The Weaponization of Moderate Islam
FO Live asks if another mass casualty terrorist attack is inevitable. What drives terrorism in the 21st century? And is there a solution to this phenomenon?
In France, Samuel Paty was beheaded on October 16 near Paris. He was a history teacher who had shown caricatures of Prophet Muhammad to his students in a lesson on freedom of speech and freedom of conscience. Paty’s killer, Abdullakh Anzorov, is an 18-year-old of Chechen origin. He arrived in...
Scholars hoping to get an insider and yet critical appraisal of Islamic activism in Europe should take this book as their starting point. No religious minority in the world today has received so much global attention as the Muslims in Europe. From the burkini and burqa ban in France to the...
Pakistan’s focus on external enemies complicates efforts to reduce political violence, ease inter-communal strains and facilitate the easing of tensions with neighboring countries. In August, Pakistan’s military commanders gathered to assess the impact of the massive bombing in Quetta that...
For Saudi Arabia, the chicken is coming home to roost. The Saudi export and global support for religiously driven groups goes far beyond Wahhabism—its own puritan interpretation of Islam—and is not simply a product of the Faustian bargain that the ruling Saud family made with the...
The terrorist attack on an upmarket bakery in Dhaka could herald a more intense phase of Islamist violence in Bangladesh. In the first-ever largescale attack on Dhaka’s diplomatic zone, gunmen stormed Holey Artisan Bakery, an upscale restaurant in the Gulshan neighborhood, on July 1 and held...
Knowingly or unknowingly, we may be supporting and promoting groups like Daesh instead of crippling and destroying them. In the fight against terrorist groups or cults, we should take care not to promote them in any way or to make it easier for them to recruit. Our first line of defense should...
The UK government wants to get tough on fighting extremism, but will the extended approach help or is it a form of McCarthyism? The British government has announced a raft of measures to help fight the war against extremism. It is part of a revised counterterrorism and counter-extremism strategy...
What can history teach us about jihadist groups such as the Islamic State? “No, we must be clear. The root cause of the threat we face is the extremist ideology itself.” British Prime Minister David Cameron’s recent speech in Birmingham represents a direct political intervention in the...
Can writers in Bangladesh depend on the government to protect them? The brutal murder of Avijit Roy, a Bangladeshi-born American writer, shocked many people in his home country. International human rights organizations condemned the killing, and the US government sent FBI agents to the capital...
Returning Indonesian fighters must be provided with a reintegration program and not simply labeled as criminals. With the largest Muslim population in the world, Indonesia's capability in combating extremism has been under scrutiny. Over the last year, there have been growing concerns that...
With growing religious intolerance in Bangladesh, is the country heading for the same path as Pakistan, asks Raza Rumi? The brutal, cowardly murder of freethinker Avijit Roy on the streets of Dhaka is a reflection of embedded intolerance in many Muslim societies. Bangladesh, despite its secular...
The hunt for Jihadi John has cast a spotlight over football as a recruitment tool for jihadists. The United Kingdom’s search for “Jihadi John” — the masked, British-accented fighter who appears in beheading videos of foreigners condemned to death by the Islamic State (IS) — has...
There's a battle coming for the soul of Europe and the far-right is rallying like it's 1099. In the first Crusade, on their way to fight the Muslim infidels in Jerusalem, the armed pilgrims asked themselves a provocative question: Why should we trek so far to kill people we barely know when we...
