The discovery of a rare aerial photo of Jerusalem in the 1930s, taken by a Zeppelin, has provided the long-sought after proof that when Israel occupied the Old City in 1967 it secretly destroyed an important mosque that dated from the time of Saladin close to the al-Aqsa mosque. The destruction of the Sheikh Eid …
Continue reading Israeli Eradication of History: Disappearing Mosques
An impending Russian-backed Syrian assault on Idlib, the war-wracked country’s last rebel stronghold, risks putting Uyghurs in the spotlight at a time that the Muslim world has remained silent amid mounting media and academic attention on China’s crackdown on the ethnic Turkic group in its strategic north-western province of Xinjiang. Spotlighting Uyghur activism in Turkey …
Continue reading The Battle for Idlib: A Potential Catch-22 for China
How it happened The Dutch parliamentarian Geert Wilders like many European politicians is opposed to mass migration but unlike most of his counterparts who see the issue in terms of European security, for Wilders, the migration issue is part of a wider battle against Islam which he claims is incompatible with European society. Even still, …
China appears to be shifting gears in its multi-billion dollar Belt and Road initiative. Long projected as driven by economics and the benefit of infrastructure linkages, China appears to be increasingly adding a security component to the initiative against the backdrop of President Xi Jinping positioning of his country as a superpower rather than a …
Continue reading Securing Xinjiang: China Adds Security Component to Belt and Road Initiative
Chinese efforts to woo Saudi Arabia’s ethnic Chinese community highlight the People’s Republic’s effort to avert criticism from the Muslim world of its crackdown in the north-western province of Xinjiang and strengthen relations with the kingdom and Middle Eastern nations. The efforts to woo a community, a significant part of which is of Turkic origin, …
Continue reading Xinjiang: Pan-Turkism Fuels China’s Hearts-and-Minds Campaign
A Chinese campaign to forcibly assimilate ethnic Uyghurs in its north-western province of Xinjiang in a bid to erase nationalist sentiment, counter militancy, and create an ‘Uyghur Islam with Chinese characteristics’ ignores lessons learnt not only from recent Chinese history but also the experience of others. The campaign, reminiscent of failed attempts to undermine Uyghur …
Continue reading Xinjiang: China Ignores Lessons From the Past
A United Arab Emirates-backed Saudi effort to wrest control from Jordan of Islam’s holy places in Jerusalem signals a sharper, more overt edge to Saudi religious diplomacy and the kingdom’s quest for regional hegemony that risks deepening divides in the Muslim world. The effort also serves to support Donald J. Trump’s plan for a resolution …
Continue reading Saudi Religious Diplomacy Targets Jerusalem
The minute you set foot in the streets of Mashhad, the air smelling of saffron, a fine breeze oozing from the mountains, it hits you; you’re in the heart of the Ancient Silk Road and the New Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). To the east, the Afghan border is only three hours away on an …
Continue reading Iran Diary: Bracing for All-Out Economic War
The peace process in Korea which has thus far had more successes than setbacks, has led to many questioning whether a similar peace process could be applied to the longstanding disputes between Pakistan and India. While any suggestion of the possibility of peace is necessarily a hopeful discussion to those living in zones of historic …
Continue reading The Korean Peace Process Cannot Be Applied to Pakistan and India
