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"The Sufis were prophets of pluralism"

Islamic scholar and philosopher Abdolkarim Soroush explains how he draws on the work of Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi for guidance in his search for a comprehensive approach to religion that doesn't rely solely on rationality and logic, but also on a sense of the other dimension. Interview by Dara Alani

Sleepwalking into war

War between Iran and Saudi Arabia would be of no use to anyone, not even to the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad Ben Salman in Riyadh or Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Tehran. On the contrary: both men could conceivably find themselves ousted. Yet powerful political factions exist that are intent on warmongering. By Ali Sadrzadeh

Profiteering from terrorism

Germany's massive arms exports are helping shore up autocratic regimes in the Middle East. The policy is short-sighted and driven by economic interests, writes Markus Bickel in his highly informative analysis ″Die Profiteure des Terrors″. By Claudia Mende

An author on standby

The Arab revolutions – and the Syrian revolution in particular – changed authors conception of themselves. For some, the change was so great that they find they can no longer write. This is the experience of Dima Wannous, one of Syria′s outstanding young authors

Everyday life in a dictatorship

Dima Wannous' short story collection "Details", which was published in English several years ago, has recently been published in German translation. It centres on people from different layers of society who are united by a single fate: life in a dictatorial regime that has reached the end of the line but from which there still seems to be no escape. By Volker Kaminski

Journalists under siege

A tragedy is slowly unfolding in Turkey. Since the failed coup attempt in 2016, more than 120 journalists have been arrested. "It's time we speak out for them," say the journalists from Al Jazeera who were imprisoned in Egypt. By Peter Greste, Mohamed Fahmy and Baher Mohamed

″Merely a staging-post for refugees″

Tunisian oud virtuoso Anouar Brahem regards the situation of refugees in Tunisia as especially precarious. The country is barely in a position to provide for the basic needs of its own citizens, let alone those of the refugees

A loser's game

Most of the refugees arriving in Melilla, a Spanish exclave in Northern Africa, are Syrians, Yemenis and Algerians. Few of them hail from sub-Saharan Africa. Why is that? Santiago Saez reports from Melilla

Fair trade for a level playing field

To mitigate the root causes of flight and migration, Germanyʹs federal government is contemplating fair-trade agreements with refugee countries of origin. The North African experience shows this will require a re-think of EU policy. By Nassir Djafari

World Refugee Day 2016