Why did he do it? Hadi Matar, 24 — dim, lugubrious, incel-y — had by his own admission “read, like, two pages” of The Satanic Verses. Judging by his slacker patter, one wonders whether he fully understood them. Yet there …
Will Tower Hamlets follow Rochdale?
The Palestinians flags come in clusters. They may dominate entire streets, hanging high on lampposts out of the reach of a stepladder should anyone be tempted to take them down. Or they gather outside shops, communal buildings and particularly around …
How Islamophobic is Lee Anderson?
Sometime during the late 20th century, the Irish Republican movement decided to align itself with the Palestinian cause in an attempt to build — as they saw it — a kind of global anti-colonial alliance. In response, the Loyalist movement …
Islamism is exploiting Britain’s political vacuum
Way back in 2005, when I was an MP in the Netherlands, my party was strategising about the upcoming local elections. I belonged to the centre-right VVD, and we were particularly concerned about appealing to the nation’s growing migrant community. …
Is Iran sexually repressed?
We tend to associate Iran with repressive morality police hunting down women for wearing loose hijabs. We think of 22-year-old Jina Mahsa Amini, who died in police custody a year ago after being caught wearing an “improper” headscarf — and …
Hamas and the Houthis have emboldened Isis
While the public’s focus on non-state actor threats is shifting to military action against the Houthis, a resurgent Islamic State (Isis) threat abroad and within the West continues to fester. Three days into 2024, the Islamic State reminded the world …
Blasphemy laws have returned to Denmark
Towards the end of Christopher Marlowe’s play Tamburlaine Part Two, our marauding anti-hero burns a copy of the Quran, along with other Islamic books, as a kind of audacious test. “Now, Mahomet,” he cries, “if thou have any power, come …
Hamas has unleashed the West’s monsters
We live in an apocalyptic moment, when something truly hideous, long hidden just beneath the surface of everyday life, is breaking forth from the ground. The torture, rape, massacre, and kidnapping of roughly 1,200 Israelis on October 7 was only …
Why I am now a Christian
In 2002, I discovered a 1927 lecture by Bertrand Russell entitled “Why I am Not a Christian”. It did not cross my mind, as I read it, that one day, nearly a century after he delivered it to the South …
Violence stalks Gaza through history
Where does the story of Gaza begin? In this region, history — or histories, given that here there is no such thing as a singular history — is serially and violently contested. “Anyone who tells a story knows that most …
Terror is exposing France’s failed state
It is characteristic of France’s self-absorption that what started as a national sense of outrage at the latest Islamist killing on our soil soon evolved into a bitter scuffle between present and past tough-talking Home Secretaries. Last Friday, Dominique Bernard, …
Immigration is religion’s only hope
When my father was going through the process of becoming an Elder in the United Methodist Church, he was required to take courses on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. One course involved a presentation on how white people needed to make …
Why Sweden tolerates Quran burning
Sweden has long been a country known for its commitment to tolerance and its embrace of human rights: a “moral superpower” devoted to foreign aid, progressive causes and support of developing nations. All the more surprising, then, that Sweden now …
The impossible truth about Afghanistan
In “The Impossible Fact”, the 20th-century German poet Christian Morgenstern tells the story of an academic who undergoes a traumatising experience. He staggers home, wraps damp cloths around his forehead and collapses into his armchair to process what has happened. …
A new blasphemy battle is coming
Last summer, Sir Salman Rushdie told a German magazine that some normality was finally returning to his life. Two weeks later, he was stabbed multiple times on stage in New York. The incident was a cruel reminder that, despite all …
