Shia Islam | Shiite Muslims
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20 years after the U.S. invasion
Iraq's wounds are slow to heal
20 years after the U.S. invasion, the country between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers is only just beginning to recover from the aftermath. But the road is paved with obstacles. Birgit Svensson reports from Iraq
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Sectarian politics in Lebanon
A harried Hezbollah
Hezbollah faces massive challenges – Lebanon’s presidential vacuum, sectarian tensions, as well as the ongoing economic turmoil. Yet, as Mohanad Hage Ali argues, it currently has few options for dealing with them
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Ebrahim Raisi
Iran's 'death committee' president
Iran's president Ebrahim Raisi is overseeing an unyielding crackdown. The current situation grimly echoes his role in a purge of political prisoners in 1988
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Lebanon's economic collapse
Staring into the abyss
Lebanon was long viewed as the Switzerland of the Middle East. Until relatively recently, billions were deposited in its banks. Gulf states were among the foremost investors in Beirut. But this all came to an end in 2019. Now the troubled nation is gripped by the worst economic crisis in its history. Birgit Svensson reports from Beirut and Tripoli
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Protests in Iran
The longing for a modern form of Islam
Forty-three years after Khomeini's revolution, the regime is facing its greatest internal challenge yet. State Islam in Iran is being rocked from beneath.
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Protests in Iran
Rethinking Sharia and democracy
According to a recent survey, half of all Iranians say that they have left Islam as a religion, while two-thirds believe Islamic law should be excluded from their legal system. In the following essay, Ahmet T. Kuru explores the implications
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Arab world on tenterhooks
World Cup semi-final – "We are all Moroccans"
Morocco has taken the 2022 World Cup by storm, with the northwest Africans reaching the semi-finals for the first time in their soccer history. As the knockout match approaches, Birgit Svensson's public viewing report from Baghdad throws a different light on Morocco's recent victories in Qatar
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Islam’s conscientious thinkers
People of reason vs. people of the hadith
Past attempts to reconcile logic and belief within Islam tend to be dismissed today – not because they lack merit, but because they were politically defeated, argues Mustafa Akyol
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How feminist are the protests in Iran?
The struggle for self-determination
In their struggle for self-determination, Iranians are displaying a level of courage and cohesion we have not seen before. And this is why the protests sparked by Mahsa Amini’s violent death are feminist, writes Katajun Amirpur
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2022 Iran protests
Can the Iranian system survive?
Political scientist and German-Iranian Ali Fathollah-Nejad discusses the protests in Iran and the long-term prospects for post-revolutionary political order. Interview by Michael Young
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Protests in Iran
On the eve of a new world era?
Just as the Islamic Revolution fundamentally changed Iran 43 years ago and had an impact far beyond the country's borders, the current wave of protests sweeping the country is set to change more than just Iran. The era of political Islam is coming to an end. By Ali Sadrzadeh
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Hadis, Minoo and Ghazaleh
The women victims of Iran's crackdown
"I am really hoping that in some years from now, after everything has changed, I will be happy to have been involved by taking part in this protest," Iranian woman Hadis Najafi, 22, said in a self-recorded video as she prepared to take to the streets