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

Crescent International Vol. 37, No. 4

Main Stories

Doha agreement ends Beirut stand-off with political victory for Hizbullah

Nasr Salem

The election of Michel Sulayman on May 25 as Lebanon’s twelfth president closed the chapter on one of the longest political crises to have gripped the country since its ‘independence’ in 1943. Sulayman, a former commander of the armed forces, took oath of office immediately after he was elected with 118 votes out of the 127 legislators attending the parliamentary electoral session.

Reflections

Understanding the Western media

Zafar Bangash

One of the most enduring myths about the Western media is their supposed objectivity. The grossly ill-informed and gullible Americans apart, the Muslims are its biggest victims. Muslims often ask why the Western media do not give their side of the story in such trouble-spots as Palestine, Iraq or Afghanistan.

Perspectives

Remembering the stature and contribution of Imam Khomeini

Iqbal Siddiqui

This month, millions of Muslims all over the world will mark the nineteenth anniversary of the death of Imam Khomeini on June 4, 1989. The Imam 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

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

Editor

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

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.

Guest Editorial

Bush’s pointless tour to meet his stooges in the Middle East

Abu Dharr

The self-inflicted wounds on American imperialism and Israeli zionism in Iraq and Afghanistan are easily seen. The public memory is blank to the commander-in-chief who claimed the “end of major combat operations” just a few months after initiating the war against Iraq in March 2003.

South-East Asia

Mahathir’s resignation from UMNO increases pressure on Badawi after election fiasco

Abdar Rahman Koya

As the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) growls like a wounded tiger about its setbacks since the general elections in March, former deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim is almost like a vulture, waiting his chance to pound at the best opportunity he has had in more than a decade.

Occupied Arab World

Politicians talk about economics in West Bank while Ghazzans prepare for another attack

Ahmad Musa

In recent months, Muslims around the world have watched with consternation as Israel has tightened its economic blockade of Ghazzah, subjecting its people to intense hardship, while Western powers have done next to nothing to stop them, despite the fact that the use of starvation and deprivation as a weapon of war is explicitly forbidden by international law.

World

Resumption of fighting in Sudan renews fears for the country’s future

M.A. Shaikh

The 2008 Global Peace Index (GPI), an annual study that ranks countries in terms of how "peaceful" they are, puts Sudan near the bottom of the world list, with only Somalia and Iraqbelow it. The main cause of the disruption in Africa’s largest country has been the civil war between the north and the south of the country, which began on the eve of independence in 1956 and persisted until a peace deal was signed in 2004.

World

Zardari’s back-peddling from agreements spells doom for Pakistan’s ruling coalition

Waseem Shehzad

The manner in which Asif Zardari is wriggling out of his promise to reinstate the judges who were illegally dismissed by general Musharraf on November 3 last year has increased people’s cynicism about Pakistani politicians. At long last the people thought that they had found in the judiciary, especially former chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, someone who would deliver them badly needed justice, but now they feel betrayed.

World

Western politics behind the independence of Kosova

A Correspondent in Athens

When Kosova declared its independence from Serbia on February 12 (becoming the seventh state to emerge from the break-up of Yugoslavia in 1991), the US and nineteen members of the European Union (EU) backed the declaration.

Special Reports

The Muqtada al-Sadr phenomenon: the key force in Iraqi politics

Khalil Fadl

As Iraq has lurched from one crisis to another since the US invasion in 2003, one figure has become increasingly influential and even dominant in the country’s politics: young Shi’a leader Muqtada al-Sadr. KHALIL FADL profiles the man some regard as a future leader of the country.

Islamic Movement

“He who pays the piper calls the tune”: official Islam in Britain

Fahad Ansari

Deciding who and who not to talk to has always been a strategy used by those in power against those they seek to control. FAHAD ANSARI discusses the attempts of the British government to find or establish an acceptable leadership for the British Muslim community.

Islamic Movement

Imam Muhammad al-Asi discusses his tafseer and the state of the Muslim world

Muhammad H. al-'Asi

The first volume of ‘The Ascendant Qur’an’, Imam Muhammad al-Asi’s tafseer, was launched by the Institute of Contemporary Islamic Thought in Toronto on May 24. Crescent International took the opportunity to speak with Imam al-Asi about his tafseer, and his understanding of the challenges facing the global Islamic movement.

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