The group paraded and traded Syrian and Iraqi girls in 'slave bazaars' before the victims were shipped to other provinces, it was claimed. 'ISIL have institutionalized sexual violence and the brutalization of women as a central aspect of their ideology and operations, using it as a tactic of terrorism to advance their key strategic objectives....

Rafia Zakaria

Just as the terrorism report reveals that girls’ schools are more likely to be targeted for destruction, so the Unesco report reveals that girls are less likely to be educated and less money is spent on their education. Destroying girls’ access to education is a top priority for terrorists — providing that same access is a low priority for the state. Together they create a perfect collusion of ignorance, an insistence that the female remain relegated to a short life of child bearing and illiteracy....

Tufail Ahmad

It is time Saudi Arabia is declared an apartheid state. Recently, US Senator Rand Paul urged a boycott of Saudi Arabia, telling Americans: “Remember when South Africa was misbehaving? We organised a boycott of South Africa. We should be boycotting Saudi Arabia.” Indian diplomats at the UN are too spineless: we should have moral stance on global issues so that our children know where we stand in this world.....

Islam commands kindness, respect and obedience to parents and specifically emphasizes and gives preference to mothers. The command to be good to one’s parents is in the Holy Qur’an. Allah says: “Worship God and join not any partners with Him; and be kind to your parents....

Tariq A. Al-Maeena

It concerns the Rohingya Muslim minority in Myanmar who for the most part have been ignored by the rest of the Muslim world. Researchers from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum recently stated that “conditions in Myanmar are ripe for genocide against the Rohingya Muslim minority and the treatment of Rohingya Muslims could be the prelude to genocide....

The first symptom of this religiosity is the allegations against various party leaders for using mosques and Imambargahs as launching platforms for their political activities. The second symptom is the current unanimous decision of a so-called Jirga (local council) which bars women to vote....

Hussain Nadim

Freedom of speech may be prevalent in the ‘free world’, perhaps, when it comes to criticising religion, but should you dare to say a word against the military and soldiers — bastions of national pride — and the skies fall apart, as can be seen in the case of McIntyre....

These are the people who claim Islam as a fair and just religion, yet make contradicting statements of how a Muslim husband is the rightful owner of his wife’s body. These religious scholars promote kindness and love in Islam....

Not only is terrorism a complex and reviled phenomenon, due to the darkness and bloodiness of its crimes, it also poses a host of other serious and sometimes embarrassing problems for those societies affected by it. One of the first victims of terrorism, aside from the peace and security of the afflicted society, are those of personal freedoms, civil liberties, and human rights....

David Ignatius

Where do I look for hope on this day that marks the 100th anniversary of the Armenian genocide? To the brave Turkish and Armenian human rights activists who have gathered in Istanbul this week to commemorate together the tragic events of 1915 and find a pathway to the future....

Aijaz Zaka Syed

Why do people migrate? Given a choice, who would want to leave the comforting familiarity and security of their homes, loved ones and the land of their birth? And when one does leave, one often does so compelled by extreme circumstance. This is why the act of migration is seen as a great act of courage and sacrifice in Islam. The Prophet (pbuh) was the saddest when he left Makkah for Medina. The distance between the two holy cities may not be much. But the journey that he undertook defined the trajectory of the new faith....

In many of his speeches, Gaddafi declared himself both as an “Islamic socialist” and an “Islamic feminist”—whatever and however those terms mean to him from the point of view of strict political theoretic. “Even the United Nations Human Rights Council praised Gaddafi for his promotion of women’s rights. When the colonel seized power in 1969, few women went to university. Today, more than half of Libya’s university students are women. One of the first laws Gaddafi passed in 1970 was an equal pay for equal work law....

Ramzy Baroud

The Palestinian refugee camp on the outskirts of Damascus, which is overrun by militants, and besieged by the Syrian army? Palestinians — and Syrians — there are killed in a myriad of ways, including starvation. ...

Imtiaz Gul

In 1986, sections 295(b) and 295(c) of the blasphemy laws introduced the additional clause of life imprisonment for Islam-specific blasphemy. Subsequently, in 1991, the Federal Shariat Court struck down the additional clause of life imprisonment in section 295(c), and, instead, made the death penalty mandatory upon conviction under this section....

The Prophet showed confidence, strength, and self-assuredness that allowed him to interact, live, and support those with whom he had theological differences. The greatness of the Prophet was not just fighting for the oppressed, but also fighting for the rights of the other even when he was oppressed....

In September 2014, a 19-year-old woman whom I will call Aisha was celebrating a friend’s wedding in a small village in north-eastern Nigeria when Boko Haram attacked. The fighters killed the groom and many of the male guests....

The conflict will also lead to a decline in the number of children attending school in a country where one million school-aged children were already not receiving an education....

Hira Amin

It is the narrative of embattled 'Christian Europe' under attack by Islamic Shariah Law, and the high birth rate of Muslims. Demonstrations against mosques and minarets throughout Europe are about preserving the 'Christian heritage' of the country....

According to Amnesty International, Saudi Arabia got more repressive under the previous dictator, who just died and was replaced by corrupt billionaire Salman bin Abdulaziz, who stands accused of personally supporting al Qaeda....

Adam Taylor

Saudi Arabia's interpretation of Sharia law has been called "one of the strictest interpretations" of Islamic law in the modern age, but Fahad Nazer, a former political analyst at the Saudi Embassy in Washington, says the Saudi legal system has become a "red line" that the kingdom won't allow criticism to cross....

Zaair Hussain

He was against the use of pre-emptive violence and forced conversions, growing increasingly estranged from the then chief of the Saud in his later years. Nevertheless, it is Saudi Arabia’s main export alongside oil and forms the ideological backbone of almost every single high profile terrorist group in the world, including al Qaeda and Islamic State (IS). ....

...What Islam requires is Muslims upright character and deal justly with the entire human race, irrespective of their ethnicity, nationality, and creed .Islam has addressed the social, racial, gender, and sectarian issues plaguing our global society...

Serkan Demirtas

“As Turkey has very rich and different culture compared to the West, it can bring unique perspectives. Turkey is also a melting point that can bring together all the different nations to Istanbul in 2016,” she said, calling on the Turkish government to push all governments, non-governmental organizations and private sector companies to attend the summit….

Inas Younis, New Age Islam

We need to recognize that the only difference between the  human rights abuses in Saudi Arabia and  those of any other illicit gang is that a criminal does not expect his victims  to sanction his crime with the pretense that he is exercising a right over them.  Delaying lashes,  or decreasing the number of lashes from a thousand  to one hundred are meaningless gestures.   If the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia intends to flog their citizens, behead them, imprison women for driving, and deprive them of sunlight, then let them do it in broad day light so the world can see with greater clarity, just how reprehensible their laws are.  We need to leave them at the mercy of the one billion Badawi's who might one day  be able to do what the most powerful government in the world could not; and that is to say to the kingdom and its monarch- you have no power over us........

Ziauddin Sardar

The psychotic followers of these organisations all think that they are Muslims, and their Islam is based on beliefs that millions who subscribe to Wahhabism, the Saudi version of the religion – and its kin, Salafism – accept as essential ingredients of their faith. For example, that Sharia, or Islamic law, is divinely ordained and immutable; that apostates and blasphemers should be killed; that women should be shrouded and confined to four walls and that men are their guardians. This is a widespread version of Islam, made more so by modern communications; increasingly gaining followers in Europe, it can be, and is, used to justify all manner of atrocities. Yet this is an Islam of manufactured dogma which relies on neither the Quran nor the example of the Prophet Mohamed….