The Afghans argue that the Pakistanis have done little since the 9/11 incidents to eliminate terrorist havens and safe spaces inside their country, which the Taliban brazenly uses as sanctuary to mount attacks inside Afghanistan and then return home to Pakistan. But Pakistan continues to demand a position of primacy in the Pakistan-Afghan relationship, citing its front line state status as well as deep ethnic, civilisational and religious links...

This would actually be a good idea to watch al-Qaeda and the Assad’s regime fight each other until they both die. But if they don’t eliminate each other, al-Qaeda fighters will pose a major threat. They may turn back and threaten their countries and the allies of their countries. This is what we have tried in Afghanistan, and this is what Bin Laden did to us…..

Millions of Muslims will, in the next few days, observe the birth and death anniversaries of Fatima Zahra, Prophet Mohammad's daughter. But during this period, the world famous shrine of her daughter, Saiyada Zainab, outside Damascus, holy to millions around the world, will be in grave danger. That remarkable chronicler of London's Independent, Robert Fisk, ascribes the danger to "Salafist mortar fire". But so far the shrine is safe....

According to one interpretation, the July 31, 2009 judgment seems to suggest that all those who aided and abetted the subversion might also be complicit. And that list has some powerful people. To quote MD Taseer, davaar-i-hashr mera naam-i-amal na dekh, is mein kuchh parda nasheenon kay bhi naam atay hain. The murders of Shaheeds Akbar Bugti and BB cannot be allowed to slide.....

In “The Second Arab Awakening: Revolution, Democracy, and the Islamist Challenge from Tunis to Damascus,” Dawisha dates the first Arab awakening to the 1950s and ’60s, when separate groups of military officers—the most famous was Egypt’s Gamal Abdul-Nasser—toppled regimes across the Arab world and sought to achieve the Arab nationalist goal of unity....

How can I buy an ideology of Pakistan that someone with Ayaz Amir’s intellectual calibre is considered to be flouting and someone like Pervez Musharraf is seen to protect? The question I then ask is: do Articles 62 and 63 fully conform to the teachings of the Quran and Sunnah? Anyone against the ideology of Pakistan surely cannot be a patriotic Pakistani but the real issue is: what, after all, is Pakistan’s ideology?...

To claim that this is a dangerous book is the height of absurdity. My personal opinion is that it is rather insipid, has little contemporary relevance, the choice of essays and poems could have been better, and the end of chapter exercises ask for no more than straightforward reproductions. But other than this, it is scarcely worthy of comment.....

The Shias see the rebellion against the Assad regime as a threat to the Shia world and therefore is hell-bent on saving it. As young Shia men and girls from across the neighbouring countries from Iraq, Tunisia, Morocco, Yemen etc are headed towards Syria to fight to save the Shia regime in Syria, the Sunni circles have also been trying hard to mobilize support of Sunnis all around the world. Even Jabhat al Nusrah, an Al Qaida affiliate in Iraq got involved in the war to topple Assad and establish an ‘Islamic state’ there. The desperation reached such a stage that Sunni Salafi clerics also jumped into the fray to buoy up the spirits of the supporters of Free Syrian Army, calling all the Muslims to join the FSA in Syria.

In the Arab countries, the largely Barelvi Pakistani Muslims came into contact with the strain of faith practiced by the Arabs and encouraged by their monarchs. Some call it ‘Wahabism,’ some explain it as being ‘Salafi’ and some describe it as ‘Ahle Hadith.’ All these definitions have separate historical trajectories, but all three do come and settle on a common ground that does not allow any Islamic sect, sub-sect or strain that has anything whatsoever to do with Sufism, shrines or rituals smacking (to them) of heresy and shirk.....

But, shockingly, the largest was a massive rally held in Kolkata on March 30, explicitly against the Shahbag protests and in support of the war criminals already convicted. Various Muslim groups, including the All Bengal Minority Council, the All Bengal Minority Youth Federation, the Madrasa Students Union, the Muslim Think Tank and the All Bengal Imam Muezzin Association, organised the rally.....

Islam is a religion that brings developments. The developments occur through human’s reason that is definitely blessed with the ability to keep moving and growing dynamically. Islam is not a static religion which constantly gives a place for stagnation....

Separated, yet in parallel ways, Pakistan and Bangladesh entered the next phase of the search for sovereign, autonomous Muslim nationalism in South Asia. Due to its ethnic and linguistic homogeneity, Bangladesh does not face the supra-nation-building tasks that face Pakistan. The assertion of the identity and rights of the several nations/sub-nations that exist in Pakistan—belatedly recognised by the 18th Amendment—strengthens rather than weakens Pakistani nationalism....

Analysts have hailed the event as an important milestone in Pakistan's short but turbulent history, which has seen three periods of military rule. But the PPP has been dogged throughout by allegations of corruption and incompetence. Pakistan suffers crippling power shortages and gun and bomb attacks by Taliban and other militants are a near-daily scourge....

After much of the Tirah Valley had fallen to the TTP-LI combine, Sadat Afridi, spokesman of the AI, observed, "We have resisted insurgents for over seven years, but this attack was unusual... There were foreign fighters. Uzbeks, Chechens. Almost 3,000 of them... We ran out of ammunition and other supplies."…

It has now become impossible to introduce a new front beside the fighters who have come from France, Germany, Britain, the US, Australia and the Arab states. There are only two camps in Syria, Assad’s and that of the fighters. As there are around 200,000 fighters, how can we expect those fighting the regime to turn on those who are fighting with them? They will win this war without wondering who the foreign fighters are and what ideology they follow....