Prisoners of Geography!
Jess Bier’s book published in 2017 on the intersection of census data, map making using Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and politics remains pertinent. click here.
From the archives of the Islamic Quarterly
Defining Events
Bosnia: Operation Screwdriver – more revelations of the disregard for Bosnian suffering during the Balkan Wars of the 1990s – Operation Screwdriver. click here.
Fact files that keep track of told and untold past events – some continue to unfold. click here.
Biographical Directory
Over 2000 entries compiled by Nauman Khan. Click here.
Revelations
Peter Spiegel notes in a review in the Financial Times of Nellie Lahoud’s The Bin Laden Papers: How the Abbottabad Raid Revealed the Truth about al-Qaeda, its Leader and his Family that bin Laden was angry on discovering that some of his family members, including a son, had been held captive in Iran since the start of 2002. However US intelligence officers . . .
Jason Blake in the Guardian, writing on Rory Cormac’s book How to Stage a Coup: And Ten Other Lessons from the World of Secret Statecraft: “. . .The IRD [the Foreign Office’s Information Research Department] also forged literature purporting to come from the Muslim Brotherhood.” click here.
The Salaam Trojan Horse ‘Defining Events’ archival file.
In memory
Founder-Editor in Chief of Impact International, guide and counsellor for British Muslims. Obituary notice
His lament on Pakistan, ” . . . then, by and by, the opportunists, the mercenaries and the agents took over”. click here.
Dossiers
Afghanistan
Since 2007, an 11-part dossier has been tracking a disastrous, vengeful intervention much lauded at the outset – the late Michael Novak had rationalised it as “morally obligatory” while one British general declared that the bombardment and occupation met ‘Just War’ criteria . In 2021, after irreparable human suffering, the grudging acceptance that it was largely a futile and counter-productive exercise. click here
Revelations of destablising operations in Indonesia in 1965 – role of the Foreign Office’s Information Research Department (IRD). click here
Rwanda: “Our Report [the Muse Report] concludes that the Genocide was foreseeable. From its knowledge of massacres of civilians conducted by the government and its allies, to the daily dehumanization of the Tutsi, to the cables and other data arriving from Rwanda, the French government could see that a genocide was coming. The French government was neither blind nor unconscious about the foreseeable genocide . . . The role of the French government must be examined.” click here
Post of the Day – Eid Event at the Natural History Museum in London
Explorers Family Festival: Natural History in Islam. Includes a talk by Shahina Ghazanfar on ‘The Cultural Value of Plants’. Click here
Book Review
A book that distils the lifelong experience of an educationalist, parent (and grandparent), parenting tutor and civic activist. It describes ideal practices, with frequent practical tips on how these can be implemented. click here.
