George W. Bush, the world will still face the problem of America

Editor

Dhu al-Qa'dah 02, 14292008-11-01

By the time many readers see this issue of Crescent International, the US presidential elections will have taken place and the results known. Failing some drastic turnaround in the last days of campaigning (after Crescent goes to press), Barack Obama is likely to be confirmed as the US’s first black president, in what is already being widely anticipated as a total and deliberate repudiation of the legacy of the presidency of George W. Bush.

Editorials

Debate over treaty confirms the US’s defeat in Iraq

Editor

Dhu al-Qa'dah 02, 14292008-11-01

After months of debate and negotiation, punctuated by periodic reports of progress and agreement on various final drafts, the talks between the US and the Iraqi government on a new Status of Forces Agreement (SoFA) appear no closer to a conclusion than ever before.

Editorials

The challenge facing the Islamic movement in Pakistan as all-out war looms

Editor

Shawwal 01, 14292008-10-01

The recent history of Pakistan seems to be one of crisis after crisis, punctuated only by periods of waiting to see what the next crisis will be. Developments in the last month, however, have been ominous and dangerous even by Pakistani standards, raising genuine fears that the crisis now developing may reduce the country to levels of disorder and chaos unprecedented even in Pakistan’s turbulent history.

Editorials

The new Cold War and the independence of Abkhazia

Editor

Ramadan 01, 14292008-09-01

For people above a certain age, there is something almost comfortingly familiar about the international politicking over Russia’s invasion of Georgia and its subsequent recognition of the ‘independence’ of the two separatist regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

Editorials

Realities of the talk of a US withdrawal from Iraq

Editor

Ramadan 01, 14292008-09-01

When US and Iraqi officials said on August 25 that they had agreed a text for the long-awaited treaty covering a full withdrawal of US troops by 2011, it should have been a major political story. The fact that it wasn’t reflects certain political realities that make the treaty virtually worthless.

Editorials

Radovan Karadzic, Omar Bashir and the realities of international law

Editor

Rajab 29, 14292008-08-01

As events in Bosnia unfolded in the early 1990s, in the aftermath of the collapse of the communist bloc in 1989, Muslims were initially surprised to discover the previously little-noticed Muslim population of central Europe, and then shocked by the attempt to exterminate them.

Editorials

Ghazzah truce explains Israel’s belligerence towards Iran

Editor

Jumada' al-Akhirah 27, 14292008-07-01

The last couple of months have seen a sudden increase in Western attention on Iran’s supposed nuclear weapons programme. The campaign is being led by Israel, whose politicians have openly threatened military action against Iran if the UN agencies fail to pressurise it into stopping its nuclear programme.

Editorials

Launching a new tafseer of the Qur’an for the contemporary Muslim Ummah

Editor

Jumada' al-Ula' 27, 14292008-06-01

The first volume of Imam Muhammad al-Asi’s tafseer of the Qur’an, The Ascendant Qur’an, was formally launched by the Instituteof Contemporary Islamic Thought at a function at the Islamic Society of York Region in Toronto on May 24. It was a low-key event, aimed mainly at the local community, rather than a massive event designed to be unmissable by Muslims and non-Muslims alike.

Editorials

Israel’s talk of peace with Syria raises fear of a future war

Editor

Jumada' al-Ula' 27, 14292008-06-01

In September last year, Israeli aircraft launched an unprovoked and entirely illegal air attack on a Syrian military installation, destroying what Syria said were unused buildings in the middle of the desert. In April, the US State Department published what it claimed were intelligence materials proving that the building was an illegal nuclear reactor, allegations which were rubbished by neutral observers.

Editorials

American election campaigns reveal the US’s addiction to imperial wars

Editor

Rabi' al-Thani 25, 14292008-05-01

At the annual White House Correspondents’ Association dinner last month, US president George W. Bush performed a comedy skit making fun of all three contenders to replace him, blithely ignoring the fact that he himself is the greatest figure of fun of all -- a lame duck president despite having nearly a year of his administration to go, with the lowest approval ratings of any American president ever.

Editorials

Kosova: just another Western-dominated post-colonial Muslim nation-state

Editor

Safar 23, 14292008-03-01

On the face of it, Kosova’s declaration of independence from Serbia on February 17 should have been grounds for celebration across the Muslim world. The fact that, a few short years later, Kosova’s declaration of independence, and its recognition by much of the international community, should be greeted with so muted a response among Muslims requires some explanation. As for so much in the Balkans, the explanation lies in history, albeit recent.

Editorials

Pakistan’s elections and the reality of democracy

Editor

Safar 23, 14292008-03-01

The results of Pakistan’s elections last month threw up no great surprises. Perhaps the only unexpected thing about them was that they passed relatively peacefully, with few attempts to disrupt the polling on the day, and only half-hearted attempts by the Musharraf regime to prevent the opposition parties’ successes.

Editorials

UN involvement in Lebanon intended to achieve the West’s objectives by other means

Editor

Sha'ban 08, 14272006-09-01

Hizbullah has won a stunning victory over the Israelis in southern Lebanon. That is a reality recognised by virtually everyone around the world, despite the efforts of the Israelis and their supporters in the West to pretend otherwise.

Editorials

Palestinians facing multiple crises while world focusses on Israeli crimes in Lebanon

Editor

Sha'ban 08, 14272006-09-01

While the world's attention has been turned towards Lebanon, Israel has also been continuing its economic and military war on the Palestinians. Some 200 Palestinians have been killed in Ghazzah since Israel launched military operations there in early July, ostensibly in response to the capture of one of its soldiers, shortly before the start of the Lebanese war.

Editorials

Israel’s war in Lebanon a new front in the West’s global campaign against the Islamic movement

Editor

Rajab 07, 14272006-08-01

Watching events unfolding in Lebanon over the last month, it has been impossible to avoid a sense that we have seen it all before, that what is now happening is merely a replay of what we have seen so many times already. Lebanon’s modern history has been dominated by Israeli attacks and interference, most notably in 1982, when the Israeli military devastated the country with air strikes and occupied Beirut itself.

Editorials

Hopes and fears as Somali Muslims turn to Islam for order and stability

Editor

Jumada' al-Akhirah 05, 14272006-07-01

Somalia is a country that tends unfortunately to be associated with famine and civil war, rather than anything more positive, for that is how it most often appears in the Western media. It is also a country about which many Muslims know little; many may not even realize that it is a Muslim country.

Editorials

Why Israel will never get the recognition it craves - and Israelis know it

Editor

Jumada' al-Akhirah 05, 14272006-07-01

A month of Israeli attacks on Palestinian targets in Ghazzah and the West Bank, killing over 40 Palestinians, mostly civilians, culminated with Israeli troops moving into southern Ghazzah on June 28, as Crescent was going to press.

Editorials

Egyptian protests highlight anger with Mubarak regime, and limits of the Islamic movement

Editor

Jumada' al-Ula' 05, 14272006-06-01

What makes some pro-democracy movements popular in the West and others not so popular? Considering the emphasis that the Bush regime has placed on democratisation in the Muslim world as the solution for anti-Western anger among Muslims, one would expect that the eruption of popular protests against a one-party dictatorship led for nearly three decades by the same former military officer might be welcomed in Washington and gleefully publicised by the world’s media.

Editorials

Little surprise as Mahmud Abbas and other Arab rulers join the West’s attacks on Hamas

Editor

Jumada' al-Ula' 05, 14272006-06-01

One feature of the massive political pressure on Hamas, the leading Islamic movement and the most popular political force in Palestine, since it was elected to power earlier this year, has been the increasingly open enmity of both secular Palestinian forces, particularly the Fatah movement led by Palestinian “president” Mahmud Abbas, and of Arab rulers.

Editorials

Iran’s principled position on Palestine confirms its leadership of the global Islamic movement

Editor

Rabi' al-Thani 03, 14272006-05-01

Is the West’s war on Islam -- and the Islamic movement in particular -- now reaching a significant new level? That is certainly one conclusion that might be drawn from the intensification of its political, diplomatic and propaganda war on the Islamic State of Iran in recent months. The West has, of course, been at war with Islamic political activism for most of recent history.

