Islamic Fundamentalism

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Connexions Library

Afghanistan 1979-1992: America's Jihad
Blum, William
Article
1995
An account of CIA and American involvement in Afghanistan since 1979
Against Fundamentalism and Imperialism - Review: Against The Current vol. 161
Usmani, Adaner
Article
2012
A view of the inside forces in Pakistan.
Anti-War Movement's Strange Allies: Hard Line Islamists: Canada's progressive Muslims wonder why left would embrace theocrats
Glavin, Terry
Article
2006
Canada's anti-war movement has become not only the primary vehicle for an obscure, formerly left-wing group that attacks anyone who opposes Shariah courts in Canada, it's also now the main source of p...
Apostasy, Blasphemy and Free Expression in the Age of ISIS
Namazie, Maryam
Article
2015
The right to religion comes with a corresponding right to be free from religion.
Bangladesh and the shrinking space for free thinkers: 'Don't call me Muslim, I am an atheist'
Taslima, Nasreen
Article
2015
Writer Taslima Nasreen fled Bangladesh in 1994 when extremists threatened to kill her for criticizing Islam, and has been living in exile since. Her country has, in recent times, seen many intellectua...
Bloggers Under Fire: The Fatal Consequences of Free Thinking in Bangladesh
Article
2016
Six secular Bangladeshi writers have been killed since November of 2014: Rajshahi University professor AKM Shafiul Islam, literary publisher Faisal Arefin Dipan, and bloggers Avijit Roy, Oyasiqur Rahm...
The Case Against Bombing ISIS
Shupak, Greg
Article
2016
The military campaign against ISIS is just the latest phase of US imperialism in the Middle East.
Chasing a Mirage: The Tragic Illusion of an Islamic State
Fatah, Tarek
Book
2008
According to Tarek Fatah, "Morality is doing what is right, regardless what we are told; Religious dogma is doing what we are told, no matter what is right." Fatah argues that since Islam's advent, th...
Chomsky.Info
Chomsky, Noam
Website
The Noam Chomsky Web site.
Chronicle of a death online: Hate campaign from Muslim fundamentalist groups from Tamil Nadu, Sri Lanka and West Asia against a Muslim woman writer
Kannan, Sundaram
Article
2015
The case of Tamil Nadu journalist who was victim of online 'rape' and 'murder', perpetuated by Muslim fundamentalists.
The Comic Book Simplicity Of Propaganda
Article
2014
The referendum campaign on Scottish independence heightened many people's awareness of the pro-elite bias of the 'mainstream' news media. The grassroots power of social media in exposing and counterin...
Connexions Library: Africa Focus
Website
2009
Selected articles, books, websites and other resources on Africa.
Connexions Library: Race, Racism, Ethnicity, Multiculturalism Focus
Website
2009
Selected articles, books, websites and other resources on race, racism, ethnicity, multiculturalism, identity.
Connexions Library: Religion Focus
Website
2009
Selected articles, books, websites and other resources on religion.
The Deadly Costs of Muslim Sectarianism: Sunni v. Shia
Cockburn, Patrick
Article
2011
A war of extraordinary brutality is being waged across the Muslim world which is largely ignored by the media. It is a war in which victims are assassinated or massacred with no chance to defend thems...
Defying Fundamentalism: Book Review
Moghissi, Haideh
Article
2014
A review of "Your Fatwa Does Not Apply Here: Untold Stories from the Fight Against Muslim Fundamentalism" By Karima Bennoune.
Dirty Wars: Britain's Collusion with Radical Islam
Curtis, Mark
Book
2008
Historian Mark Curtis, presents the history of the British government's sponsorship of radical Islamic terrorism, from Iran, Afghanistan and Libya to the July 7 bombings.
From Fatwa to Jihad: The Rushdie Affair and its Legacy
Malik, Kenan
Book
2009
Tells the story both of the Rushdie affair and of its transformative impact on cultural and political landscape of the West. The book explores the issues that the Rushide affair raised. in particular ...
God and His Demons
Parenti, Michael
Book
2010
Parenti examines the dark side of religion, the many evils committed in the name of godly virtue throughout history. This is not a blanket condemnation of all believers. The focus is on the threat pos...
Headscarves and Hymens: Why the Middle East Needs a Sexual Revolution
Eltahawy, Mona
Book
2015
A condemnation of the repressive political, cultural, and religious forces that reduce millions of women to second-class citizens.
Headscarves and Hymens: Why the Middle East Needs a Sexual Revolution: Book Review
Aspden, Rachel
Book
2015
One afternoon earlier this year, I stepped into the carriage of a Cairo metro train. I was on the way home from interviewing female students - all of them devout, veiled Muslims - who had been snatche...
Hekmat, Mansoor - Writings - Index
Hekmat, Mansoor
Article
Writings of Mansoor Hekmat (1951-2002).
Here We Go Again
Malik, Kenan
Article
2012
One thing should be clear. The violence across the Muslim world in response to an American anti-Islamic film has nothing to do with that film. Yes, The Inocence of Muslims is a risibly crude diatribe ...
How Islamist gangs use internet to track, torture and kill Iraqi gays
Sarhan Afif, Burke Jason
Article
2009
Iraqi militias infiltrate internet gay chatrooms to hunt their quarry and hundreds are feared to be victims.
