Islam
The madness of France’s burkini bust-up
To burkini, or not to burkini? This is the question that divides France in the run-up to the first round…
Putin and the Muslim world
Several thousand Muslim Chechen fighters are reportedly massing on the edge of Kiev. Syrian volunteers, filmed this week holding assault…
Staggeringly confident and powerful: After Love reviewed
As there are no stand-out films this week aside from Kenneth Branagh’s adaptation of Death on the Nile — is…
Were the Ottoman Turks as European as they thought themselves?
This is the best of times to be writing history, since so much of what has been taken for granted,…
The Council of Europe was right to pull its hijab campaign
This week, the Council of Europe was forced to pull an advertising campaign promoting the hijab following a backlash from…
The war that changed the world in the early seventh century
It was not a war to end all wars, writes James Howard-Johnston at the start of this illuminating and thought-provoking…
Pakistan's profane blasphemy laws
An eight-year-old Hindu boy is currently in custody in the southern Punjab. He is the youngest person in Pakistan to…
Tehran is repeating the Shah's mistakes
The Iranian province of Khuzestan is oil-rich but water-poor. At the best of times, the southwestern region is a problem…
Leave, convert or perish: The fate of Afghanistan's minorities
President Biden’s decision to ‘end the war in Afghanistan’ means the complete withdrawal of 3,500 US troops by the 20th…
Is anywhere in the world still safe for China’s Uighurs?
Is anywhere safe for the Uighurs?
Labour's worrying descent into communalism
Labour’s candidate in Batley and Spen, Kim Leadbeater, reportedly pulled out of a hustings featuring George Galloway over the weekend.…
Austria's 'Islam map' is dangerous
Austria’s government has unveiled a map detailing the locations of mosques and other Muslim associations all over the country. The…
The empire that sprang from nowhere under the banner of Islam
When the British formed the basis of their empire in the 1600s by acquiring territories in India and North America,…
The Tories, Islam, and the importance of pluralism
The Conservatives will be relieved that an independent investigation has not found the party to be institutionally racist, though relief…
What the demise of Quilliam teaches us about Britain and Islam
There was much rejoicing among Britain’s Islamists last week when the thinktank and campaigning organisation Quilliam announced that it was…
Why will nobody publish my religious cartoons?
I am having very little success in getting my collection of cartoons of great religious founders published. Perhaps it is…
Why Muslims like me are worried about the Batley protests
To some, the persecution of a schoolteacher who showed his pupils a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed may seem like…
Bangladesh could pay for failing to crack down on its Islamist threat
Bangladesh turned 50 last week and the country has much to celebrate. Having inherited a dismal GDP growth rate of…
The Batley Grammar school row is the perfect jihadist recruitment tool
As controversy continues to rage after pupils were shown an image of the prophet Muhammad by a teacher at Batley Grammar School,…
Are Switzerland and France really ‘Islamophobic’?
Is Switzerland ‘Islamophobic’? Critics of the country’s decision to outlaw face coverings think so. The ‘Burqa ban’, which passed into law this week…
Macron is using Islam to outmanoeuvre Le Pen
There was a rally in Paris on Sunday at which a couple of hundred protestors vented their anger at the…
When will Pakistan take a stand against terror?
Last week, Pakistan’s Supreme Court ordered the release of UK born Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh who was accused of kidnapping…
What the West can do about China’s Uyghur labour camps
Who profits from Uyghur labour camps?
It’s been a tough year for socialites
New York Here we go again, the annual holiest of holies is upon us, although to this oldie last Christmas…
Britain is still failing to confront Islamism
How time flies. In March 2014, quite out of the blue, I was commissioned by then prime minister David Cameron…