Editorials

Jailing of Sami al-Arian speaks volumes about the political nature of the US justice system

Editor

Rabi' al-Thani 03, 14272006-05-01

The long-running case of Palestinian academic Sami al-Arian, jailed in Florida since early 2003, accused with others of supporting terrorism in Palestine, appeared to reached a conclusion of sorts on May 1. The former professor at the University of Southern Florida was sentenced to 57 months in jail -- the maximum possible sentence -- after he pleaded guilty last month to a minor charge of giving support to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement as part of a plea bargain.

Editorials

Lessons of the Iraq experience for the US and for the Islamic movement

Editor

Rabi' al-Awwal 03, 14272006-04-01

Last month marked the third anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq and the toppling of Saddam Hussain. Few now doubt that the invasion was the culmination of a long-held plan on the Americans’ part, and that the intense international politicking of the months leading up to the war, with the talk of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and links between Saddam Hussainand al-Qa’ida, UN resolutions and weapons inspectors, was no more than a process designed to justify the invasion.

Editorials

Why the elections in Israel will change nothing for the Palestinians

Editor

Rabi' al-Awwal 03, 14272006-04-01

As this issue of Crescent goes to press, and barely two months after the Palestinians elected Hamas to power in the parts of occupied Palestine in which they have a degree of political autonomy, the people of Israel are going to the polls to elect a new parliament and government.

Editorials

Political freedom, democracy, and the re-emergence of the Islamic political mainstream

Editor

Safar 01, 14272006-03-01

Among the many consequences of Hamas' stunning victory in the Palestinian parliamentary elections in late January is the final shattering of any illusions that the neo-conservative clique inWashington may have had about the benefits of democracy in the Muslim world.

Editorials

Iraq: the price of opportunism and the cost of sectarianism

Editor

Safar 01, 14272006-03-01

Every time there is the prospect of significant political change in any Muslim country, however it is brought about, Muslims jump to the hope that Islamic movements may be able to take advantage of the situation to establish an Islamic state.

Editorials

Hamas victory redefines political realities in Palestine and poses new challenges

Editor

Muharram 02, 14272006-02-01

Officially, the world has been taken by surprise by Hamas’s overwhelming victory in Palestine’s parliamentary elections on January 25. Yes, there had been fears that Hamas would seriously dent Fatah’s long-established dominance of Palestinian politics, and might have to be accommodated in the Fatah-dominated political institutions, perhaps even to the extent of being given a ministry or two, but that was only to be expected, given the problems that Fatah has had in recent months.

Editorials

The centrality of the Islamic Revolution in contemporary history

Editor

Muharram 02, 14272006-02-01

This month, Muslims around the world will celebrate the 27th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution in Iran, at a time when the Islamic State is facing a greater direct threat than at any time since the end of the imposed war, when US military forces intervened to ensure that Saddam Hussain was not defeated and the Muslims of Iraq were not liberated by Iranian mujahideen.

World

Save Chechnya Campaign inaugurates February 23 as World Chechnya Day

Editor

Jumada' al-Ula' 21, 14372006-02-01

The Save Chechnya Campaign (SCC) UK proposes to commemorate the Stalin-era genocide of the Chechen people as World Chechnya Day (WCD) on Thursday 23 February 2006. This momentous tragedy in the history of the Chechen people resulted in the deaths of about two thirds of the Chechen people.

Editorials

American imperialism is the problem, not merely Bush’s neo-conservatism

Editor

Shawwal 28, 14262005-12-01

The answer to anyone who ever doubted the value of the on-going resistance against the US occupation of Iraq was demonstrated last month, as the tide of opinion in America appeared to have turned decisively against George W. Bush and his neo-conservative administration and policies. After years in which the spectre of terrorism and appeals to US patriotism have enabled the neo-conservative clique in the White House to impose their agenda on US politics, and by extension the rest of the world, opposition politicians finally found their voices last month, emboldened by the increasing anger of the American people. It would be nice to think that this anger owes something to the fact that they have been lied to and misled into a war that is designed to serve the interests of a tiny American elite; the reality, unfortunately, is rather different.

Editorials

Islamic movements and the dangers of electoral politics

Editor

Shawwal 28, 14262005-12-01

According the official account of American policy in the Middle East, one of the Bush administration’s main objectives in Iraq is to establish a beacon of freedom and democracy as an example to the rest of the Arab world. That is of course no more than a public-relations sop for particularly gullible observers and the media and analysts who uncritically accept all official pronouncements. The reasons that the US is in fact scared stiff of the possibility of genuine democracy in the Middle East was demonstrated in Egypt last month, when the people of the largest country in the Arab world indicated their support for the Ikhwan al-Muslimeen (the Muslim Brotherhood), the country’s oldest and most established Islamic movement, which is officially banned but unofficially tolerated to a degree simply because of the support it enjoys among Egypt’s people.

Features

The problem of Israel and the threat to al-Haram al-Sharif

Editor

Shawwal 28, 14262005-12-01

The state of Israel, proclaimed by zionist leaders on May 15, 1948, emerged from a combination of international politics and military conquest in the aftermath of the Second World War. On November 29, 1947, the UN General Assembly — dominated by the imperial powers that won the war — voted to partition Palestine, which had been ruled by the British since the defeat of the Uthmaniyya khilafah in the First World War, into two states, one Jewish and one Arab. At this time, about 1.3 million Arabs and 600,000 Jews lived in Palestine, with most of the Jews being recent immigrants from Europe (in 1900 there were fewer than 30,000 Jews in Palestine). Jews owned only about 6-8 percent of the total land of Palestine. Nonetheless, the UN partition plan gave Jews 56 percent of Palestinian territory, as well as keeping the area of Jerusalem and Bethlehem as an international zone.

Editorials

The US, Israel and Mahmoud Abbas battle to resist the political rise of Hamas

Editor

Ramadan 28, 14262005-11-01

There is one particular policy that the US and Israel have always followed in their efforts to bring the Palestinian resistance to zionism and the zionist state under control, and that is the cultivating of leaders among the Palestinians whom they feel they can most easily control and manipulate. When the PLO was first established, the Israelis insisted on dealing only with Arab governments. When the first intifada radically changed the dynamics of the Palestinian struggle, the Israelis suddenly discovered that they could deal with Yasser Arafat after all; hence the Oslo talks and the peace process.

Editorials

Britain and Israel batting for Washington in the propaganda war against Iran

Editor

Ramadan 28, 14262005-11-01

As the US cranked up its political and diplomatic pressure for war against Iraq, in the run up to its invasion in 2003, it was clear that two other countries were playing a particular role in preparing the international political ground: Britain and Israel. Precisely the same pattern is increasingly emerging now, as the US builds pressure on Islamic Iran, even though it apparently sees Syria as a more immediate target (described by US officials as “low-hanging fruit” that can easily be picked).

Editorials

Saddam on trial: small fry face justice of sorts as big fish go scott-free

Editor

Ramadan 28, 14262005-11-01

No one could possibly resist feeling a stab of satisfaction on October 19, when pictures were wired round the world of Saddam Hussein sitting behind bars in a court of law. The courtesy of a trial -- even a kangaroo one -- was far more than he offered hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of Iraqis and others killed as direct or indirect results of his brutal rule in Iraq. But although few would have complained had he simply been shot on sight -- preferably by Iraqis rather than US troops -- there are serious questions that must qualify one’s satisfaction.

Editorials

Why facade democracy will never work in Muslim countries

Editor

Sha'ban 27, 14262005-10-01

When Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak announced earlier this year that last month’s presidential elections would be the first ever to permit other candidates to stand directly against him, the announcement was greeted in the West as part of the “democratic dividend” of Bush’s invasion of Iraq. According to the American neo-conservative mythology, one of the reasons that Muslims are so anti-American is that they live under repressive dictators who blame the West for all that is wrong in the world. In keeping with this remarkable understanding of contemporary history, the US’s main object in invading Iraq was to restore freedom for the Iraqi people and make Iraq a beacon of democracy in the Muslim world, and an inspiration to other Muslim peoples around the world to embrace freedom, democracy and the altruistic American hegemon that can provide both.

