6 July 2021
The prevailing Western discourses about Syria are fundamentally flawed, and should be discarded in favor of "new, emancipatory" alternatives, writes Yassin al-Haj Saleh.
islamism
The “crisis of Islam” lies not only in the violent extremist minority, but in a more widespread rejection by mainstream Muslims of the principles of equality, tolerance, and free expression, argues Abdul-Wahab Kayyali in response to Farouk Mardam Bey, Ziad Majed, and Yassin al-Haj Saleh.
President Macron isn't wrong to say Islam is in "crisis," but the crisis cannot be separated from the tyranny and violence inflicted on Syria, Iraq, and elsewhere in recent years, argue Farouk Mardam Bey, Ziad Majed, and Yassin al-Haj Saleh.
Thousands of children have been born in Syria in recent years to foreign jihadist fighters, and live now in legal limbo, deprived of civil rights and shunned by society, finds Mustafa Abu Shams in this award-nominated investigation.
Using videos of Western-style parties in Syria, the Assad regime has sought to portray itself as a defender of liberal modernity against benighted "terrorist" opponents. Yet these crude and dishonest propaganda efforts only underscore the oppression at the heart of Assad's state, writes Robin Jones.
Islamic feminism, Tunisian LGBT rights, African-Arab relations, and the troubled history of North African Jewry are just some of the ground covered in this interview with Tunisian-French historian and feminist author Sophie Bessis.
In her second piece for Al-Jumhuriya Fellowship for Young Writers, Lama Rajeh discusses Al-Qubaysiat Sisterhood, drawing on her own experience with the group at an earlier stage in her life.
Yassin al-Haj Saleh explores the emergence of the Islamic State and its three main layers of identity and formation, from Afghanistan, to Iraq and eventually, Syria.