How Israel Empowers Islamist Movements: Shukran, Israel
Avnery, Uri
Article
2011
If Islamist movements come to power all over the region, they should express their debt of gratitude to their bete noire, Israel. Without the help of successive Israeli governments, they may not have ...
How Syria's Secular Uprising Was Hijacked by Jihadists: Al Qaeda's Second Act
Cockburn, Patrick
Article
2014
On Syria's descent into a sectarian civil war.
How to Become a Real Muslim
Malik, Kenan
Article
2010
When I was growing up in the 1980s the concept of a radical in a Muslim context meant someone who was a militant secularist, someone who challenged not just racism but the power of the mosques too. So...
Imperialism, the Cold War and the Creation of Pakistan
Article
2012
The true intent of the partition was to detach Pakistan from India, create a militarily strategic foothold aimed at the Soviet Union and maintain control over the oil fields of the Middle East.
In Uganda, Rioters Strip Women Wearing Trousers
Harshbarger, Rebecca
Article
2009
Rioters attacked and stripped about 20 Ugandan women who were wearing trousers last week during deadly riots in Kampala. The humiliations were part of a major confrontation between a traditional kingd...
Iran: Compulsory veiling is abusive, discriminatory and humiliating; end the persecution of women for peacefully protesting against it
Amnesty International
Article
2018
Amnesty International criticizes Iran's compulsory veiling laws, arguing that they are not only harmful to women, but fundamentally unconstitutional.
Iraq: Guerrilla War in Sadr City: Against The Current vol. 114
Schwartz, Michael
Article
2005
In attacking first Najaf, then Tal Afar and Samarra, and finally tackling the center of Sunni resistance in Fallujah, the United States was seeking to reverse this process. But these attacks were not...
ISIS and the IDF: Canada's Double Standard: Who are the Real Terrorists?
Walberg, Eric
Article
2014
Why can westerners join the Israeli Defense Forces while westerners joining Islamic State are despised and killed? In what sense is the IDF scenario any less reprehensible than the IS one?
Islam, Children's Rights, and the Hijab-gate of Rah-e-Kargar: In Defence of the Prohibition of the Islamic Veil for Children
Hekmat, Mansoor
Article
1997
It has been proved time and time again that pushing back religiosity and religious reaction is not possible except through unequivocal defence of human values against religion. It has been proved time...
Islamic Fundamentalism in Britain
Tatchell, Peter
Article
1995
Muslim fundamentalists are a growing threat to gay human rights in Britain.
Islamic Terrorism
Hekmat, Mansoor
Article
1994
There is not the slightest real and legitimate relationship between the appalling calamities that have befallen the Jewish people in this century and the suppression and crimes committed by the extrem...
The Jihadis Return: ISIS and the New Sunni Uprising
Cockburn, Patrick
Book
2014
Though capable of staging spectacular attacks like 9/11, jihadist organizations were not a significant force on the ground when they first became notorious in the shape of al-Qa'ida at the turn of cen...
Just say no to Sharia law
Tatchell, Peter
Article
2009
Let us support the courageous Muslims who, often at great personal risk, are campaigning against religious extremism.
The Left and the Jihad
Halliday, Fred
Article
2006
The left was once the principal enemy of radical Islamism. So how did old enemies become new friends?
A Left Voice in Pakistan: Against The Current vol. 131
Tariq, Farooq
Article
2007
Following the October 18 attack on the massive procession into Karachi welcoming Benazir Bhutto back from an eight-year exile, Farooq Tariq, General Secretary of the Labour Party Pakistan, expressed h...
Made in the USA: Report Shows ISIS Using US Arms from 'Syria Rebels'
Ditz, Jason
Article
2014
From the moment the US began sending lethal arms to Syrian rebel factions, there was a chorus of people expressing fears that those arms would end up in the “wrong hands,” and US officials insisted th...
Manifesto of the Third Camp against US Militarism and Islamic Terrorism
Article
2006
The human and genuine solution to the problem of nuclear weapons, to Islamic terrorism and its horrific crimes against the people of the world, and to the militaristic bullying of the US and Western g...
Manifesto: Together Facing the New Totalitarianism: Writers' statement on cartoons
Article
2006
We, writers, journalists, intellectuals, call for resistance to religious totalitarianism and for the promotion of freedom, equal opportunity and secular values for all.
Multiculturalism fans the flames of islamic extremism
Malik, Kenan
Article
2005
Multiculturalism as lived experience enriches our lives. But multiculturalism as a political ideology has helped create a tribal Britain with no political or moral centre.
My Stealthy Freedom: The Hijab in Iran and in the West
Mali, Malhar
Article
2017
An interview with Masih Alinejad, an outspoken critic of the forced hijab policy in Iran, about how the Islamic Revolution affected women, compulsory hijab laws, and her activism.
The Myth of Muslim Conquest: Less Threatening Than Imagined
Haenni, Patrick; Amghar, Sami
Article
2010
