Dissecting Obama’s Message to Iran

And don't forget Wajahat Ali's Understanding Sharia Law. KARAMAH Launches Online Symposium on Shari’ah and Religious Freedom « Karamah. To complement these events, KARAMAH has compiled this online symposium, which showcases articles on the anti-Shari‘ah movement by various scholars, students and professionals. The articles are rich and diverse in their perspectives, addressing this movement from a variety of lenses: Some dispel myths about Shari‘ah and explain it from within the Islamic tradition, while others examine this movement from a civil rights perspective. A few articles reveal how the authors have been personally affected by this movement, sharing very open and…

Yemen is not Tunisia or Egypt – CNN.com. Yemen’s regional diversity actually helps a weak central government to remain in power. No rival commands a large enough following to challenge Saleh’s rule. The protesters call on Saleh not to put his son in power, but no one is chanting a viable successor’s name. There is no ElBaradei waiting in the wings, as we see in Egypt.

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.