State-backed discrimination against Shia Muslims in Malaysia

(2017). State-backed discrimination against Shia Muslims in Malaysia. Critical Asian Studies. Ahead of Print. doi: 10.1080/14672715.2017.1335848

Commentary: Inside Trump’s Middle East mess

President Donald Trump’s attempt to bring peace and stability to the Middle East has backfired spectacularly. He has put a major U.S. ally, Qatar, in a serious geopolitical crisis and damaged the efforts of his own cabinet to calm regional tensions.

Bahrain’s Monarchy Cries Sectarianism to Hoard Public Wealth

NOTE:The following article was written by Bahrain Watch member Fahad Desmukh and was originally published on the website of TRT World on May 29, 2017. However TRT World had to remove it the following day after Bahrain’s foreign ministry made a complaint about the article to the Turkish government.

SAFAVIDS BEFORE EMPIRE: TWO 15TH-CENTURY ARMENIAN PERSPECTIVES | International Journal of Middle East Studies | Cambridge Core

SAFAVIDS BEFORE EMPIRE: TWO 15TH-CENTURY ARMENIAN PERSPECTIVES – Volume 49 Issue 2 – Thomas A. Carlson

Trump’s Alignment with Sunni Autocrats Masks Shallow Understanding of Region

President Trump’s visit to Saudi Arabia has engendered endless press reporting and analysis. Two key points stand out in the media coverage. First, the trip was mostly show than action. Second, the Saudis played up to Trump’s craving for adulation and narcissism. They knew he was a fickle showman and acted accordingly.

Two conferences spotlight Muslim world’s struggle to counter militancy

Two conferences this week spotlight the Muslim world’s struggle to come to grips with extremism and militancy. The conferences, the Arab-Islamic-American summit in Riyadh and a gathering in East Java of youth leaders of Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), the world’s largest Muslim movement, laid bare the difficulty of reforming cultures in the battle against extremism, called into question the commitment of Muslim states to combat radicalism and political violence, and put on display US President Donald J.

This is the aim of Donald Trump’s visit to Saudi Arabia

Donald Trump sets off on Friday to create the fantasy of an Arab Nato. There will be dictators aplenty to greet him in Riyadh, corrupt autocrats and thugs and torturers and head choppers. There will be at least one zombie president – the comatose, undead Abdelaziz Bouteflika of Algeria who neither speaks nor, apparently, hears any more – and, of course, one totally insane president, Donald Trump.

The Shi’a Revival

Four years after Lebanon’s Hezbollah first appeared in Syria, and following the military victory in Aleppo last December, there is great change in Syria’s Shi’a Twelver community. The community makes up no more than 1-2 percent of the total Syrian population, a few hundred thousand people at most, but has been largely militarized since 2012.

Conflict in the Middle East threatens Pakistan and lynchpin of China’s One Belt, One Road

Increasingly caught up in the Middle East’s multiple conflicts, Pakistan is struggling to balance relations with rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran amid concern in Islamabad that potential US-Saudi efforts to destabilize the Islamic republic could turn its crucial province of Balochistan, a lynchpin in China’s One Belt, One Road initiative, into a battleground.