Recent political events that have swept across the Islamic world have fundamental implications for the most basic principles of political Islam. Some speak of a new wave of Islamic modernism in the Arab world. Meanwhile another Islamic context, Iran, is the setting for nothing less than an ideolog
Decades of corrupt and authoritarian governments in the region which brutally suppressed both secular opposition and moderate Islamists have created the breeding ground for a more nihilist ideology.
As violence in Iraq threatens to overshadow nuclear talks between the US and Iran, we must avoid the tendency to rely on simplistic binaries, and instead recognize the linkages between these challenging dynamics to encourage cooperation.
It is surely not overly pessimistic to anticipate tension between Kurd and Sunni Arab in the months and years to come, almost regardless of the outcome of the current fighting. But Kurds are looking like much the best sort of neighbour in this desperate region.
Desperate not to let the Assad regime fall, Tehran continues to support and strengthen connections with its ally in Damascus. What unites them in this alliance?
As a character Sepideh knows what she wants. She does not care for the manacles of custom or anything that may distract her from her true love, the Night Sky. Film review.
Internally, Sistani’s words directly addressed the fractured Iraqi political class. They are helping reunite Iraq’s dithering Shi’a factions under the strategic priority of fighting terrorism, and boosting moderate Sunnis.
A new social trend in the Islamic Republic of Iran seems to target not only state-sponsored religious norms of rectitude and morality, but also the very defining principles of the Iranian social order.
Film can illuminate what it is to be a misfit in society, with all the anxieties that this position entails. Is it a perspective or a reality? Iranian film answers that it must be both. Film essay.
Much has happened in the Middle East in the last four years, but in Europe, the development of the state and of democracy took four centuries and many wars.
Cautious conciliatory overtures between Riyadh and Tehran indicate that the realities of the regional power balance might outweigh long-standing hostilities.
No amount of US "pivoting" can prevent the emergence of a multipolar, multi-powered world along a Eurasian axis that challenges western neoliberal hegemoy.
