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Ramadan, 14242003-11-01

Crescent International Vol. 32, No. 14 2003-11

Book Review

A useful popular introduction to the history of Islam

Zawahir Siddique

The Rough Guide History of Islam by Justin Wintle. Pub: Rough Guides Ltd, London (www.roughguides.com), May 2003. Pp: 544. Pbk: US$12.95,/ UK£7.99.

Editorials

Virtual Palestine peace accord shows the possibilities -- and the impossibilities

Crescent International

Three years after the outbreak of the latest Al-Aqsa intifada -- which has lasted so long and moved on so far that few even remember how the troubles began -- the world has tired of Palestine...

Editorials

Nobel prize another veiled attack on Islamic Iran

Crescent International

The Nobel peace prize has always been based on political considerations; advancement of peace has had very little to do with it. The Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel--after whom the award is named--reflects the irony of the situation: he invented explosives, hardly the stuff to promote peace...

Features

To liberate or not to liberate? Universalism, Islam and human rights (PT. 2)

Arzu Merali

​This is the second part of a paper (read Part One here) presented by ARZU MERALI at the Islamic Human Rights Commission’s one-day conference on ‘Islamic and Western Perceptions of Human Rights’ in London on September 12, 2003. In the first part of the paper, published in the October 2003 issue of Crescent, she provided a detailed critique of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Western assumptions of universality underpinning it. In this concluding section, she discusses the Islamic attitude to human rights.

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Features

The Seerah’s strategy: The importance and centrality of the liberation of Makkah

Muhammad H. al-'Asi

​The study of the Seerah of the Prophet (saw) to learn lessons relevant to the contemporary Islamic movement is a major project of the Institute of Contemporary Islamic Thought. Here, IMAM MUHAMMAD AL-'ASI, of Washington DC, discusses the centrality of Makkah in the strategy of the Prophet’s Seerah, and its implications for Muslims today.

Islamic Movement

US and Arab regimes proposing their own visions of ‘change’ to counter Islamic movements

Mohamed Yehia

Since the war on Iraq ardent calls for "change" have become fashionable in Arab countries. These appeals come from various quarters. However, the variety of the demands for change betray the nature and the extent of the power-war currently unfolding in the region.

Occupied Arab World

US facing possible intifada in Iraq as Muqtada al-Sadr declares "shadow government"

Iqbal Siddiqui

Speaking on the campaign trail in Kentucky on October 10, George W. Bush brushed aside the embarrassing failure of US officials to find the weapons of mass destruction that he had made the centrepiece of his case for war in Iraq, saying that the US invasion "thwarted future plots against the US by the madman Saddam."

Occupied Arab World

Palestinians continuing to die as Israel maintains assassinations and assaults on towns

Laila Juma

It is perhaps not surprising that of all the incidents of violence in Palestine over the last month, the one that attracted the most headlines worldwide was the roadside bomb that killed three US ‘security guards’ (CIA agents, according to some reports) on October 15.

Occupied Arab World

Saudis the latest to combine facade democracy and political repression

Crescent International

A prominent human rights campaigner in Saudi Arabia told western journalists last month that the government plans to hold national elections in three years’ time.

Reflections

Far too late now to avert a clash of civilizations

Zafar Bangash

Is a "clash of civilizations" between Islam and the West inevitable? Those Muslims desperately trying to avert one miss a crucial and obvious point: a full-scale war against Islam and Muslims...

Special Reports

Bush’s neo-con regime facing domestic crisis as US is caught between Iraq and a hard place

Zafar Bangash

Thanks to his rightwing advisors (better known as ‘neo-conservatives’ or ‘neo-cons’), US president George Bush has been trapped between Iraq and a hard place; in fact several hard places – Afghanistan, the US economy and a public that are at last beginning to realize that they have been lied to in a big way.

Special Reports

Western media manipulation ensures the irrelevance of public opinion

Zafar Bangash

The Western world has seldom seen public demonstrations on the scale that occurred during the weeks preceding the invasion of Iraq earlier this year. Millions of men, women and children marched in the streets of London, Paris, Madrid, Berlin, San Francisco, Chicago and Washington DC, in the hope that this public outcry would stop the impending attack

World

Election farce transfers power in Azerbaijan to Aliyev junior

Crescent International

Azeri authorities launched a major crackdown on political opponents and critical journalists last month, after observers and opposition parties denounced major irregularities in the presidential elections of October 15.

World

Hindu fascists raising anti-Muslim hatred again as Indian elections approach

Qazi Umar

India's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is exploring various options to boost its electoral fortunes in the forthcoming general elections. As usual, in the past, its main strategy is raining nationalist sentiment against Pakistan, and Hindu fascist sentiments against India’s beleaguered Muslims.

World

Sudanese Islamic leader Hasan al-Turabi released from house arrest

Crescent International

Hundreds (perhaps thousands) of Muslims took to the streets in Khartoum and other Sudanese cities on October 13, to celebrate the release from house arrest of Shaikh Hasan al-Turabi, the leader of Sudan's Islamic movement and of the Popular National Congress (PNC) party.

World

Anti-war British MP expelled from ruling Labour Party

Crescent International

Britain’s ruling Labour Party expelled its dissident Member of Parliament George Galloway on October 23, after a special hearing of the national constitutional committee found him guilty of bringing the party into disrepute. His case is seen by some commentators as evidence of how worried British prime minister Tony Blair is by popular opposition to his pro-American foreign policy.

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