Vote for Change

Boston Review — Jan-Werner Müller: Making Muslim Democracies. This suggestive analogy between Christian and Muslim Democracy is not lost on Western politicians and intellectuals, but many of them have been at pains to reject it. One line of dismissal, pessimistic in its conclusions, argues that European Catholics only turned to democracy under instruction from the Vatican. Because Muslims do not have anything resembling a hierarchy or central institution of faith, the Christian Democratic example is, according to these critics, irrelevant.

The Convert | This American Life. In 2006, a new convert showed up at a mosque in Orange County, California, eager to study the Koran and make new friends. But when he started acting odd and saying strange things, those friends got suspicious. To them, he was Farouk al-Aziz. But his real name was Craig Monteilh, and he was working undercover for the FBI.