Today's Google doodle celebrates the birthday of Ibn Sina, the brilliant Muslim polymath whose textbook on medicine 1000 years ago became the standard text for training doctors in Europe for some 600 years.
Members of Europe's far right have called for a mass boycott of Toblerone, after discovering that the popular triangular chocolate bar is halal-certified
The Jewish man who protests alone at the Chinese embassy every week.
“The world kept silent when Jews were being persecuted. It is not right that Jews now should stay mute when this is happening right under our noses”
Pity the Muslims of France, faced next year with an election in which their countrymen will choose between Macron, who hates Muslims, Le Pen, who really hates Muslims, and Zemmour, who hates Muslims so much that Le Pen thinks he's extreme.
To be quite honest I'm still half-hoping I'm about to wake up from this nightmare in which figures of authority and influence in the Muslim community have spent months fawning over and promoting a sex trafficker and violent misogynist incel.
There will never be enough evidence to persuade those who don't want to be persuaded, because deep down it's not that they think it's untrue, it's that they think it's fine. Everything is a rationalization to obscure that.
The health ministry in Gaza just published a 200+ page report with all the names, ID numbers, and ages of 7,028 Palestinians killed in Gaza from Oct 7 until Oct 26, 3pm. I wonder if news outlets will drop the "if verified" caveat now whenever citing Palestinian casualties.
Heartbroken to hear this. I've followed Abu Artema for several years - he's not only a leading nonviolent activist (the Gazan "Ghandi" they keep asking for) but also an original thinker on Islam, who wrote about reconciling his faith and his vision of nonviolent activism.
I received the heartbreaking news that my dear friend Ahmed Abu Artema, the inspiration behind the Great March of Return has been targeted by Israeli bombardment. Multiple members of his family have been killed, including his young son, and he is reportedly severely injured.
France's Trump moment is still ahead of it because this sentiment was normalized a long time ago, far more than in the anglosphere. French society is far less egalitarian, more discriminatory and more institutionally racist.
According to this poll, 61% of French society believes in the far-right "Great Replacement" theory, that there is a plot to replace them all with immigrants and brown people. White supremacist stuff.
I'm glad that my timeline is full of people from the region itself and their opinions on it and on the killing of Qassem Soleimani. Iranians, Iraqis, Syrians, Lebanese, Yemenis. Westerners' views are not the centre of the universe, no matter what the newspapers of record think.
Thinking of the brave people in Sudan this Eid, being shot at for demanding their rights. Thinking of the people of Xinjiang in the camps. The people of Syria displaced, the tortured Saudi prisoners, Libyans under militia rule, occupied Palestinians and Kashmiris, and more.
Jesus christ, some people have absolutely no creativity.
Hong Kong protestors? "CIA-backed".
Uighur dissidents? "US-funded".
Serbian activists who overthrew Milosevic? "CIA-funded".
From just a single article on Blumenthal's shitty Grayzone website.
Muslim women are trapped between mass Islamophobia in wider society and rank misogyny within their own community, including those claiming to defend them for the former, and it breaks my heart.
Everyone in the UAE is so happy and satisfied with the decision and efforts of HH Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan on this peace process with Israel, expats and citizens equally. The negativity you see is only coming from outside of the UAE, not from within.
To those highlighting inequality of global concern: It is shit that the world order treats some people and communities as less valuable than others. The correct response is to demand dignity for all, not the same indignities for all.
A young queer woman who was tortured in prison then expelled from her country for no reason killed herself yesterday, and all people want to talk about is how suicide & homosexuality are haram. Your lack of compassion disgusts me and your Islam disgusts me. There, I said it.
Alongside being a medical genius he was also a philosopher, theologian and ethicist, and sadly that part of his legacy is reviled by many Muslims today as being "un-Islamic" - Salafis hate Islamic rationalism, and branded it as heretical.
The trauma every single person in our region has been exposed to over the course of their lives is utterly indescribable, if you were somehow able to fully open your heart to it for an instant it would tear you apart.
German philosopher Jürgen Habermas' answer to the question "With the influx of migrants, does Germany still have just one culture?" shows exactly what it is to be a strong, confident country secure in its identity.
The most heartbreaking part of Twitter by far is when you find all the hundreds of accounts set up by
#Uyghurs
of all ages demanding to know where their missing family members are - disappeared en masse for years without a trace in China's massive system of prison camps.
I will never forget this image of an IED trap left behind in a house in
#Tripoli
's suburbs after Haftar's forces and their Russian (Wagner) mercenaries retreated. Not as long as I live.
