Category: Dr. Ahmad’s blog
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Do “Later” Verses of the Qur’an Abrogate “Earlier” Verses?
I was asked once whether I would state that extremists hew to later Suras of the Qur’an and “ignore all the teachings of love and tolerance that came before that.” The question was repeated to me again recently in the form of whether “sweeter pre-Medina surahs” were “abrogated” by “vengeful later surahs.” As there is…
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Free to Choose Madrasas (A Tribute to Milton Friedman)
Our website now has a copy of my tribute to Nobel prize winning eocnomist Milton Friedman in which I at the application of his ideas on choice and education to the issue of Muslim madrasas. This may seem like an odd pairing of topics. Milton Friedman was an intellectual who championed freedom of choice and,…
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Was the Timing of Saddam’s Execution a Sectarian Declaration of War?
In my previous blog I asked a series of questions about the execution of Saddam Hussein. Judith Latham, an astute member of the media, suggested to me offline that the answer to my question of why Saddam was executed on the Eid-al-Adha was simply that, for the current rulers of Iraq, Dec. 30 was not…
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Reflections on the Execution of Saddam Hussein
I am not among those who shed tears on the execution of the brutal dictator Saddam Hussein. The world is better off without that champion of secularism and socialism who proved his credentials by the wholesale slaughter of religious Muslims and the destruction of freedom of trade in his country. If God treats him as…
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The Feast of the Sacrifice is Also About Life, Liberty, and Love
Eid mubarak sa’id! A blessed and happy “Feast of the Sacrifice†to all. This is the high holy day of Islam. It celebrates Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son for God and God’s mercy in prohibiting human sacrifice and substituting instead the sacrifice of an animal whose flesh is to feed both the celebrants and…
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Muslims Take A Public Stand Against Ahmadinejad’s Denial Of The Holocaust
Judith Jensen of www.educationalsolutions.org asked if I would contribute to her collection of“Muslim Leaders’ Statements Against Iran President’s Conference Denying Nazi Holocaust†(click on “Collected Responses†to see these letters). Here is my contribution: Mr. Ahmadinejad called a conference to question the historical reality of the European mass murder of the Jews in order to…
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The Teachers Also Owe an Apology
A non-Muslim friend sent me a copy of an article in The Australian (“Muslim Boys Urinated on Bibleâ€) that explained how an Islamic school in Australia expelled two boys who desecrated a Bible by urinating on it, spitting on it, and burning some pages. My friend said that he was impressed that school disciplined the…
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Where Are the Defenders of Free Speech and Academic Objectivity?
Attila Yayla is being called a traitor in the Turkish press and has been suspended from his teaching duties at his university all for daring to take an objective look as to just how progressive modern Turkey was under one party rule in its early decades. This attack on our colleague’s freedom of speech is…
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Would Extremists Accept a “Hudna?”
Commenting that Ahmed Yousef’s suggestion in the NY Times for a “hudna” (more than a cease fire, less than a permanent peace treaty) between the Palestinians and the Israelis makes sense, Gordon Johnson asks whether the extremists would be willing to consider it. He quotes a remark by the deposed prime minister of Somalia implying…
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How many Deaths Has the Invasion Caused?
In an interview today with Alex Sarotin of Radio Free Europe I discussed the dispute over The Lancet’s publication of a Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Study that the number of fatalities in Iraq attributable to the war is substantially higher than the 30,000 cited by the Bush administration. The 655,000 number bandied…