It's easy to mistake the high visibility of Islam in the West for a massive return to piety in Muslim communities. But for the last 20 years religious observance has stagnated, even slightly waned.
The New Dark Ages
Tatchell, Peter
Article
1996
For hundreds of millions of people in parts of the Middle-East, Africa and South-East Asia, the ascendancy of Islamic fundamentalism has ushered in an era of religious obscurantism and intolerance. Th...
The No-Nonsense Guide to Terrorism
Barker, Jonathan
Book
2003
An in-depth look at the nature of terrorism that discusses questioning terrorism, assessing it, the difference between state terrorism and group terrorism, morality and history, and war and politics.
The OIC does not speak for Muslims
Fatah, Tarek
Article
2008
Tarek Fatah says that "To suggest that any criticism of Islamism, the political ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood and the Iranian Ayatollahs, is anti-Islamic is a bogus and fraudulent position. I wou...
Other Voices: The Connexions Newsletter - May 7, 2015: Urban agriculture and local food production
Diemer, Ulli (editor); Rickwood, Darien Yawching (production)
Serial Publication (Periodical)
2015
This issue of Other Voices ranges widely, from increasing worker activism and strikes in China, to advances in battery technology that make it much easier and cheaper to store solar and wind energy fo...
Political correctness demands diversity in everything but thought
Blum, William
Article
2016
For 50 years I've been painstakingly cataloguing the brutal militarism and human-rights violations of US foreign policy, building up in the process a very loyal audience. To my great surprise, when I ...
Possible Connections Between Militant Islamic Fundamentalists and the U.S. Extreme Right
Article
Right-wing racial nationalists and antisemites have attempted to spread their conspiracist message to the political left by stressing the anticapitalist aspects of the Third Position.
Radical Islam, Nihilist Rage
Malik, Kenan
Article
2015
Muslims are not the only religious group involved in perpetrating horrors. From Christian militias in the Central African Republic reportedly eating their foes to Buddhist monks organizing anti-Muslim...
Reasoning about terror
Malik, Kenan
Article
2013
The trouble with much of the discussion of terrorism today is that it misses a fundamental point about contemporary terror: its disconnect from social movements and political goals. In the past, an or...
Respect is a Two-Way Street
Tatchell, Peter
Article
2006
There is a whiff of hypocrisy among some Muslims who, in the name of being spared offence, want to censor other people's opinions.
Rushdie rails against Islamic 'totalitarianism'
Article
2006
We, writers, journalists, intellectuals, call for resistance to religious totalitarianism and for the promotion of freedom, equal opportunity and secular values for all.
Sex segregation in UK universities - a step forward for the Muslim religious right
Helie Lucas, Marieme
Article
2013
The authorities of universities in the UK have made public their policy of bending to religious fundamentalists by condoning sex segregation on university premises. The education system is especially ...
Taking on the Religious Right: A review of God and His Demons
Elich, Gregory
Article
2010
Michael Parenti confronts the dangers of religious fundamentalism.
UK: Walking a tightrope: Between the pro-Islamist Left and the far-Right
Namazie, Maryam
Article
2013
Opposing Sharia and Islamism in the west is like walking on a tight rope most of the time -- thwarting attacks from the Left, refuting cultural relativism, preventing alliances with the far-Right, exp...
The Veil and Violence against Women in Islamist Societies
Namazie, Maryam
Article
2007
The ongoing battle between the Islamic authorities and women over the veil clearly reveals why it has become a symbol like no other of the violence women face under Islam and why 'improper' or 'bad' v...
We're facing a new Cold War
Chomsky, Noam
Article
2015
The linguist and philosopher on the warped coverage of Putin's Russia and the ways we whitewash our war crimes.
Which side are you on?
Majedi, Azar
Article
2009
The women's question has haunted the Islamic regime from the start. The Islamic Republic has been in continuous conflict with the women's liberation movement, which has grown considerably in the past ...
Women Enslaved by Islamic Reaction: Taliban: Bitter Fruit of U.S. Imperialism's Anti-Soviet War
Ibsen, Kathy
Article
2001
There is nothing progressive or "anti-imperialist" about being shrouded in the veil. Nor is it, as some liberals would maintain, a quaint cultural attribute. You wouldn't think you would have to be a ...
Your Fatwa Does Not Apply Here: Untold Stories from the Fight Against Muslim Fundamentalism
Bennoune, Karima
Book
2013
Karima Bennoune interviews 300 people from 30 countries to report on a largely invisible group of people: Muslim opponents of fundamentalism. They remain largely invisible, lost amid the heated cover...
Your Fatwa Does Not Apply Here: Untold Stories from the Fight against Muslim Fundamentalism, by Karima Bennoune (Book Review)
Droeber, Julia
Article
2013
Karima Bennoune, a US-based law scholar raised in Algeria, has written an account of the stories of numerous people whose lives have been scarred by Islamic fundamentalism and who decided, using a var...