Editorials

The real lesson of Hurricane Katrina and its disastrous aftermath

Editor

Sha'ban 27, 14262005-10-01

When Hurricane Katrina blew into New Orleans in the end of August, it blew away a lot more than just the lives and livelihoods of a city full of people. It should also have destroyed, for once and all, any illusions anyone still had about the true nature of American society and politics.

Editorials

The new McCarthyism in Britain: actually, old chap, it is a war on Islam

Editor

Rajab 27, 14262005-09-01

About fifteen years ago Muslims in Britain fought a long battle for the defence of Islam after the publication of Salman Rushdie’s blasphemous novel The Satanic Verses. In the two months since the bomb-blasts in London on July 7, it has become increasingly clear that Muslims in Britain face a similar battle now, as secular and liberal fundamentalists in Britain use the bombings as opportunity and justification for a much wider attack on the Muslim community in this country. Although it is entirely understandable that the British authorities should step up security precautions, and intensify investigations of those tiny and marginal groups among Muslims that espouse the sort of appalling violence that was seen on July 7, British politicians and many media and social commentators have turned the debate about the attacks of July 7 into a debate about Islam and Muslims in Britain and, in many cases, another full-scale offensive on Islam in this country.

Editorials

The new challenges facing Palestinians after Israel’s retreat from Ghazzah

Editor

Rajab 27, 14262005-09-01

When Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon, long known as the Butcher of Beirut and famous as the champion of Israeli expansionism, first aired the idea of what he called a unilateral disengagement from Ghazzah, many observers were cynical, expecting that it was a ploy that would come to nothing. But there were always good strategic grounds for the decision, and many Palestinians must have drawn grim satisfaction from the sight last month of Israeli troops trying to force Jewish settlers to vacate their luxurious homes in Ghazzah’s zionist settlements. The first and foremost of these grounds was, of course, that the Palestinians of Ghazzah, led by Hamas, had simply made it impossibly difficult and expensive for the Israelis to remain there. But there are others too, which should not be forgotten.

Editorials

Bombings in Iraq, Egypt and the UK raise questions about methods of Islamic movements

Editor

Jumada' al-Akhirah 25, 14262005-08-01

Last month there was a spate of bombings in various parts of the world, apparently by Muslims associated with local Islamic movements. The attack that got the most attention, because it occurred in a western capital and most victims were westerners, was the co-ordinated bombing of three underground trains and a bus in London on July 7, in which 52 people were killed. Four British Muslim youths are believed to have been responsible for the attacks, and to have died in them. On July 21 there were attempts to bomb three more underground trains and another bus; the bombs failed to explode and the bombers, again British Muslim youths, are being hunted. The London bombings have been widely linked to a campaign that included earlier bombings inBali, Madrid, Istanbul and Casablanca, which have been attributed to the amorphous movement known as al-Qa’ida.

Editorials

Democracy, imperialism and terrorism in the West

Editor

Jumada' al-Akhirah 25, 14262005-08-01

At least as sickening as the sight of the devastation wrought by the bombs in London last month was the sight of British prime minister Tony Blair taking a sanctimoniously moral tone while trying to spin the bombings to serve his own political agenda. It is not only that his outrage is hard to take from a man who has been shown to have lied to his own people to justify supporting the US’s murderous invasion of Iraq; it is also that he should use the suffering inflicted by bombings provoked by his own policies to justify those policies. He insists that the war in Iraq does not “justify” the bombings; but that is not the point. The point is that Iraq largely explains them, however unjustified they may have been. Fortunately many in Britain are sceptical about his claim that the bombings have nothing to do with Iraq, but, remarkably, they continue to support a man they openly distrust.

Editorials

The reality of Israel’s retreat from Ghazzah

Editor

Jumada' al-Akhirah 25, 14262005-08-01

On August 18 Israeli troops are scheduled to pull out of Ghazzah, taking 8,000 settlers with them. Following the Israeli retreat from southern Lebanon in 2000, it will be only the second time in the history of the Zionist state that it is being forced to give up territory that it has conquered and claimed. Although Ariel Sharon promotes the withdrawal as a unilateral decision on his part, as part of a strategy to end the continuing and costly confrontation with the Palestinian resistance, few doubt that he has been forced into it by the refusal of the Palestinians in Ghazzah to accept Israeli rule, and the cost imposed on Israel by the Palestinian resistance in Ghazzah, led by the Hamas Islamic movement. Despite the attempts of Israel and its allies to disguise the fact, it is undoubtedly a victory for the Palestinians and a defeat for the Zionist state, and no one should be fooled into seeing it as anything else.

Editorials

Iran’s presidential polls: the politics of normality in a state of war

Editor

Jumada' al-Ula' 24, 14262005-07-01

The election of Mahmood Ahmadinejad as the new president of Iran in the second round of the presidential polls on June 25 can be interpreted in a number of different ways, virtually all of them positive. For one thing, clear to all those observing the elections from outside the country, it rendered the Western enemies of Islamic Iran virtually speechless.

Editorials

The cancer of sectarianism emerging in Iraq

Editor

Jumada' al-Ula' 24, 14262005-07-01

It is very painful to say it, but the bitter truth is that sectarian tensions in Iraq are getting worse. In the past two months, public recriminations from Sunni and Shi‘a religious figures alike have eclipsed their earlier statements asking people to arrest their country’s slide into sectarian strife. It is not just the bigotry and prejudice that are worrying, but also the inhuman and ruthless cycle of sectarian-motivated violence that has cost the lives of thousands.

Editorials

G8: making poverty history or inequality permanent?

Editor

Jumada' al-Ula' 24, 14262005-07-01

Later this month, the heads of state of G8 countries will meet in Gleneagles, Scotland, for the latest round of their talks on re-ordering the world economy. To coincide with the talks, British celebrity members of the anti-globalization movement have organized a series of free pop concerts around the world that are supposed to raise awareness for their global campaign to “Make Poverty History”. Unfortunately, all these celebrity do-gooders are really achieving is to promote the strategies by which the world’s capitalist economic elites are strengthening their control over the world’s resources, at the expense of the poor people whom they claim to be helping.

Editorials

Presidential polls in Islamic Iran: elections without western-style democracy

Editor

Rabi' al-Thani 24, 14262005-06-01

For those willing to see it, there is an undeniable irony in the fact that, at a time when the US and other Western countries claim to be championing democracy in the Muslim world, the only country in the Middle East with a genuinely open, participatory and vibrant political system is the Islamic State of Iran, the country that the US regards as its main enemy in the world. Equally notable is the fact that even as the West attacks Iran for being undemocratic, and represents itself as friend and ally of oppressed Iranians demanding democratic change in their country, senior figures in Iran respond by proclaiming that the Islamic State represents true democracy, and criticising elections in the US and the UK as proving that there is not real democracy in the Western countries that hypocritically claim to be the founders and leaders of universal democratic values.

Editorials

The Baku-Tblisi-Ceyhan pipeline and the politics of oil

Editor

Rabi' al-Thani 24, 14262005-06-01

Every time critics of the West point to oil as a major determining factor in shaping Western policies towards the rest of the world, Westerners scoff, dismissing such critics as paranoid conspiracy theorists. However, the reality is that oil is indeed a major, if often down-played, element of western strategic thinking, even if it is not necessarily “all about oil”, as critics often say.

Editorials

UK elections show the need for Muslim institutions

Editor

Rabi' al-Thani 24, 14262005-06-01

The general elections in Britain on May 5 brought about more or less the result that most informed observers were expecting: the re-election of the Labour government led by prime minister Tony Blair, but with a much reduced majority in the House of Commons, the lower house of Parliament. For Muslim observers, the main points of interest were the revelations about the legal advice on which Britain went to war in Iraq, which was finally published by the government a week before the elections took place, in response to leaks of the advice published in the anti-war press; the performance of George Galloway, a former Labour Member of Parliament who had been expelled from the party because of his outspoken criticism of the war in Iraq (as well as a long record of dissident stands on other issues); and, a distant third, the fact that the number of Muslim in the Commons increased to four, all representing the Labour Party.

