Hero and martyr to some, villain and oppressor to others, reactions to Ali Khamenei’s death mirror deeper fault lines within the Muslim world.
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The fatwa says the October 7 attacks broke Islamic law which forbids harming civilians, including women and children, during war.
Protests over the death in custody of Mahsa Amini have gone global. But in Iran there is a unique version, known as ‘amameh parani’, targeting a garment sacred to Shi’a clerics.
The recent parliamentary election in Iraqi may have been the most transformative of the post-Saddam era, a pollster from Baghdad and an American academic explain.
There have been several attacks on Shia mosques in several parts of the world. At its heart is the centuries’-old sectarian Shia-Sunni divide.
The growing Arab military, political and religious influence is only the latest example of an external force taking hold in the Horn of Africa.
Fallujah has been an icon of Sunni resistance ever since the US bombed it in 2004.
Every time Iran has an election, its minority groups are suddenly the centre of attention – and then they’re quickly forgotten again.
Attempts to build a nation out of Iraq have failed spectacularly. Why is everyone still so intent on keeping it together?
As the Iraqi’s banner assault on Islamic State sputtered, the US stepped in to help – and a third of the ground troops promptly went home.
After overrunning Mosul in June 2014, Islamic State (IS) hastily and brutally occupied soft targets in poorly protected areas of ethnic minorities – the villages of Kurds, Christians, and Yezidis on the…
There are two reasons why we should ignore the growing calls in the United States, Canada and Australia for Western “boots on ground” – meaning ground troops – to fight and destroy the Islamic State (IS…
Islam, like Judaism, is a religion of law. The usual Arabic word for Islamic law is sharia (pronounced shar-ee-ah), originally the track leading to a waterhole in the desert. For Muslims, the morally good…
After the death of Osama Bin Laden in May 2011, the global jihadist movement seemed to have become fragmented and considerably weakened. This happened for various reasons. First, the coincidence of the…
This week Twitter began suspending accounts related to ISIS (Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham). This follows an ISIS fighter reportedly posting the photo of the head of a decapitated Iraqi police major…
The Sunni rebels in Iraq have made further gains, taking control of important border crossings with Syria and Jordan, the Rutba truck-stop on the main road from Baghdad to the Jordan border and two towns…
The capture of most of Mosul, Iraq’s second city, by Islamist paramilitaries has caused shock across the Middle East and in western capitals, especially Washington, but follows a pattern developing over…
Top contributors
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Professor of Peace Studies, University of Bradford
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Adjunct Professor, Case Western Reserve University
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Professor, Soran University
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Lecturer in Languages, Culture and Society, UCL
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Senior Research Fellow, Horn of Africa and Southern Africa, Institute of Commonwealth Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London
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Associate Professor (Senior Lecturer) in Middle East Politics & International Relations at Keele University, Keele University
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President, Soran University
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Honorary Research Associate, Te Kunenga ki Pūrehuroa – Massey University
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Professor of Middle-Eastern and Islamic Studies, Université Toulouse – Jean Jaurès
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Professor of Sociology and Head of the Department of Criminology and Sociology, Middlesex University
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Senior Lecturer in Politics and International Relations (Iran and The Middle East), Australian National University
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Affiliate Researcher, Religion and Civic Culture Center, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences; Bayreuth University
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Senior Lecturer in Security Studies, Te Kunenga ki Pūrehuroa – Massey University
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Lecturer in the Study of Religion, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington
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Senior Lecturer, Department of Sociology and Criminology, City St George's, University of London