Books by a superb (albeit incorrigibly centrist) reporter and a radical social critic.… Read the rest

‘If the pupils are looking up, the demons in possession are scorpions. If looking down, they are serpents.’… Read the rest

The survey shows that Muslims do not form a single homogenous community.… Read the rest

The Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam claims supremacy over the UDHR, based on divine revelation.… Read the rest

It is never permitted to terminate the gestation of an anencephalic child as the means of avoiding psychological or physical risks to the mother.… Read the rest

Maternal mortality and female illiteracy rates are among the highest in the world.… Read the rest

Enlightenment 2.0 makes for a rather toothless, muddled kind of liberation. … Read the rest

‘As long as I think of these as “texts,” they are dry and boring. But there is a key to making them exciting: to remember that they are not texts: they are people–people urgently trying to talk to me, to tell me something very important that they think I desperately need to know.’… Read the rest

The strongly patriarchal nature of South Asian societies ensures even worse treatment for lesbians than for gay men.… Read the rest

“Every day women are sacrificed for their family or tribe,” Nilab Mobarez tells me angrily. … Read the rest

Debate human nature.… Read the rest

Shukria Barakzai, founder and editor of a newspaper for Afghan women, was named Worldpress.org’s 2004 International Editor of the Year. … Read the rest

Chills the blood.… Read the rest

Young Tibetan boys were regularly taken from their peasant families and brought into the monasteries to be trained as monks. Once there, they were bonded for life. … Read the rest

Just look how she dresses, the bridge of her nose visible for all the world to see.’… Read the rest

More than 60% of marriages are forced; 57% of women marry under the age of 16.… Read the rest

Tahir Aslam Gora suggests an outline for the new Islam.… Read the rest

79.7% in Ireland, 74.6% in the US, 58.3% in the UK.… Read the rest

God is silent and inert, the evidence is inadequate, and the universe is not the one predicted.… Read the rest

Reasons not to talk about stampedes where “several” poor Third-World Muslims died.… Read the rest