Features

Bushy democracies and the future of the Muslim world

Editor

Rabi' al-Thani 24, 14262005-06-01

“We now live in a world in which the United States is the only superpower. We must recast our foreign policy to cope with this radically new situation.” Thus wrote Richard Nixon in his book Seize the Moment (1992). Nixon was surely neither the first nor the last American leader to dream of a unipolar world dominated by the US, but his book provides interesting insights into the making of post-1989 American policies on the premise that, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the US was the only superpower. The end of the Cold War, symbolized by the fall of the Berlin Wall, was also taken by US policy-makers as the beginning of a new phase in world history in which all other civilizations would adopt the three idols of Western civilization—democracy, freedom, and the free market economy—as their gods as well.

Editorials

Political normalization in US-controlled Iraq

Editor

Rabi' al-Awwal 22, 14262005-05-01

The language people use to discuss political news stories reflects their understandings of the situations under discussion. In recent months, as the political institutions established in Iraq by the US have gradually taken shape, the language used in the world press has also changed. Where American authorities were once described as the effective rulers of Iraq, with Iraqi groups and their leaders described as political factions representing particular sectors of the community, since the elections in January this year they have been treated as national politicians, even though the flaws of the elections are widely recognised.

Editorials

Democracy and the mirage of accountability in Britain

Editor

Rabi' al-Awwal 22, 14262005-05-01

Accountability is supposed to be one of the cornerstones of democracy. Elections are the most fundamental element of this process: every few years, political leaders have to put themselves forward to the people for re-election, giving the people a chance to vote them out of office if they are not satisfied with their performance. In the parliamentary model of democracy that originates in.

Editorials

Avoiding the hype about a change at the Vatican

Editor

Rabi' al-Awwal 22, 14262005-05-01

Among the many comments made in the aftermath of the death of Pope John Paul II was that he was the first truly modern Pope. By this it was not meant that he was what Western commentators would regard as liberal and progressive, in line with the model for western-style modernisation generally demanded of Muslim societies: he was in fact regarded as a voice of conservatism and tradition by those who favour the marginalization of moral values and the general secularization of society.

Editorials

The plight of the Chechens and the failure of the Ummah

Editor

Safar 22, 14262005-04-01

Russia’s continuing war against the Chechen people is one of the many conflicts in which Muslims are involved which tend to be forgotten in the wider Ummah. Every few months, some major events elevates it to public consciousness for a while, as the atrocity of Beslan did last year. On that occasion, Chechens are confirmed to have been responsible for what can only be described at an appalling crime, even though the precise details of the episode and how it came to such a tragic end remain unclear.

Editorials

Israel exploiting calm to consolidate its control over al-Quds and al-Haram al-Sharif

Editor

Safar 22, 14262005-04-01

A good conjurer or con-artist operates by diverting attention to one place while doing his nefarious work in another. This is exactly what the Israelis are doing in their current attempt to legitimise their occupation of Palestine.

Editorials

The utter irrelevance of ‘American Islam’

Editor

Safar 22, 14262005-04-01

The phrase ‘American Islam’ was originally coined by shaheed Sayyid Qutb (the Ikhwan ideologue who was executed by the Egyptian regime in 1966), and was later also used by shaheed Ali Shariati (who did so much to prepare the groundwork for the Islamic Revolution in Iran before his assassination by the Shah’s secret service in London in 1977) and Imam Khomeini (ra). For them, it signified a minimalist, quietest, personal Islam that could happily co-exist with American political hegemony and the norms and values of a materialist, secular, consumerist society. It has become a term used with contempt by Muslims around the world, as indeed most things ‘American’ are.

Editorials

Saudi elections: government manipulation, elite ambition and popular indifference

Editor

Muharram 20, 14262005-03-01

Considering the great emphasis that the United States and the administration of president George W. Bush are placing on promoting political reform and democracy in the Middle East, as their panacea for the anti-American feeling throughout the Muslim world, one might have expected more fuss about the holding of historic elections in the Saudi kingdom, the tribal state currently administering the Hijaz, site of the holiest places in Islam. The country’s first elections for more than 40 years, the first stage of a three-phase election process for members of municipal councils, took place in the Riyadh region on February 10.

Editorials

Sectarianism a failure of Iraq’s Islamic movements

Editor

Muharram 20, 14262005-03-01

Every year, Muslims around the world mark the first days of the new year of the Islamic calendar by remembering and commemorating the events that led to the martyrdom of Imam Hussain (ra), the beloved grandson of the Prophet of Islam (saw) at Karbala in the 61st year after the Hijra (680CE). The tragedy is, of course, and understandably, marked most prominently by Shi’i Muslims, but it should be noted that there has traditionally been no difference between the Shi’as and the Sunnis in their understanding of the rights and wrongs of the political issues that resulted in the tragedy -- indeed, crime.

Editorials

US hoping elections will help consolidate its control over Iraq

Editor

Dhu al-Hijjah 21, 14252005-02-01

Elections are supposed to be the cornerstone of democracy, a viewpoint that suggests that 2005 may well prove to be the year in which the US’s claims to be promoting democratization in the Middle East are vindicated. The year opened, on January 9, with elections for the presidency of the Palestinian Authority, and the rest of the month has been dominated with talk of the elections due to be held in Iraq on January 30 (after Crescent goes to press). Later in the year, polls of various kinds are also due to take place in Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Oman and Yemen. In Egypt, the most populous and influential Arab country, presidential and parliamentary polls are scheduled for September and October respectively.

Editorials

Bush’s inaugural address sets tone for his second term

Editor

Dhu al-Hijjah 21, 14252005-02-01

At a time when his policies had been demonstrated to be disastrous for the vast majority of America’s people, and his main foreign policy adventures had proven to have been based on blatant falsehoods, George W. Bush’s re-election as president of the United States in November was a triumph of political manipulation; a fact, incidentally, recognised by many within the US itself. Although Bush’s supporters celebrated the fact that he had won a genuine mandate by attracting the majority of votes cast – unlike his gerrymandered election of 2000 – opponents pointed out that he had performed far worse in his second elections than any previous president to have served two terms. The fact that the US population is almost equally divided into his supporters and critics, and that many of those who oppose him are vehement in their dislike and contempt for him, encouraged some to hope that Bush might moderate the tone of his second term.

Editorials

Independence: the key lesson of the Islamic Revolution

Editor

Dhu al-Hijjah 21, 14252005-02-01

At a time when Muslims around the world are under intense attack from external enemies, most of them directly or indirectly associated with the United States of America, the sole superpower of the modern world, it is sometimes easy to forget the key objectives facing Islamic movements. Defending our lands and societies from outside attack is undoubtedly essential but our main objective must be the establishment of Islamic institutions and orders in our own societies, most importantly Islamic political orders. All across the world today, Muslim societies are dominated by political orders and state structures that exist not to serve and promote the interests and values of Muslim peoples, determined by their Islamic commitment, identity and political culture, but to serve the selfish interests of ruling elites and the foreign powers that support them.

Editorials

US and its allies increasing political pressure on their real enemy, Islamic Iran

Editor

Dhu al-Qa'dah 20, 14252005-01-01

Shortly after US troops occupied Baghdad in 2003, president George W. Bush warned Iraqis that there was no prospect of political institution-building or transfer of power to an Iraqi government so long as military resistance continued. At the time, the warning was taken as a pretext for the US to maintain political control for as long as possible; eighteen months later, the process of a transfer of power to an elected Iraqi government is well advanced, despite the fact that resistance remains a major problem in many parts of the country. The change in the US’s position is partly a measure of its failure in Iraq, in that it has repeatedly had to adjust its plans because of the strength of Iraqi resistance.

Editorials

US’s claims to champion democracy exposed by realities of its policies

Editor

Dhu al-Qa'dah 20, 14252005-01-01

One of the key justifications that the US has used for its aggressive foreign policy in the Middle East has been that it is working to promote democracy and political freedom for the oppressed peoples of the region. Its supporters are claiming major victories in this department at the moment, as the pro-American Hamid Karzai supposedly became Afghanistan’s first democratically elected president last month, and elections for a democratic Iraqi government are due to take place at the end of January. The reality, of course, is very different, as all but the most west-toxified observers recognize.

