This Blog is intended for use by students in the Islamic Middle East course at Northfield Mount Hermon School and guest students and teachers from other participating schools.
The book: Charles Ferguson, No End In Sight: Iraq’s Descent into Chaos (Public Affairs, 2008).
Barry Gewen reviews the book (from the New York Times Book Review):
Go to review
Website for the book: contains interviews with many of the individuals seen in the film and discussed in the book.
Ferguson made an award winning film on the Iraq [...]
The annual meeting of the Arab League (currently underway in Damascus ) has confirmed and sharpened divisions in the Arab world between a pro-Western “axis” and an Iranian one.
Story from BBC
More on the “proxy war” being fought inside the Arab world
Armed forces of the Shiite controlled central government of Iraq’s Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki have been battling rival Shiite militias in Basra, Baghdad, and a number of other predominantly Shiite cities this past week. The main rival Shiite parties are:
1. The Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (formerly known as SCIRI - Supreme Council of the [...]
In Saudi Arabia, a country where conversion from Islam to another religion could land you the death penalty, where non-Muslim worship is outlawed, and where even some Muslim sects (Sufis and Shiites, for example) are discriminated against, King Abdullah has called for dialogue between members of the world’s monotheistic religions.
Story from the Associated Press
See also
Five former American Secretaries of State (Kissinger, Christopher, Baker, Albright, and Powell) are urging the next U.S. president to close the Guantanamo Bay prison and start talks with Iran. Kissinger branded Guantanamo “a blot on us.”
Greg Bluestein, “Close Guantanamo, Open Talks with Iran,” Associated Press, March 27, 2008
See Jane Perlez, “Pakistanis Signal Shift in Relationship with U.S.,” New York Times, Mar. 26, 2008, A7.
Read the article.
Sharla Musabih, an American-born Emirati, is fighting a lonely battle to raise human rights of women in the United Arab Emirites. She takes care of women who are seeking refuges away from violent husbands and foreign prostitutes who are eager to go back to their home countries. Her radical approaches, such as interviews with foreign [...]
Per our review work in class today with Wright chp. 15 and the videos of Hitchens and Lewis, I direct your attention to a page from our course website entitled “Readings For Discussions of the World After 9/11.” This page is linked to the Wright Study Guide.
Excerpts from the dialogue in print that took place [...]
In Rome yesterday - Easter Sunday, March 23, 2008 - Pope Benedict XVI baptized Muslim newspaper editor Magdi Allam into the Roman Catholic Church. This was not the first instance of Benedict at the center of challenges to the Muslim world — more.
story at BBC
reaction in the Muslim world — also BBC
See a review by Yale Professor Amy Chua of a new book by Anthony Pagden, Worlds at War: The 2,500 Year struggle Between East and West in today’s New York Times Book Review. She notes that the book is more likely to appeal to fans of Samuel Huntington’s “clash of civilizations” thesis than to fans [...]
BBC Middle East