Muslim societies - Muslims and Liberals

Bangladesh, Pakistan trade luck

Posted on July 10, 2019 by Mustafa Malik

I FEEL GOOD about living to see this day. Bangladesh, whose creation I once opposed, is belying my forebodings about its future. It has surpassed Pakistan and, in some cases, the economic behemoth of India in economic development and well-being. Bangladeshi economic performance glows brighter when you compare that with the near-meltdown of the Pakistani economy. Here’s...

Modi, Bibi, Trump & liberal order

Posted on April 12, 2019 by Mustafa Malik

Need a new world order that protects autonomous religious and ethnic communities.

Fighting phantom terror

Posted on February 28, 2015 by Mustafa Malik

THE ISLAMIC STATE has sent new shock waves through the world by capturing more than 200 Syrian and Egyptian Christians. The terrorist group’s gruesome killing of other hostages has heightened concerns among many about the fate of these hostages. Meanwhile, the Obama administration and the Iraqi government reportedly have shelved their long-publicized plans to try...

Terror bred by grievances, not Islam

Posted on February 21, 2015 by Mustafa Malik

PRESIDENT OBAMA’S speech at this week’s terrorism conference in the White House sounded to me like a broken record from the George W. Bush administration. Bush and his advisers attributed Muslim terrorism to Islam. “Islam is a religion in which God requires you to send your son to die for him,” said John Ashcroft, Bush’s...

Cow, crescent and star

Posted on December 6, 2014 by Mustafa Malik

Published in Middle East Policy, Washington, D.C.; December 5, 2014 Mustafa Malik, an international affairs commentator in Washington, is investigating the impact of Hindu nationalism on liberal values and democratic institutions in his native India. Earlier, he conducted fieldwork on religious movements and nationalist experiments in the Middle East and the Indian subcontinent as a...

The Hindus outrage Hindus

Posted on February 15, 2014 by Mustafa Malik

"Enlightenment liberalism, as all other ideologies, has emerged from a particular set of historical circumstances of particular societies. It came about mainly a reaction to the omnipresent church’s rigorous rules suppressing the desires, expressions and creativity of everyday Christians. It wasn’t much of a surprise, then, that the ideologues and activists of the Enlightenment avenged the harsh religious repression by banishing religion from the public space."

Liberal counterrevolution

Posted on January 22, 2014 by Mustafa Malik

The Islamic movements that have been storming much of the Muslim world since the late 1970s is a revolution in progress. I call it Muslim spring.

Women in the West’s blind spot

Posted on December 3, 2013 by Mustafa Malik

‘Why does the world ignore violence against Arab women?’ PovertyMatters blog, The Guardian, London (link below). I DON’T THINK “the world,” which essentially means America and Europe, is ignoring the travails of Arab or Muslim women per se. After all, when the Taliban attacked the Pakistani schoolgirl Malala Yusufzai, the West made her an international celebrity...

Let EU rein in Egypt’s military junta

Posted on July 29, 2013 by Mustafa Malik

The Obama administration has become the butt of jokes around the world for playing with words to avoid describing Mursi’s ouster by the military as a coup.

Don’t write Brotherhood off too soon

Posted on July 15, 2013 by Mustafa Malik

(Published in The Daily Star, Lebanon, July 16, 2013) Alejandro Jodorowsy said, “Birds born in a cage think flying is an illness.” The French filmmaker’s remark was resoundingly vindicated by Egypt’s liberal elites. They led massive crowds against President Muhammad Mursi and succeeded in getting the all-too-willing army to overthrow his year-old democratically elected government....