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Turkey is arguably the most dynamic experiment with political Islam in the Muslim World. The rise of political Islam in Turkey was in large part a reaction to the modern state after the Ottoman Empire collapsed in the aftermath of World War I. Since the 1920’s, the birth of the Turkish Republic’s official ideology has been Kemalism, which grew out of a secular view conceived by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the Turkish Republic. Kemalism used a top down approach to modernize Turkey. Despite massive reforms, secular Kemalism could not infiltrate the Anatolian Turks, the Kurdish society at large.  Continue reading →

The decades of global war on terror have failed. The West’s and the United States’ counterterrorism policies have raised both political and ideological questions. The logic behind the war on terrorism was to eradicate terrorism; however, we see an arc of terror stretching from Africa to Asia, the Middle East, Russia, Europe and beyond. Today what we see around the world is a global explosion of terrorism and a historically unprecedented breakdown of law and order especially in Iraq and in Syria. Continue reading →

  Israel and Hamas have been fighting since shortly after Hamas was founded in 1987, and since then they have fought several times.  The current war began on the West Bank on June 10th with the kidnapping of three Israeli students, who were subsequently found dead. Israel blamed Hamas and arrested several Hamas members. Israel then hit the Gaza with airstrikes, and Palestinian militant groups fired back rockets into Israel.

Hamas, an Islamist political faction, took control of Gaza in 2007, splitting the Palestinian leadership Fatah, a more moderate political party that controlled the West Bank. Recently, a Palestinian boy in Jerusalem was killed, allegedly by Israel extremists for taking revenge for the murder of the students; consequently, Israel put many Palestinians in jail where they were purportedly beaten and tortured. Continue reading →

The month of Ramadan for Muslims is supposed to have very positive effects on their souls. The month of Ramadan for Muslims it supposed to be about self evaluation and self discipline; it is supposed to be about praying more, acting better, behaving more morally, thinking deeper, and making the devotees ponder more spiritual matters than they did before. During the month of Ramadan they are supposed to feel closer to Allah; they are not supposed to lie, cheat, curse, kill, or steal; Muslims are supposed to avoid anything that is against Allah’s approval. That is why for Muslims the month of Ramadan is better than a thousand months, because they believe that during the night of Qadr the Quran was sent down to guide all Muslims. Therefore, the month of Ramadan should be about blessings; it is supposed to be a sacred month for all Muslims; the Muslims around the world are supposed to unite, reconciling and putting aside their differences and resentments from the past; it is supposed to be about peace, happiness, and the welfare of all Muslims. Continue reading →

  What would the world look like without America? Most of us would speak Russian, German, Chinese or Arabic. Either our world would be under Communist, Nazi, or Islamic Khalifa rule. Denish D’Souza wrote a very interesting book called America: Imagine a World Without Her. Now he has made a movie based upon the theme of the book. It started showing in US theaters on July 2.  D’ Souza offers a passionate defense of America. I have not seen the movie yet, but the title of the book is intriguing and makes us all ponder what our world might look like in America’s absence especially now because America is already there in some ways. In a sense, the rest of world does not view America as credible any longer. For example, what is going on in Iraq, Syria, Ukraine, Egypt, Africa, Libya, Afghanistan, Asia, and China with the bullying of weak neighbors, the moving of our world in the direction of chaos, and the searching for  “a new world order.” Continue reading →

As the Middle East is boiling, flames continue to spread to neighboring countries. The rapid march of the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL) from Syria to Iraq has rattled Ankara. The body of the Israel teenager who was kidnapped in the West Bank was found; now the Palestinian–Israeli conflict is also heating up along with Iran’s nuclear problem, civil war in Syria and in Egypt. At one point during the Arab Spring many in the West and global commentators rushed in suggesting Turkey could be a model for the Islamic world, to show that democracy and Islam could be compatible. However, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the leader of the Islamic fundamentalist mission movement Fethullah Gulen are fighting over control of the Turkish state. Now the Turkish government is fighting with the Deep State or the state within the Turkish state founded by Imam Gulen. Continue reading →