Religious Extremism

Hezbollah Uses Jerusalem to Assert Islamist Leadership

December 14, 2017

Hezbollah is using the U.S. announcement about Jerusalem as the capital of Israel as a moment of opportunity to reposition the militant Shiite Islamist organization as a leader of revolutionary Islamism and expanded its call to resist the US and Israel to include all ethnic and religious communities in the Levant.
Turkey Moves Ahead with Islamization of Hagia Sophia Cathedral

December 14, 2017

Members of Turkey's ruling Islamist government, the Justice and Development Party (AKP), are moving forward with the Islamization of the great Byzantine Cathedral of the Hagia Sophia, calling for the immediate and full use of the site as a mosque, in retaliation for last week’s decision by the United States to recognize Jerusalem as the undivided capital of Israel.
Pakistan Islamists Refuse to End Blasphemy Blockade

November 28, 2017

The followers of the militant Tehreek-i-Labaik Ya Rasool Allah Party in Pakistan have refused to end their blockade of the country's capital city until Pakistan's Law Minister is ousted for "blasphemy" because of a new electoral oath of office omitting a reference to Islam’s Prophet Muhammad.
Erdogan Condemns West for Indifference to Muslims

November 27, 2017

Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan condemned the West for "Islamophobia, neo-Nazism, and racism" at an economic and trade summit of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), charging that Western governments are indifferent to humanitarian crises affecting Muslims.
Report Points to Child Sex Abuse in Pakistan Madrassas

November 27, 2017

An investigative report on conditions in Pakistan’s Islamic madrassas, the parochial schools that educate approximately two million children in the country, has found evidence of pervasive sexual abuse of children and almost no reporting and prosecution of perpetrators because of widespread fears of violent reprisals from Islamist clerics and radical Islamist organizations.
US Faces Complications from Islamist Infighting in Turkey

November 20, 2017

The intense infighting between Turkey’s Islamist government and the alternative Islamist Gulenist grassroots continues to complicate the relations between the US and Turkey, as Ankara has accused the US of ignoring the Gulenists' "penetration of the American justice system" and of the US consulate in Istanbul.
Saudi Rebranding of Islam Ignores Problem of Islamism

November 20, 2017

As Saudi Arabia promotes the kingdom’s new King Salman Complex for Islamic Scholarship to rebrand Islam as moderate and anti-violence, skeptics charge that continuing state finance and control over the Center’s scholars and output means Wahhabi thought and other forms of extremist Islamist will remain unchallenged and, therefore, pervasive.
Mideast Geopolitical Realignment Centers on Competing Islamisms

November 20, 2017

The realignment of Mideast geopolitics underway since the formation of the anti-Qatar quartet of Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, and Egypt turns on the competing Islamisms of the region's two main Islamist theocracies, Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shiite Iran.
Turkish Law Permits Muslim Clerics to Conduct Civil Marriages

November 20, 2017

The Islamization of law and society continues under Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party, with the passage of a new law that gives Muslim clerics the right to perform civil marriages in Turkey, as human rights groups warn the law will create the possibility of polygamy and child brides in accordance with conservative Islamist interpretations.
Pakistani Islamists Protest Amended Election Oath

November 15, 2017

One of Pakistan’s hardline Islamist parties, the Tehrik-e-Labaik, or Movement of the Prophet’s Followers, flexed their strength with a demonstration that led government officials to close down highway travel into the country’s capital city, as protesters condemned as blasphemous to Islam’s prophet Mohammed a minor change in language to the oath of office for elected officials.