A Blog about Middle Eastern & North African Politics, Society and Culture
I entered Najiyeh, a small town of no consequence, without their permission. The town claimed to be an ISIS principality. The claim seemed ridiculous but as we drove in to the town it seemed less so. They had fixed the prices, the markets were bustling, even the gold shops were… Read more“Paradise Lost: The Rise and Fall of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi”
What follows is Part II of an interview about the Sharia with Al-Maqalaat by Tam Hussein @tamhussein. Part I can be found here The Dawn of Islamic Theocracy: Monumental Sacrifice for Consistent Stability. Background Context of this discourse began when the interviewer tweeted an interesting article, Stoning and Hand Cutting-… Read more“Fading contrasts in the future of global Jihadism: Military strength driven by perceptive tolerance”
The Afghan Jihad: An Annotated Interview with Musa al-Qarni about Abdullah Azzam and Ahmed Shah Massoud and the tension with the ‘Afghan Arabs’ In my research into the Arab Afghans I came across this interview which I thought I would share here. This article is important because it shows how… Read more“Musa al-Qarni on the Afghan Jihad”
After the death of the Prophet Muhammed the early Muslim community became acutely aware of the need to preserve their Prophet’s legacy. This idea of preserving revelation became even more pressing as the nascent Islamicate expanded. Memorisation was not enough since new converts to the faith did not have the… Read more“When Arabic and Hebrew Irregulars Worked Together”
In an important new book Durham University fellow Christopher M. Davidson, author of many books on the Gulf, sets out to explain why despite all the modernising forces that has transformed the Gulf kingdoms, the royal dynasties have still survived. He argues that their continued existence can be explained… Read more“A Crisis Waiting to Happen: Book Review of Christopher M. Davidson’s ‘After the Sheikhs’”
By @tamhussein Recently, Anjem Choudhary, 49, and Mizanur Rahman, 33, were imprisoned for their active support of the Islamic State. Choudhary’s imprisonment ends, for a small period at least, his decade plus history of agitation in the UK. Whilst the British press lapped up his colourful and extreme pronouncements, his… Read more“Prison Radicalisation: Dealing with Muslim Inmates with Terror Convictions”
An interview about the Sharia with Al-Maqalaat @AMaqal by Tam Hussein @tamhussein Background Context of this discourse began when the interviewer tweeted an interesting article, Stoning and Hand Cutting- Understanding the Hudud and the Shariah in Islam, by Jonathan Brown @jonathanACBrown, Associate Professor and Chair of Islamic Civilization at Georgetown University. Al-Maqālāt… Read more“The Dawn of Islamic Theocracy: Monumental Sacrifices for Consistent Stability”
By Tam Hussein @tamhussein The Arabs at War in Afghanistan questions the foundational myths of the Afghan Jihad which touched a generation of Muslim men growing up in the 90s. It is told by one of the earliest Afghan Arabs, Mustafa Hamid who joined the warlord Jalaluddin Haqqani against the… Read more“The Arabs at War in Afghanistan: From the Cradle of the Jalalabad School of Jihad to Syria and Iraq”
Mr. Fathi Warfali is one of Libya’s earliest and youngest political activists and hails from a pedigreed religious and scholarly family from Bani Walid. At sixteen he joined the nascent Islamic movement in Libya. Despite being a committed democrat he decided like many of his generation to join the Mujahideen… Read more“Fathi Warfali: A Democrat who Sought Martyrdom in the Fields of Afghanistan.”
Here begins a series of interviews and dialogues with al-Maqālāt who describes himself as “an independent media outlet”. He tweets under @Al_Maqal_Ps. The reader will find that the interviewees attitudes and views are useful because he encapsulates a certain outlook which serves as a useful barometer for how some Salafi-Jihadists… Read more“The Human Nature of Jihadism- an interview with al-Maqālāt”
Tourists and bohemians love rummaging through the stalls on Portobello Road with its shimmering trinkets and shaggy clothes fit for an art student. To the locals it’s a “joke ting” , a skank to bring tourists from all over the world to sample the latest authentic “efnik” fad. Down the road on… Read more“What happened to ‘Man like Fatlum?’: The inside Story of the British Suicide Bomber of Ramadi”