Editorials

The power of Hajj and the future of the Saudis

Editor

Dhu al-Qa'dah 20, 14252005-01-01

As this issue of Crescent International goes to press, some 2 million Muslims from all over the world are converging on the Haramain to perform the Hajj, the assembly of the united Ummah that is also the greatest act of personal ibadah that any Muslim can perform. The Muslims that come to perform the Hajj come from every part of the world and from all sectors of the Ummah, to stand together in the same simple clothes, resembling the shroud in which we will one day be buried, standing equal before the Creator regardless of their wealth, power and social standing, and praying for forgiveness for their past deeds and errors. At least, that is how the Hajj is supposed to be.

Editorials

US elections reveal much about the state of US society and politics

Editor

Shawwal 18, 14252004-12-01

So now it’s official: George W. Bush and his policies are supported by the majority of those Americans who choose to engage in US politics...

Editorials

Arafat’s death opens the way for a new generation of Islamic Palestinian leaders

Editor

Shawwal 18, 14252004-12-01

Yasser Arafat was not, by any stretch of the imagination, an Islamic leader. He was famously photographed meeting with Imam Khomeini in the early days of the Islamic Revolution in Iran, after the new Islamic state had renounced the Shah’s close relationship with Israel and declared its solidarity with the Palestinian struggle...

Editorials

The threat of sectarian conflict in Iraq

Editor

Shawwal 18, 14252004-12-01

As the Ummah has watched developments in Iraq since the US invasion, many have been aware of the potential for sectarian discord.

Editorials

Sharon’s plan to ‘withdraw’ from Ghazzah both a victory for the intifada and a self-serving ploy

Editor

Ramadan 18, 14252004-11-01

Ariel Sharon, the ‘Butcher of Beirut’ and the man whose desecration of the Haram al-Sharif in September 2000 sparked the al-Aqsa Intifada and helped him to be elected prime minister of Israel the following year, was hailed as a peace-maker last month when the Knesset (the Israeli Parliament) voted to approve his plan for Israel’s so-called ‘withdrawal’ from Ghazzah...

Editorials

Recognising al-democratiyya al-shakliyya (facade democracy) in America

Editor

Ramadan 18, 14252004-11-01

Americans like to see themselves as the models and champions of democracy in the world. Every four years the US presidential elections are hailed as proving the strength, vibrancy and success of democracy in America...

Editorials

Falluja facing another major attack because of its importance as a symbol of Iraqi resistance

Editor

Ramadan 18, 14252004-11-01

Until some months ago, few in the world had heard of Falluja, the main city of the Iraqi province of Anbar, even though it was famous as a city of minarets and a summer resort for Iraqis.

Editorials

Image and reality in the West’s politicking over Iraq

Editor

Sha'ban 16, 14252004-10-01

It must take a particular kind of gall for someone to stand at a podium in front of a global audience and firmly, confidently make statements and assertions that he knows the vast majority of his audience know are untrue...

Editorials

The Beslan tragedy and the problem of “terrorism” for the Islamic movement

Editor

Sha'ban 16, 14252004-10-01

The term “terrorism” has become devalued by its abuse in Western discourse to delegitimise the struggle of opponents of the West, without its ever being applied to the actions of the West, or of its friends and allies...

Editorials

The importance of intellectual work in the Islamic movement

Editor

Sha'ban 16, 14252004-10-01

The occasion of Isra’ and Mi’raj was marked in Toronto last month by an international Seerah conference jointly convened by the Institute of Contemporary Islamic Thought (ICIT) and the Islamic Centre of York region...

Editorials

Resistance and realism among Iraqi Shi’as as Mahdi Army defy US forces in Najaf

Editor

Rajab 16, 14252004-09-01

One of the questions asked before the so-called transfer of power from US pro-consul Paul Bremer to Iyad Allawi at the end of June was whether the new Iraqi government would be able to prevent another brutal and murderous US assault on an Iraqi city like the one on Falluja in April...

Editorials

Saudi plan to send Muslim troops to support US in Iraq confirms their irredeemable illegitimacy

Editor

Rajab 16, 14252004-09-01

The fact that the Saudi monarchy is among the most corrupt regimes in the Muslim world, and remains in power only because they serve the interests of the US rather than because of any legitimacy among Muslims, has long been generally accepted throughout the Ummah...

Editorials

Venezuelans reject US plans for their country yet again

Editor

Rajab 16, 14252004-09-01

Venezuela’s president, Hugo Chavez, won a clear victory in last month’s recall referendum, called by the country’s US-supported right-wing opposition in yet another attempt -- albeit a constitutional one this time -- to remove the popular left-wing leader...

Editorials

The opportunism and hypocrisy of the West’s response to tragedy in Darfur

Editor

Jumada' al-Akhirah 14, 14252004-08-01

At a time when the Western media and establishment are presenting the tragedy in Darfur as the fault of ‘Arab’ militias attacking indigenous African communities, and the US government is seeking to exploit the crisis to score brownie points at home and internationally...

Editorials

Saddam and the Israeli wall: the limits of justice

Editor

Jumada' al-Akhirah 14, 14252004-08-01

The Iraqi Special Tribunal was set up by the occupation authorities last year and lacks even a semblence of independence. Completely funded by Washington, it is advised on every level by a team of at least 50 officials...

Editorials

Pakistan’s problems and the state of the Ummah

Editor

Jumada' al-Akhirah 14, 14252004-08-01

It is hard to believe now that when Pakistan was created as a state for the Muslims of the Indian subcontinent in 1947, it was seen as a triumph and a cause for celebration for Muslims all over the world...

Editorials

The achievements and dilemmas of the resistance in Iraq

Editor

Jumada' al-Ula' 13, 14252004-07-01

The key achievement of the resistance is Iraq is not difficult to identify: by maintaining constant pressure on the US occupation forces, as well as those of the US’s allies, from the outset of the invasion to the present, the Iraqi mujahideen have totally disproved the US’s claims...

Editorials

OIC summit reflects change of strategy towards Islam

Editor

Jumada' al-Ula' 13, 14252004-07-01

The Organization of the Islamic Conference, the international organization of Muslim nations-states, has long been regarded as a bit of a joke in Muslim affairs...

Editorials

Transfer of power in Iraq is no more than a cynical exercise in public relations

Editor

Rabi' al-Thani 13, 14252004-06-01

More than a century and a half later, George W. Bush is engaged in a desperate struggle to fool enough of the people enough of the time to control Iraq for long enough to secure the US's interests, while also getting re-elected as president in November, against a backdrop of increasing criticism from all quarters...

Editorials

Real reasons for the Israeli assault on Ghazzah

Editor

Rabi' al-Thani 13, 14252004-06-01

In two weeks during May, Israeli forces killed at least 45 people and destroyed about 300 homes in the Rafah and Tel al-Sultan refugee camps, devastating the lives of communities who had little enough to begin with...

Editorials

Israel exploits Bush’s domestic problems to further its expansionism in Palestine

Editor

Rabi' al-Awwal 11, 14252004-05-01

US president George W. Bush’s endorsement of Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon’s plans for redesigning and legitimising the political infrastructure of its occupation of Palestine has been widely decried...

Editorials

Iraqi people defy US’s attempts to divide them along sectarian lines

Editor

Rabi' al-Awwal 11, 14252004-05-01

Most cliches are cliches because they contain at least an element of truth. The phrase ‘divide and rule’ is a case in point; the phenomenon has been recognised as a strategy of political power, particularly imperial power, since at least Roman times, and was raised to an art-form by the British during their colonial heyday...

Editorials

Guantanamo, Karbala, Ghazzah, Madrid: the ubiquity of modern political violence

Editor

Safar 11, 14252004-04-01

Even by modern standards, the last month has been spectacularly bloody in the scale of the political violence seen. It opened with the Ashura killings in Iraq and Pakistan, in which several hundred Shi’a were slaughtered...

Editorials

Aznar’s defeat a warning for Bush and Blair

Editor

Safar 11, 14252004-04-01

José María Aznar, the right wing prime minister of Spain who was the only European leader to join George Bush and Tony Blair in their invasion of Iraq, paid the price for his defiance of Spanish public opinion on March 14, when the Spanish electorate voted him out of office...

Editorials

Cricket a poor reward for Pakistan’s surrender

Editor

Safar 11, 14252004-04-01

Production of this issue of Crescent International has been considerably hampered by the fact that it has coincided with the series of one-day cricket matches between Pakistan and India at the beginning of the Indian team’s first tour of Pakistan since 1989...