Connexions Directory of Groups & Websites

Alternatives - Action & Communication Network for International Development
Alternatives, Action and Communication Network for International Development, is a non-governmental, international solidarity organization. Alternatives works to promote justice and equality amongst i...
Apostates of Islam
An organization of former Muslims.
Chomsky.info
The Noam Chomsky Web site.
Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain
We, non-believers, atheists, and ex-Muslims, are establishing or joining the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain to insist that no one be pigeonholed as Muslims with culturally relative rights nor deemed...
Organization for Women's Liberation - Iran
Organisation for Women's Liberation (OWL) was built on 14th December 2002 in direct response to the growing women's movement in Iran for equality and liberation The contemporary history of women's mov...
Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan
RAWA, the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan, was established in Kabul, Afghanistan, in 1977 as an independent political/social organization of Afghan women fighting for human right...
Third Camp
Against U.S. militarism and Islamic terrorism. We must stand up with all our power to the US government's and its allies' bullying. We must put an end to the crimes of the opposite pole, i.e. Islamic...
Women Against Fundamentalism
Women Against Fundamentalism (WAF) was formed in 1989 to challenge the rise of fundamentalism in all religions. Its members include women from a wide range of backgrounds and from across the world. B...
Women Living Under Muslim Law
WLUML is an international solidarity network that provides information and support for those women whose lives have been shaped by the customs and/or laws of Islam. It extends to more 70 countries and...
Zentralrat der Ex-Muslime
Dem Zentralrat der Ex-Muslime geh”ren Menschen an, die entweder den muslimischen Glauben aufgegeben haben oder die niemals Muslime waren, wenngleich sie aufgrund ihrer Herkunft aus einem sog. "muslimi...

