...is the indivisibility of secular law and religious practice: The idea of a separate Indian Muslim state, once it had been formulated couldn't have been resisted. The idea was put forward in 1930 by a revered poet, Sir Mohammed Iqbal (1987-1938), in a speech to the All-Indian Muslim League, th...

The Canadian Forces are feeling the strain of their ISAF responsibilities and need another operational pause to set things right: OTTAWA — Canada's army, strained by the military mission in Afghanistan, may need a one-year operational pause to regroup and rebuild when troops withdraw in 2011, ...

Nikah Mut'ah ("pleasure marriage") and Nikah Misyar ("travellers' marriage"). Yes, they are more or less exactly what they sound like.  A means of getting sexual stimulation in exchange for money, outside of the formal, lifelong civil and religious contracts of real...

Kate Taylor (no relation) recently reviewed the Ontario Science Centre's latest big-ticket exhibit, Sultans of Science , in the Globe & Mail.  The exhibit was originally built for a shopping mall in Dubai—intended to highlight the scientific contributions of Muslim civilisation—but...

In late December, the ever-insightful Belmont Club published a summary of the current Bishop of Rome's approach to dealing with Islam.  Among the salient points: Benedict doesn’t see much scope for a ‘theological’ debate between Christianity and Islam, which is of interest to only a ...

INS Tabar (Sanskrit for "battle axe") has been in the Gulf of Aden all of 17 days and has already racked up three successes; two saves and one kill. "INS Tabar encountered a pirate vessel south west of Oman with two speedboats in tow. This vessel was similar in description to the 'mot...

Image by Gasper Tringale for Vanity Fair. I am not normally a big fan of Christopher Hitchens.  While I appreciate his aggressive support of Enlightenment values and an anti-fascist foreign policy, he has a tendency to be more wrong than right about much else.  But I am remarkably pleased ...

Against all odds, the warrior ethos of Britain's nobility is subtly reasserting itself. Denied the opportunity to command a tank troop in Iraq, Prince Henry of Wales quietly re-trained as a Joint Terminal Attack Controller (JTAC), and has been serving in Afghanistan for the past ten weeks.  Wit...

I suppose everyone knows what this is. Hopefully you have heard by now that the Danish police intelligence agency (PET) arrested two Tunisians and one Dane for an alleged conspiracy to kill Kurt Westergaard—the cartoonist responsible for this drawing. This is no laughing matter, really, but I have...

Swedish armed forces castrated the heraldic lion of the EU's Nordic Battlegroup. The armed forces agreed to emasculate the lion after a group of women from the rapid reaction force lodged a complaint to the European Court of Justice, Göteborgs-Posten reports. Funnily enough I don't think Roman legi...