Editorials

Hamas resistance forces Israel and allies to change approach

Editor

Safar 11, 14252004-04-01

The two-week Israeli onslaught on Ghazzah that began at the end of February was evidently designed to bring Hamas to its knees, after months of an ever-tightening economic blockade and political pressure that Israel and its allies hoped would persuade the people of Ghazzah to turn against the Islamic movement that they elected to power in 2006.

Editorials

The politics of reform and progress in the Islamic state

Editor

Muharram 10, 14252004-03-01

All the West’s well-established theories about the political evolution of the Islamic state of Iran were thrown into disarray on February 20, when Iran’s parliamentary elections passed off peacefully...

Editorials

The limits of democratization in Muslim countries

Editor

Jumada' al-Ula' 10, 14362004-03-01

There are so many aspects of the West’s war on Islam that it is difficult to credit them all. One little-noticed one is the drive for ‘democracy’ in the Muslim world. The call for democracy has become a staple of self-justifying Western rhetoric. Why do Muslim hate America? Americans ask...

Editorials

Iraqi protests at US political plans reveal limitations of resistance and opposition

Editor

Dhu al-Hijjah 10, 14242004-02-01

After the pre-Christmas respite afforded by the conveniently-timed capture of Saddam, the US occupation of Iraq became more troubled again last month. Paul O’Neill, former US treasury secretary, gave the highest-level confirmation to date that Bush and his clique had been planning an invasion of Iraq from their first days in office...

Editorials

West targeting Muslim women to subvert Islam – and the task facing Islamic movements

Editor

Dhu al-Hijjah 10, 14242004-02-01

The huge Muslim anger that greeted French proposals to ban hijab in schools and other public institutions has shocked the French establishment. Whether the depth of anger demonstrated when French Muslims took to the streets on January 17 will be sufficient to force the government to rethink its plans remains to be seen...

Editorials

Friends reunited in Iraq – but US’s capture of Saddam raises more questions than it answers

Editor

Dhu al-Qa'dah 08, 14242004-01-01

The US’s apparent capture of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein on December 13 has enabled the Bush administration to end the year on a rather higher note than they can have expected, particularly after November had proved to be the worst month yet of the US occupation of Iraq...

Editorials

French ban on hijab exposes the myth of liberalism

Editor

Dhu al-Qa'dah 08, 14242004-01-01

A ban on French Muslimahs wearing hijab in public schools seems inevitable after president Jacques Chirac voiced support for the findings of a government commission recommending that "visible religious symbols" be banned as inconsistent with the French state’s secular ethos...

World

Serbian politicians turning again to anti-Muslim nationalism to rally popular support

Editor

Rajab 04, 14242003-09-01

Four years after being forced to leave Kosova (1999), Serbian politicians have stepped up what Kosovar prime minister Bajram Rexhipi calls "diplomatic attacks on Kosova". As on many occasions in Serbia’s recent history, Serbian politicians appear to be competing in their use of nationalist rhetoric against non-Serb neighbours in order to rally support (presidential elections are due next year) and to divert atttention from domestic issues.

World

Hutton enquiry evidence reveals the British government’s lies to justify war on Iraq

Editor

Jumada' al-Ula' 21, 14372003-09-01

Three months after George Bush declared an end to "major hostilities" in Iraq, the US and Britain remain under pressure, both from resistance in Iraq and from questions at home about their reasons for going to war. In Britain the issue is now being debated in the framework of the Hutton enquiry, established to look into the apparent suicide of a weapons expert accused by the government of leaking information to the press.

Editorials

Official and media lies on Western policy

Editor

Shawwal 11, 14232002-12-16

Iraq handed UN officials a detailed dossier of its chemical, biological and nuclear research projects and facilities earlier this month, in accordance with last month’s UN resolution.

Editorials

Hamas leading Palestinians against all enemies

Editor

Ramadan 26, 14232002-12-01

Israel stepped up operations in the West Bank and Ghazzah last month after two successful operations by Palestinian mujahideen: one against Israeli forces in al-Khalil on November 15, one a martyrdom bombing in Jerusalem.

Editorials

Secular Islamists triumph in Turkey’s elections

Editor

Ramadan 11, 14232002-11-16

The victory of the ‘Islamist’ Justice and Development Party (AKP) in Turkey’s general elections earlier this month was greeted with incredulity and consternation among both Turkey’s secular elite and its Western allies, who have been wont to hold Kemalist Turkey up as a model of the separation of Islam and politics for other Muslim countries.

Editorials

Pakistani people turn to Islam yet again

Editor

Sha'ban 25, 14232002-11-01

That the Americans used the September 11 attacks as a pretext to install a pro-Western regime in Afghanistan is clear. Many reasons have been touted: a desire to defeat an Islamic regime...

Editorials

US anger exposes myths of the world order

Editor

Sha'ban 09, 14232002-10-16

Anger is a dangerous emotion. In anger people say and do what they would never say or do when in full control of their faculties. Interestingly, it is also often an honest emotion.

Editorials

Palestine two years into the al-Quds intifada

Editor

Rajab 24, 14372002-10-01

Last month people around the world marked the first anniversary of the attacks in the US last year. The second anniversary of the beginning of the Al-Quds Intifada was also in September.

Editorials

The politics of the US plans for Iraq

Editor

Jumada' al-Akhirah 23, 14232002-09-01

There is little to be said for Saddam Hussein, but he has certainly managed to get on Washington’s nerves. For the last decade he has been the bogey-man that the Americans have invoked whenever they wanted to justify such things as their occupation of the Middle East, or to distract attention from unpleasantnesses elsewhere.

Editorials

Limitations of Western democracy

Editor

Jumada' al-Akhirah 07, 14232002-08-16

British prime minister Tony Blair has long been recognised as the US’s most loyal servant among its allies; he has supported Washington on virtually every international issue, even when other Western countries have been critical of the US’s arrogant and overbearing approach, for example over the Kyoto accord and the International Criminal Court.

Editorials

The deep and routine suffering of Muslims

Editor

Jumada' al-Ula' 22, 14232002-08-01

Israel’s attack on an apartment building in Ghazzah city on July 22, which killed Sheikh Salah Shehada and 15 other Palestinians, many of them children, was the latest in a long list of zionist atrocities against the Palestinians.

Editorials

Threats and challenges facing Islamic Iran

Editor

Jumada' al-Ula' 06, 14232002-07-16

US president George W. Bush has appealed to the Iranian people to reject the Islamic state. In a written statement on July 12 he called for Iran to abandon its "uncompromising, destructive policies", promising that "as Iran’s people move toward a future defined by greater freedom, greater tolerance, they will have no better friend than the United States of America"

Editorials

America administering its third reich

Editor

Rabi' al-Thani 20, 14232002-07-01

Afghanistan’s Loya Jirga, which opened a day later than scheduled, as the US manipulated events to ensure the election of its favoured candidate as the country’s president, ended with similar farcical scenes on June 19.

Editorials

India’s nuclear sabre-rattling achieves its objectives

Editor

Rabi' al-Thani 05, 14232002-06-16

Considering that the world seemed to be on the brink of nuclear catastrophe, the end of the crisis between India and Pakistan was surprisingly low-key.

Editorials

Bush’s European tour shows unity of the West

Editor

Rabi' al-Awwal 19, 14232002-06-01

As Crescent goes to press, US president George W. Bush is on day 6 of his much-vaunted European tour, designed both to consolidate support for the US’s ‘war against terrorism’ and to demonstrate that the US is not acting unilaterally or alone.

Editorials

Hindu fundamentalist threat to India’s Muslims

Editor

Rabi' al-Awwal 03, 14232002-05-16

The routine use of the labels ‘terrorist’ and ‘terrorism’ to criminalise Muslims and legitimise any action against them has reached new levels in India, with cabinet minister Shanta Kumar claiming on April 28 that the Godhra train incident was an act of "international terrorism" whose objective was to "weaken" Indian defence positions on the border and make it more porous for infiltration by jihadis.