Sources Experts & Spokespersons

Sources Library

An apology for the Danish cartoon crisis
Hvidberg, Lars
2014
One of the leading forces in the 2005–06 prophet Muhammad cartoon controversy, Danish Muslim activist Ahmed Akkari, now regrets his role as agitator and reveals a larger, more deliberate, and more vic...
Atheist blogger hacked to death with machetes in Dhaka, Bangladesh
2015
Machete-wielding assailants hacked to death a blogger in the Bangladeshi capital of Dhaka, in the latest of a series of attacks on writers who support freethinking values in the Muslim-majority nation...
How Boko Haram Is Changing International Politics in Western and Central Africa
Rakotomalala, Lova
2015
Two suicide attacks on June 22 in Maroua, northern Cameroon, left several people dead and many others wounded. Ten days earlier, 15 people were killed in a suicide bomb attack at a crowded market in N...
Journalist gets seven-year jail sentence for decade-old articles
Sources News Release
2014
Reporters Without Borders condemns the seven-year jail sentence that a Dhaka court imposed today on former magazine editor Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury in connection with articles criticizing Islamism...
Mali: Timbuktu's literary gems face Islamists and decay in fight for survival
Hirsch, Afua
2013
Daring by a dedicated few saved many manuscripts in Mali from Islamists.
The Rushdie Affair
The Novel, the Ayatollah and the West
1990
This is an account of the controversy surrounding Salman Rushdie's novel The Satanic Verses. Following the novel's publication in London in 1988, the Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran issued an edict condemn...
The spread of Wahhabism, and the West's responsibility to the world
Armstrong, Karen
2015
In 2013, the European Union declared Wahhabism the main source of global terrorism. But it's not just a "Middle East problem"; it is our problem, too.
Threatening email orders Bangladeshi media to fire women
Sources News Release
2015
Reporters Without Borders condemns the threats against news media and bloggers contained in a email that was sent to a score of Bangladeshi print and broadcast media outlets on 19 October, and calls o...
24 reasons ISIS are wrong: Muslim scholars blast Islamic State
2014
A large group of Islamic theologians addressed the head of the Islamic State in an open letter, articulately accusing the movement of practices that have nothing to do with Islam, even rejecting the e...
Uk needs modern mosques
The third generation of British Muslims still don't have mosques that teach compassion and citizenship
Baig, Anila
2011
An Islamic woman's opinion column mourns the lack of modern mosques in England. She discusses her search for a place where her children could learn Arabic and how to read the Qu'ran without facing vio...
Wahhabism
Wikipedia article
Wahhabism is a religious movement or branch of Sunni Islam. It has been variously described as "orthodox", "ultraconservative", "austere","fundamentalist", "puritanical" (or "puritan") and as an Islam...

From the Connexions Archives

Muslim Canadian Congress
Website
A grassroots organization that provides a voice to Muslims who are not represented by existing organizations; organizations that are either sectarian or ethnocentric, largely authoritarian, and influe...
The Third Camp
Against U.S. militarism and Islamic terrorism
Website
We must stand up with all our power to the US government's and its allies' bullying. We must put an end to the crimes of the opposite pole, i.e. Islamic terrorism. We must help the people of Islam-s...