Pakistan, Iran and Saudi Arabia all punish blasphemy harshly – even with death. Such laws have political as well as religious motives, says a scholar on Islamism: They’re a tool for crushing dissent.
A few years ago, Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood and Turkey’s Gulenists were running the show. Now both religious movements face political repression. How did they fall so far, so fast?
Political Islam utilises Indonesia’s democracy to pursue its ideals, changing the democratic landscape. Attempts to exclude the movement from democracy are counterproductive. What to do?
Democracy did not fail in the Maldives because it clashed with Islam. Instead, a privileged and powerful elite helped topple the elected government, and nations that advocate democratic ideals did little to stop them.
The tradition of freedom of expression on religious matters is not quite so venerable as many seem to imagine in the outcry at the killing of Charlie Hebdo journalists and cartoonists in Paris. While modern…