By Anwaar Hussain Meerwala is a small, dusty village in the mostly rural Muzaffargarh District in the south of Punjab province of Pakistan. This small, nondescript village has produced a personality whose name has been reverberating across the globe for some years now. The name of this person is Mukhtaran Bibi (also known as Mukhtar [...]

By Fred Reed I find a loutish American general, James Mattis, martial feminist, talking about the fun he has killing Afghans. Yes, fun, wheeee-oooo! and ooo-rah! too. He says, “You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn’t wear a veil,” adding “guys like that ain’t got [...]

By Anwaar Hussain The text books that are taught to Pakistani children recount exploits of numerous past Muslim heroes in them. Standing tall amongst these heroes is one Arab by the name of Muhammad bin Qasim, born on 31 December 695 in the city of Taif in modern day Saudi Arabia. Following are just some [...]

By Irfan Husain THIS year will see a large number of celebrations at campuses and scientific institutions around the world to mark the 200th year of the birth of Charles Darwin, and the 150th year of the publication of his seminal work. Widely regarded as one of the three most influential thinkers of the 19th [...]

Chicago circle nurtured him all the way to the top By Tom Hundley   Writer Toni Morrison famously dubbed Bill Clinton “the first black president”-a title he fervently embraced. Abner Mikva, the Chicago Democratic Party stalwart and former Clinton White House counsel, offers a variation on that theme. “If Clinton was our first black president, [...]

The Bin Ladens: The Story of a Family and Its Fortune by Steve Coll   By Robert Vitalis* Steve Coll’s book tells two stories: a big one about how the bin Laden family cashed in on the oil bonanza in Saudi Arabia, and a smaller one about Osama’s role in the family business before he [...]

By Vincent Bevins Cajoled for years to take on Western-style economic liberalism there’s more than a wry smile on the faces of some of South America’s left wing leaders as George Bush and others step in to save collapsing financial institutions, writes Vincent Bevins The irony has not been lost on the political leaders of [...]