Editorials

Israel itself the obstacle to Middle East peace

Editor

Safar 18, 14232002-05-01

Deir Yassin (1948)... Sabra and Shatilla (1982)... Qana (1996)... Jenin (2002) is only the latest in a long list of Israeli crimes against humanity during the zionist state’s short but bloody history. Whether or not a UN fact-finding mission is sent to the camp is irrelevant; everyone who watched events there unfolding, and has seen the devastation...

Editorials

Telling parallels between Palestine and the Ummah

Editor

Safar 03, 14232002-04-16

For the last 18 months the Palestinian intifada has been a symbol of Muslim defiance against world powers determined to crush the spirit of Islam, and a source of pride for Muslims everywhere.

Editorials

Dr Kalim Siddiqui’s lessons for all Muslims today

Editor

Muharram 18, 14232002-04-01

This month marks the sixth anniversary of the death of Dr Kalim Siddiqui (r.a). On April 18, 1996, he suffered his last heart attack in Pretoria, South Africa, at the end of another successful Crescent International conference and lecture tour.

Editorials

All empires have dissidents - where are the West's?

Editor

Muharram 02, 14232002-03-16

George W. Bush gave another major speech on March 11, this time marking six months since September 11. He avoided any controversial soundbites, such as his notorious 'axis of evil' comment. More important than the content, however, was the image deliberately generated...

Editorials

A war within Islam? Sorry to disappoint, Mr Bush

Editor

Dhu al-Hijjah 16, 14222002-03-01

The attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon on September 11 gave the US a pretext to attack Islamic movements far more directly than would previously have been possible. Tens of thousands of people in Afghanistan may have died (and more are continuing to die) in the US’s military operations...

Editorials

Iranian Muslims defiant as Bush intensifies rhetoric

Editor

Dhu al-Hijjah 03, 14222002-02-16

The annual celebrations of the Islamic Revolution in Iran on February 11 were marked this year by mass defiance of the US after George Bush’s State of the Union address on January 29 promised action against an "axis of evil" comprised of Iraq, Iran and North Korea.

Editorials

Marking the Revolution in dark times for the Ummah

Editor

Dhu al-Qa'dah 18, 14222002-02-01

An interesting and ironic message appeared on an Islamic e-mail forum early this year. The author, a supporter of the Taliban and Usama bin Ladin, had previously been extremely critical of the Islamic State of Iran, which he saw as a sectarian, Shi’i state.

Editorials

Key challenge still facing the Islamic movement

Editor

Dhu al-Qa'dah 02, 14222002-01-16

Despite weeks of claims in the West that the war in Afghanistan is over, that its main objectives have been achieved and the Taliban decisively defeated, that al-Qaeda is destroyed and a ‘civilized’ government installed in Kabul, hundreds of Afghans are still dying in ongoing US air attacks.

Editorials

Seasonal reflections on the state of the world

Editor

Shawwal 17, 14222002-01-01

The contrast between the words and actions of the West’s leaders, and the remarkable ability of most Westerners to believe their politicians, and to accept uncritically a totally West-centric view of world affairs, despite the mass of contrary evidence before them, is frustrating at any time.

Editorials

West welcomes Afghanistan back to ‘civilization’

Editor

Shawwal 01, 14222001-12-16

While assorted representatives of Afghan groups were meeting with Western leaders in Bonn to map out a government for Afghanistan “freely determined by its own people,” and American bombs were continuing to fall on towns and villages in some parts of the country, two other conferences on Afghanistan’s future were taking place in Washington and Pakistan.

Editorials

Mujahideen in Afghanistan facing a grim fate

Editor

Ramadan 16, 14222001-12-01

Almost two months after the US began its bombing of Afghanistan, the Taliban remain defiant in substantial parts of the country. As we go to press, the Northern Alliance and the US are claiming to be about to capture the northern town of Kunduz...

Editorials

Muslims not fooled by US’s statements on Palestine

Editor

Ramadan 01, 14222001-11-16

Addressing the General Assembly of the United Nations on November 10, US president George W. Bush did something that no US president has ever done: he used the word “Palestine” to describe the emasculated Palestinian ‘state’ that the US and Israel would like to set up in the West Bank and Ghazzah as part of a ‘peace settlement.’

Editorials

The West’s declaration of war on political Islam

Editor

Sha'ban 15, 14222001-11-01

Much has been made of George W. Bush’s throwaway characterization of the US’s “war on terrorism” as a ‘crusade’. To be fair, he was probably using the word in the sense of a determined, even zealous, pursuit of a cause, rather than in any specifically anti-Islamic sense...

Editorials

Afghanistan: the empire strikes back

Editor

Rajab 29, 14222001-10-16

Three days after the bombing of Afghanistan began, US officials admitted that they were running out of targets. The bombing is likely to continue, however, to satisfy public opinion. Hawks in Washington also want to attack other countries.

Editorials

US anger turns to blatant strategic opportunism

Editor

Rajab 14, 14222001-10-01

More than two weeks after the attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Centre, the initial shock has worn off and the prevalent mood has changed to nervous anticipation as the world waits to see what the US will do next.

Editorials

Whoever attacked the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon, Muslims now face the consequences

Editor

Jumada' al-Akhirah 28, 14222001-09-16

Tens of thousands of people may have died in the attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York and the Pentagon in Washington on September 11.

Editorials

West’s claims to leadership exposed in Durban

Editor

Jumada' al-Akhirah 28, 14222001-09-16

The US’s position as the dominant power in the world is now widely recognised, as is its freedom to do as it pleases, virtually anywhere in the world, with scant regard even for its Western allies, let alone anyone else. Equally clear is its ability to manipulate international institutions such as the UN to legitimise its actions...

Editorials

Reflecting on a year of the al-Aqsa Intifada

Editor

Jumada' al-Akhirah 13, 14222001-09-01

This month, the al-Aqsa Intifada will be one year old. It was on September 28 that Ariel Sharon, then leader of Israel’s opposition, walked into the Haram al-Sharif surrounded by Israeli soldiers, in an calculated insult to the Palestinians and a demonstration of Israel’s effective sovereignty over the Farthest Mosque.

Editorials

The Islamic factor in Indonesian politics

Editor

Jumada' al-Ula' 26, 14222001-08-16

After months of street turmoil and parliamentary drama, Indonesia returned to relative calm with the removal of Abdurrahman Wahid from the presidency last month. His tumultuous 21-month rule was marked by moves to open up political freedom in the world’s fourth most populous Muslim country.

Editorials

West shows its fangs against protesters

Editor

Jumada' al-Ula' 11, 14222001-08-01

Despite the city effectively being turned into a fortress by an army of policemen equipped with tanks, armoured vehicles, helicopters and riot-control equipment, thousands of protesters gathered outside the venue of a meeting of senior politicians planning their future strategy for promoting their common interests.

Editorials

Milosevic’s show-trial little reason for celebration

Editor

Rabi' al-Thani 24, 14222001-07-16

Former Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic appeared before the International War Crimes Tribunal in the Hague on July 3, to hear the charges of murder and crimes against humanity being brought against him.

Editorials

Few positive signs – but Palestinians fight on

Editor

Rabi' al-Thani 09, 14222001-07-01

As this issue went to press (June 26), Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon was meeting with US president George W. Bush at the White House in Washington. It was the second meeting between the two men since each came to office earlier this year, and a calculated demonstration of the US’s partiality towards Israel.

Editorials

Democracy: an unholy cow ripe for the slaughter

Editor

Rabi' al-Awwal 24, 14222001-06-16

Two major elections took place earlier this month. On June 7 general elections took place in Britain, the supposed birthplace of Parliamentary democracy. Tony Blair’s Labour party was returned to power for a second term by a ‘landslide’.

Editorials

Imam Khomeini, ijtihad and the role of ulama

Editor

Rabi' al-Awwal 09, 14222001-06-01

In order to understand fully the nature of the Revolution, and in particular if lessons are to be learnt by Islamic movements seeking to achieve similar results, it is the essence of Imam Khomeini’s work and vision that must be grasped.

Editorials

Leaders and misleaders of the Ummah

Editor

Safar 22, 14222001-05-16

The issue of Palestine is central to the Islamic movement. Obviously, the occupation of Islam’s third holy city by the greatest enemies of Islam and the greatest powers of kufr that history has ever known is a situation that Muslims can never accept. But the experience of opposing that occupation is proving a severe testing-ground for the Ummah.

