Reform In The Muslim World

Ibrahim Issa conducted an interview with Egyptian researcher Ahmed Saad Zayed, which aired on March 31, 2019. In the interview Zayed said that at the time of Muhammad's "night journey" there was no Al-Aqsa Mosque at the site of the Dome of the Rock, it was a garbage dump. The sto...

The following is a new report in a series from the MEMRI initiative researching online incitement against Jews, people of color, Muslims and the LGBTQ+ community. This series and initiative are part of the MEMRI Lantos Archives on Antisemitism and Holocaust Denial, which ...

Against the backdrop of U.S. President Trump's March 25, 2019 recognition of Israel's sovereignty over the Golan, and the 40th anniversary of the peace accords between Israel and Egypt, the Arab press, and especially the Egyptian press, published articles criticizing the Arabs' a...

Lebanese actress Nidal Al-Ashkbar said in a March 28, 2019 interview on Al-Hurra TV (U.S.) that theater is not an intrinsic part of education and culture in Lebanon in the Arab world because there is no freedom of speech or openness in the region, such that actors cannot criticiz...

Tunisian actor Walid Nahdi said in an April 4, 2019 broadcast on Radio Med (Tunisia) that he would not go to Israel if given an opportunity to do so, and that he cannot tolerate the Jews and their "distinct odor." He said that he also does not feel comfortable around and cannot s...

In his March 3, 2019 column in the leading London-based Saudi daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, Saudi journalist and businessman Hussein Shobakshi condemned the deeply rooted hatred of Jews in Islamic culture, in which the term "Jew" is strongly derogatory. Shobakshi mused on why the Musl...

Egyptian-American political analyst Magdi Khalil said in a video that was uploaded to the Internet on March 13, 2019 that the Arab people are still angry and that tremendous effort is being exerted to oppress them and prevent another wave of the Arab Spring. Khalil said, however,...

Egyptian-German scholar Hamed Abdel-Samad slammed the European left for its political correctness, saying that while historically, the left has always defended the underdog, when it comes to Islam, it "morphs into the conservative right" and employs "racism of low expectations."&...

On March 19, 2019, a Kuwaiti court sentenced reformist journalist 'Abdallah Al-Hadlaq to three years in prison for offending the Shi'ites and "fanning controversies among the sectors of society," i.e., between Sunnis and Shi'ites in Kuwait. Al-Hadlaq was prosecuted for two tweets...

Dr. Nasser Al-Laham, editor-in-chief of the Palestinian Authority's Maan News Agency, criticized both Hamas and Fatah in the wake of the Hamas crackdown on protesters in Gaza, saying: "the governments have gone berserk." Al-Laham asked: "What have we adopted from the Arab countri...

The March 15, 2019 massacre perpetrated by Australian white supremacist Brenton Tarrant in two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, in which 50 Muslim worshippers died and dozens more were wounded, evoked harsh reactions in the Arab and Muslim world. Arab and Muslim leaders stre...

Table Of Contents Introduction by Katrina Lantos Swett, President of the Lantos Foundation for Human Rights and Justice Executive Summary Online Incitement Against Jews, People Of Color, Muslims, And LGBTQ Chapter I: General Characteristics Of The Research ...

Syrian scholar Firas Al-Sawwah said in a March 3, 2019 interview on Al-Hurra TV (U.S.) that the Al-Aqsa Mosque that was mentioned in the Quran was not in Jerusalem, and that Caliph Abd Al-Malik Ibn Marwan had decided to build a holy place in Jerusalem and call it Al-Aqsa. He said...

Responding to the affair of Rahaf Al-Qanun, the young Saudi woman who fled her homeland alleging abuse by her family,[1] British-Palestinian human rights activist Ahlam Akram devoted two of her columns in the liberal Saudi daily Elaph to the affair and to the status of women in t...

On January 30, 2019 Bahia Mardini, a Syrian Kurdish journalist, author and human rights activist and a former media consultant to the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, published an letter to Asma Al-Assad, the wife of Syrian President Bashar Al-As...

Tunisian lawyer and writer Maya Ksouri said in a show that aired on Elhiwar Ettounsi TV (Tunisia) on February 21, 2019 that much of the response to the recent execution of nine Muslim Brotherhood members convicted for the 2015 assassination of an Egyptian official is "tainted by ...