Mark Durie
Tony Blair delivered a major speech on April 23 entitled, “Why the Middle East Matters”. In summary, he argued that the Middle East, far from being a “vast unfathomable mess” is deep in the throes of a multi-faceted struggle between a specific religious ideology on...
Western nations are facing what has been called an “epidemic” of forced marriages of their young Muslim women. While those who compel young Muslim women and girls into marriages could be charged with human trafficking offences and also in some cases placed on the national...
Recent reports of under-age marriages in Australia are evidence that the authorities need to do more to enforce marriage laws in Western nations, and to restrict the practice of unregistered ‘clandestine’ religious marriages, particularly Islamic marriages. Two cases recently came to public attention of NSW girls...
In What Went Wrong, Bernard Lewis charted the decline of Islam in the modern era and the resulting theological crisis for the Muslim world. Now Islam is going through a second crisis, caused by the repeated failures of revivalist responses to the first crisis. This second...
Andrew Brown of the Guardian has commented on my response to A Guide to Refuting Jihadism, which was published on my blog, and also on Lapido Media. Brown writes: Can you dissuade fanatical jihadis using theological argument? by Andrew Brown (as revised on Feb 10, 2014) It doesn't really...
The Henry Jackson Society had just launched a guide to rejecting jihadi theologies in Islam, A Guide to Refuting Jihadism by Rashad Ali and Hannah Stuart. There are also forewords by two Sheikhs, including one from Al-Azhar University, and endorsements from other Muslim leaders. Although...
Introduction The Abrahamic Fallacy is the belief that Abraham is a figure of unity for Islam, Christianity and Judaism. The phrase “Abrahamic Religions” has become very popular as a cover-term for these three faiths. It is particularly popular among Jewish and Christian progressives on the one hand,...
On May 27, 2013, Paul Sheehan published a piece "Twisting Islam to Justify Cruelty" calling for a conversation about radical Islamic theology and its Koranic foundations. Associate Professor Mohamnmad Abdalla responsed with "Critical opinion of Islam ignores the fundamental truths", however his response was littered...