Editorials

Beyond simplistic models for the Islamic movement

Editor

Safar 07, 14222001-05-01

Dr Kalim Siddiqui (r.a.) often spoke of the ‘total transformation’ of the Ummah from its present condition to a state of Islamic order as a “historic process”, and pointed out that this process would take time and patience; it could not be rushed.

Editorials

Dr Kalim Siddiqui: visionary of the Islamic movement

Editor

Muharram 22, 14222001-04-16

The global Islamic movement is so clearly a major force in the world today — the only challenge to the crumbling civilization of the West — that it is easy to forget that less than 25 years ago Muslims barely showed on the geo-political map.

Editorials

Combining fire-fighting with forward planning

Editor

Muharram 07, 14222001-04-01

The Chechen capital Johar-Gala (‘Grozny’) is today a burnt-out hulk, where survivors are trying to rebuild their lives in the ruins. The Russians are trying to secure the city and build workable governing institutions, while pockets of mujahideen survive in hiding...

Editorials

The issue facing Muslims in the West

Editor

Dhu al-Hijjah 20, 14212001-03-16

The West’s enmity to Islam was brought home to Muslims in Britain earlier this month, when the British government published its list of proscribed “terrorist” organizations, most Islamic or Muslim.

Editorials

Remembering the nature of the Aal-e Saud

Editor

Dhu al-Hijjah 05, 14212001-03-01

There was a time, not long ago, when Aal-e Saud were at the forefront of the West’s drive to subvert Islam and the Muslim Ummah. During the 1970s, the Saudi monarchs distributed petro-dollars to mosques and Islamic centres all over the world, usually through international front-organizations...

Editorials

The West’s abuse of judicial processes

Editor

Dhu al-Qa'dah 22, 14212001-02-16

The destruction of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie (Scotland) on December 21, 1988, was an appalling tragedy. All 259 people on board were killed, as were 11 people on the ground when aircraft-fragments fell on houses.

Editorials

The Gulf War and the Islamic Revolution

Editor

Dhu al-Qa'dah 07, 14212001-02-01

Every February, Muslims around the world mark the anniversary of the Islamic Revolution in 1979, which established the prototypical Islamic state of the modern era in Iran. This year also marks the 10th anniversary of the American assault on Iraq in 1991 (the US bombing campaign began on January 16, 1991, and the land war — if that is the right word — lasted from February 23-27).

Editorials

The west’s instruments of global hegemony

Editor

Shawwal 21, 14212001-01-16

US president Bill Clinton earned plaudits around the world on new year’s eve when he announced that he had signed the International Treaty agreed in Rome in 1998 which set out the parameters for the establishment of a standing International War Crimes Tribunal.

Editorials

Islamic movement fighting on so many fronts

Editor

Shawwal 06, 14212001-01-01

Even as the Palestinians faced some of the worst days of the intifada, however, representatives of Yassir Arafat’s Palestinian Authority began meetings with Israeli and American representatives in Washington to bring the Palestinian ‘peace process’ — also known as the Palestinian sell out — back on track.

Editorials

Risks of working through un-Islamic political systems

Editor

Ramadan 08, 14201999-12-16

One thing that revolutionary Islamic movements have largely been clear about since the Islamic Revolution in Iran is that trying to come to power through democratic processes in the political systems established and run by secularist politicians in Muslim countries is a waste of time.

Editorials

The hollowness of the west’s ‘democratic revolution’

Editor

Sha'ban 23, 14201999-12-01

The collapse of the communist bloc in 1989 is regarded in the west as the definitive triumph of democracy, a ‘Democratic Revolution’ to rank alongside the other great revolutions of western history, the French (1789), the Russian (1917) and the Chinese (1949).

Editorials

Western social sciences and Muslim social scientists

Editor

Sha'ban 08, 14201999-11-16

The formulation of Islamic disciplines equivalent to the western social sciences was one of the Muslim Institute’s key objectives when it was established in the 1970s. Dr Kalim regarded this an essential pre-requisite to the re-emergence of Islamic civilization.

Editorials

Pakistani experience exposes western myth of ‘democracy’

Editor

Rajab 22, 14201999-11-01

The military coup against Nawaz Sharif’s government in Pakistan last month was greeted throughout the country with joy and relief rather than popular concern for the loss of people’s ‘democratic rights’.

Editorials

Chechens confronted with Russian aggression again

Editor

Muharram 26, 14391999-10-16

The Chechen peace agreement of August 1996 left the question of Ichkeria’s political status to be resolved within five years. This diplomatic fudge was differently interpreted by the various parties involved.

Editorials

‘Intervention’ - the west’s new imperial strategy

Editor

Jumada' al-Akhirah 21, 14201999-10-01

As Australian and other troops representing the UN prepare to secure East Timor, ostensibly for the Timorese, and a de facto international protectorate establishes new institutions of government in Kosova...

Editorials

Paradox of the west’s attitude on East Timor

Editor

Jumada' al-Akhirah 06, 14201999-09-16

The tragedy unfolding in East Timor is all the more painful to witness because those responsible are supposedly Muslim. Muslims are used to being persecuted and subjected to genocide.

Editorials

West stepping up its war on the Islamic movement

Editor

Jumada' al-Ula' 20, 14201999-09-01

The US is presently engaged in an intensive witch-hunt against Islamic movement activists all over the world, on the grounds that they are part of an ‘international terror network’ controlled by Osama bin Ladin and responsible for the bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, and numerous other ‘terrorist acts’ against US installations and interests around the world.

Editorials

Pakistan’s urgent need: a new Islamic movement

Editor

Jumada' al-Ula' 04, 14201999-08-16

It is difficult to believe, surveying Pakistan’s 52-year history, that when the country was founded in 1947, Islamic activists all over the world looked to it for leadership and inspiration.

Editorials

Choices facing Turkey’s Islamic movement

Editor

Rabi' al-Thani 19, 14201999-08-01

The Kemalists’ crusade against the Islamic movement is becoming more vicious. Last month there was another assault when an issue of the Selam Islamic weekly was confiscated.

Editorials

Perspectives on Kosova: 20/20 hindsight

Editor

Rabi' al-Thani 03, 14201999-07-16

A meeting in London recently witnessed a minor argument between a Kosovar alim and activist and an Iranian alim about the NATO bombing. In his speech, the Kosovar brother welcomed the NATO bombing, saying that the Muslims of Kosova hoped to be able to build an independent Muslim country in the new geo-political realities of the region.

Editorials

The lesson of humility in the Seerah

Editor

Rabi' al-Awwal 17, 14201999-07-01

The Prophet’s Seerah (peace be upon him) is a model for Muslims in their individual as well as collective lives. Within his lifetime, the noble Messenger of Allah not only delivered the message of Islam to all parts of the Arabian Peninsula and beyond...

Editorials

Imam Khomeini’s legacy alive around the world

Editor

Rabi' al-Awwal 02, 14201999-06-16

Imam Khomeini, the tenth anniversary of whose death on June 4, 1989, was marked by millions of Muslims all over the world this month, was undoubtedly the most important figure in recent Muslim history, the man whose thought and leadership effectively gave birth to what we now know as the global Islamic movement.

Editorials

Kosova: whither the Islamic movement?

Editor

Safar 16, 14201999-06-01

NATO announced the commitment of 25,000 more troops to the Balkans on May 24, taking the number of troops available to enter Kosova ‘when the time is right’ to 50,000. The announcement was presented as a sign of the west’s resolve to go into Kosova if necessary.

Editorials

The West’s ‘weapon of mass destruction’ in Iraq

Editor

Muharram 30, 14201999-05-16

The western media tends to focus on one major story at a time. While Kosova dominates the news, other international stories have been largely ignored. For Muslims, however, this is not good enough.

Editorials

Futility of elections shown in Turkey and Algeria

Editor

Rabi' al-Thani 19, 14201999-05-01

The elections in Turkey and Algeria last month were important for the countries’ Islamic movements. In Turkey, the ‘Islamic’ party Fazilat came a disappointing third, behind prime minister Bulent Ecevit’s centre-left party and the right-wing nationalist MHP.

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