Top Egyptian Cleric Campaigns to Remove "Islamic" from Media Reports on IS/ISIS

September 03, 2014

Egypt's top Islamic cleric has launched a social media campaign to press global media outlets to expunge the word "Islamic" in reportage on the Islamist extremist group IS/ISIS (the Islamic State), arguing that, because the group has an "incorrect understanding of Islam and jihad," characterizing them as Islamic risks spreading stereotypes about Muslims and their faith.

Six British Muslim Clerics Issue Fatwa Condemning ISIS

September 03, 2014

In response to growing international criticism about the failure of Muslim religious leaders to condemn the violent extremism of IS (The Islamic State), six British Muslim clerics issued a fatwa, or religious declaration, describing ISIS as heretical, prohibiting British Muslims from joining ISIS.

Women Are Disproportionately Affected by Jihadi Violence and Extremist Oppression

By Mariz Tadros

August 20, 2014

The political expansion of jihadi groups and extremist Islamist movements has had a disproportionately deleterious effect on the human rights and physical security of Muslim and non-Muslim women from across the Greater Middle East, according to reports from regional experts on gender and religious radicalism.

Radical Islamists Carry out More Child Abductions in Nigeria

August 20, 2014

The Islamist extremist group Boko Haram, which aims to make Nigeria a sharia state, has staged a mass abduction of young men in a northeast Nigerian village, four months after the group's mass kidnapping of 200-plus Nigerian schoolgirls.

Islamist Cleansing of Iraq's Religious Minorities Provokes Debates on Protection Options

August 13, 2014

The unrelenting assault by the jihadi Islamists – the Islamic State, formerly known as ISIS – against Iraq's ancient Christian and Yazidi minority communities has provoked a broad debate about when and how to carry out humanitarian intervention under the doctrine of "responsibility to protect."

Arab Spring Reform Hopes a Distant Memory

August 06, 2014

A Guardian report indicates that hopes of political liberalization and tolerance for pluralism that accompanied the Arab Spring events in the Middle East and North Africa have been erased by the emergence of a regional political map dominated by secular military autocrats, Islamist militant-extremists, Islamist theocratic hardliners, and renewed Israeli-Palestinian violence.

Islamic State Continues Jihadi Cleansing of Iraq's Religious Minorities

August 06, 2014

Forces from the Islamic State (the caliphate established in territory cutting across the Iraqi-Syrian border) continue their jihad against Iraq's non-Muslim religious minorities, expanding the cleansing perpetrated against Assyrian Christians to the small Yazidi communities of northwestern Iraq, with a series of convert-or-be-killed attacks against that ancient, pre-Christian, monotheistic community.

Islamist Militants Consolidating Terror Caliphate in Iraq

August 06, 2014

Leaders of the Islamic State, the caliphate established by the Islamist extremist group formerly known as ISIS, are consolidating a terror state in a Iraqi territory, forcing Muslim women to fully veil and stop working, imposing convert-pay-flee options on Christians, destroying non-Sunni religious sites, and using violence to punish any Iraqis who object to the new Islamist order.

Arab Gulf States Still at Odds over Muslim Brotherhood and Islamist Violence

August 06, 2014

Despite recent signals that Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Qatar are interested in repairing this past Spring's formal diplomatic rupture within the Gulf Cooperation Council (“GCC”) over counter-terrorism and security strategy, the United Arab Emirates (“UAE”) continues to balk at Qatar's support for the Muslim Brotherhood, which Abu Dhabi views as tacit support for Islamist violence and a deal-breaker for efforts to advance GCC integration.

Turkey's Islamist Leaders Condemn Laughter for Women

August 04, 2014

Turkey's Deputy Prime Minister and a key ideologue in the country's Islamist governing party has provoked a massive Twitter outburst mocking his calls for women to stop laughing in public, part of his broader recommendations for Islam-based gender norms in Turkey.