25 Jul Mark Durie on Islam’s Crisis of Apostasy
By Marilyn Stern Mark Durie, Middle East Forum Writing Fellow, and Senior Research Fellow of the Arthur Jeffery Centre for the Study of Islam, spoke to participants in a July 25 Middle East Forum Webinar (video) about the crisis of faith in Islam as disillusioned Muslims...
14 Jun The Hidden History of the Qur’an (video)
The Qur'an tells a 'hidden history' about its own origins, which is different from the conventional account....
20 May Islam, COVID-19, and the Divine Decree
Natural disasters can raise pressing questions for religious believers who believe in a sovereign God. One question which inevitably arises is, “What is God doing in this?” For the almost 2 billion Muslims who make up a quarter of the world’s population, this is an...
07 Jun The Qur’an’s Turn to Violence
The Problem of Peace vs. Violence It is widely recognized that, on the topic of violence, the Qur’an speaks with more than one voice. Some verses speak for peace, and others for war. The conventional explanation is that the difference hinges on the migration of the...
10 Mar Managing Sharia Marriages in Britain
This post first appeared with the Interface Institute. In May 2016 Theresa May, then Home Secretary, commissioned an Independent Review of shariah law in the UK, to inquire whether the activities of British shariah councils, sometimes called shariah courts, are incompatible with British law. Included in the terms of reference was the treatment of women, specifically arrangements for divorce, domestic violence, and children. The Review, led by Mona Siddiqui, Professor of Islamic and Interreligious Studies at Edinburgh University’ Divinity School, was released in February 2019.
06 Mar Ishmael is not the Father of the Arabs
The commonly held view that Ishmael was the father of the Arab nations is not supported by the Bible, nor by other historical evidence.
