Religious Extremism

Muslim Religious Leaders Begin to Consider Islamist Sectarian Violence

January 16, 2015

In a move suggesting recognition of the spreading social disorder and state failures provoked by sectarian violence in Islam, several leading Muslim religious figures, including the Grand Imam of Egypt's Al-Azhar University, considered the center of Sunni learning, and prominent Imams in Iran, the epicenter of Shiite theology, have issued religious rulings prohibiting sectarian insults.
Saudi Arabia Publicly Flogs Journalist as Islamic Punishment for Free Speech

January 14, 2015

A well-known blogger and rights activist was publicly flogged today in Saudi Arabia, as punishment for "insulting Islam and promoting apostasy," crimes according to the country's Sunni Wahhabi religious establishment.
Islamist Nationalism Driving Turkey's Domestic and Foreign Policies

January 14, 2015

The mix of neo-Ottoman expansionism and Islamist authoritarianism evident in Turkey's government is fueling nationalism in the country's domestic and foreign policies.
UN and U.S. Leadership Responses to Islamist Extremist Attacks in Paris Could Weaken Free Speech

January 14, 2015

The self-censorship displayed by international leaders - including the President of the United States, the Secretary General of the United Nations ("UN"), and other senior UN officials - who did not mention extremist or radical Islam in condemning the perpetrators of this past week's Paris attacks by individuals who declared their commitment to violent Islamist groups, may be a slippery slope to accepting the logic of Islamic blasphemy laws that corrode free speech protections in international politics.
Saudi Succession Raises Questions about Political Reform vs. Islamism in the Kingdom

January 14, 2015

Succession prospects raised by the declining health of Saudi King Abdullah are amplifying debates within the country's ruling class about how to balance the pace and scope of necessary political reform and liberalization against conservatizing pressures from Islamist jihadi groups and the country's Wahhabi fundamentalist religious establishment.
Turkish Islamists Rolling Back Gender Rights

January 07, 2015

Turkey's Islamist (“AKP”) government and leading civil society supporters continue to politicize gender rights in the country, recently calling on women to avoid higher education in Europe, issuing a religious ruling against men watching female T.V. newscasters, and also equating birth control with treason, all part of the expanding effort to roll back the expansion in gender rights that had helped bring AKP to power over a decade ago.
Radical Islamists in Mideast and Africa Fuse Literalist Theology and Media to Endorse Rape and Enslavement of Women

January 02, 2015

The last quarter of 2014 saw The Islamic State ("IS") in the Mideast using a range of social media and propaganda tools to articulate a literalist interpretation of Islam and medieval rules of warfare, in order to justify the systematic rape and enslavement of women and girls, an approach replicated by Islamist extremists in Africa.
Turkey and Hamas Leaderships Demonstrate United Front of Islamist Radicals

January 02, 2015

A recent address by Hamas Chief Khaled Meshaal to the Annual Congress of Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party ("AKP") highlighted the shared Hamas-AKP platforms on Israel and Syria and lauded Turkey as a "source of power for a Muslims."
ISIS Manual on Slavery and Rape Draws Criticism for Use of Sharia

January 02, 2015

The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria ("ISIS") has distributed a color manual, "Question and Answers on Female Slaves and their Freedom," detailing conditions for slavery and rape of non-Muslim captives in the areas of Iraq controlled by the violent extremist group, drawing criticism from some experts who condemn ISIS' interpretation of Islamic law as a distortion.
Saudi Arabia Looks to Sharia to Justify Medieval Criminal Sentences

January 02, 2015

Saudi Arabia's criminal code and judiciary continue to rely on Islamic law to justify beheadings, limb amputations, and floggings as punishments of choice for a wide range of crimes, ranging from apostasy to public dissent against government policies, and the Kingdom's new anti-terrorism law will extend those Sharia-based punishments to thought crimes and "disloyalty to the country's rulers."