Category: Dr. Ahmad’s blog

It seems everyone is asking some version of the question “What happened in Afghanistan?” Of course, what happened is exactly what many predicted from the moment the invasion of that country was announced almost twenty years ago.  While not everyone can be expected to understand the reasons why America’s defeat was a foregone conclusion, everyone,…

The original HAMAS charter, written in 1987 by a single person and adopted in the crush of the first intifada in 1988 without critical scrutiny, has been an embarrassment to HAMAS to the extent that it is still cited by Zionist propagandists years after its replacement in 2017.  The new and official HAMAS charter is…

You have heard reports of an upswing in anti-Semitic (i.e., anti-Jewish) incidents lately, and in any case anti-Semitism was already a serious problem with over half of the religiously based hate crimes in the U.S. being directed against Jews. A concern has been expressed that at a time of rising opposition to Israeli aggression, the…

Manufacturing Counter-mythology [This is a preprint of a book review scheduled for publication in the Molinari Review in May 2021] The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise: Muslims, Christians, and Jews under Islamic Rule in Medieval Spain by Darío Fernández-Morera, Wilmington, DE: ISI Books, 2017, 358 pp., US$29.95. ISBN 161017095-4 (hb). Myths are important. Actual myths…

“THE MEANING OF JERUSALEM THROUGH MY MOTHER’S MEMORIES AND MY FAITH” Imad-ad-Dean Ahmad, Ph.D. Minaret of Freedom Institute Adapted from WHAT JERUSALEM MEANS TO US: MUSLIM PERSPECTIVES AND REFLECTIONS I am a Palestinian-American Muslim. Although I was taken away from it while still in my mother’s womb, Palestine is my motherland in a multi-dimensional sense. My mother…

Jörg Matthias Determann’s Islam, Science Fiction, and Extraterrestrial Life: The Culture of Astrobiology in the Muslim World (New York: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2021). 270pp. Reviewed by Imad-ad-Dean Ahmad, Ph.D. Minaret of Freedom Institute www.minaret.org Anyone susceptible to believing stereotypes depicting the religious views of Muslims as violent variations of Christian fundamentalism would expect a book…

[These are my notes from the National Interest Foundation discussion on Libya’s transitional government and the prospects for December’s elections. These notes summarize my impression of selected highlights of the presentations and are not an attempted transcription. I have paraphrased in the first-person for convenience.] Federica Saini Fasanotti, Brookings Institution. We have good movement on…

[These are my notes from the Muslim World League’s 2nd conference on cultural rapprochement between the United States and the Muslim world held in New York City October 3-4, 2018. These notes summarize my impression of selected highlights of the presentations and are not an attempted transcription.] OPENING SESSION Dr. Abdullah bin Mahfudh Ibn Bayyah.…

[On December 16, 2020, Nonviolence International held a webinar on Jonathan Kuttab’s book Beyond the Two State Solution. The following highlights are lightly edited excerpts transcribed from the YouTube recording of the entire webinar, which readers are encouraged to access here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4zm_VwZPm0&feature=youtu.be] David Hart, Co-Director of Nonviolence International: I am Jewish and was raised being…

[This is a summary of a panel discussion chaired by Dr. Abdullah Baabood, Waseda University on the second day of the 29th National Council on US-Arab Relations Conference held on November 18, 2020. These notes summarize my impression of highlights of the presentation and are not an attempted transcription.] H.E. Dr. Mohamed Al Hassan, Sultanate…