#Libya
This is a test, and no politician who fails it can claim to be pro-human-rights or have a progressive foreign policy - on any country. The MENA region is watching
@IlhanMN
,
@AOC
and co for how they treat our allies and colleagues.
MPORTANT THREAD ⬇️⬇️⬇️
1-Earlier this week, Rep Ilhan Omar shared a defamatory article about me on social media by a Koch-Brothers funded “think tank” co-founded by a known sympathizer of the Iranian regime.
Here's my response to
@IlhanMN
Keeping notes on every single person who legitimised Andrew Tate - they and the institutions that they belong to/represent are pretty dead to me. Muslims should have no tolerance for dehumanising rhetoric towards women.
Social media platforms are actively assisting in the silencing of Palestinians, at a time when Israeli settlers are appropriating homes and forcibly expelling residents (with the support of Israel's judiciary and police).
Wordlessly trying to process the horror of what's happening to the people of Afghanistan, who have been in the vicious grinding cycle of foreign intervention, native extremism and authoritarianism for longer than I've been alive.
The hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca that Muslims are obliged to make once in their lives, has been canceled for what some scholars say may be the first time in history.
Solidarity with
@alinejadmasih
- an incredibly brave activist who's spent years fighting for human rights in Iran. She regularly gets death threats for it. Now American leftists are smearing her for calling out regime propaganda.
BREAKING: Uyghurs can now search a database of ~5,000 Uyghur children with one or both parents in detention, to learn more about the fate of these children. A collaboration of me and
@shahitbiz
(Gene Bunin). Please contact Gene Bunin (NOT ME) if this is relevant for you.
I would ordinarily be very wary of such extraordinary claims, but I also heard this from the mouth of an Uighur dissident 4 years ago, before most people had heard of Xinjiang.
My interview with a Uyghur surgeon points to evidence China is harvesting live organs taken from Muslims in concentration camps, and then selling their kidneys and livers for as much as $165,000
to transplant recipients around the world.
Please read:
Vile. People who want to ally with Bashar Al-Assad, the butcher of over half a million innocent people, "to fight the Zionists".
Makes you wonder what their issue with Zionists is, since it certainly isn't about killing innocent civilians.
I’m so sorry but the reality is that in Syria it wasn’t Zionists who killed a million Syrians it was Assad, Iran & Russia therefore, Syrian’s main enemy is Assad, Iran & Russia.
Simple.
“Get over it” قال
Our murdered, disappeared & displaced family makes it difficult to “get
Arbitrary colonial borders didn't work so let's create arbitrary new borders attempting to group similar people together in nation states all over again - because the problem was the execution and not the basic concept itself 😑
The replies and quote tweets of this thread are utterly horrific. In case you didn't realise how many genocide deniers, criminals and downright scummy human beings live among us.
Bashar Assad massacred a million of us. He killed my uncle, my aunt, my cousins — he gassed my other aunt, and rendered half my family refugees scattered across the globe. His father tortured my father in prison, broke his back and attempted his assassination in foreign land.
Jarring to see all the people up in arms (rightfully) about Turkey's invasion of northern Syria who weren't speaking about Syria before. Did they just notice the war now? Or was everyone else's blood a different colour, and war crimes less criminal when perpetrated against them?
Mohamed bin Zayed presents the Indian Prime Minister with the Zayed Medal in recognition of his role in promoting friendship and cooperation; witnesses the launch of a special commemorative stamp to mark the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi.
Just saw this heart-warming photo. Right: UAE's
@MohamedBinZayed
, MBS' mentor & leader of the brutal anti-democracy movement in MENA. Left: Ramzan Kadyrov, Chechen tyrant who assassinates opposition + journalists, tortures gays.
They are attending the Interfaith Alliance forum.
Two years ago
@LoujainHathloul
(r) was attending the
@OneYoungWorld
summit in Ottowa with Meghan Markle. She's now in prison. I hope Meghan will use her power to advocate for her fellow women's rights campaigner's freedom.
At 2 in the morning, hundreds of Ted Cruz supporters all woke up to issue the same exact statement on Twitter. Nothing suspicious about this. Nope. These are all just proud, patriotic American citizens, all deep in the heart of Texas.
Ali Abdullah Saleh is finally dead. Killed ignominiously, body paraded through the streets and tweets - echoes of Gaddafi. He took the country down with him and it will not recover for decades.
#Yemen
I would like to present, for your viewing pleasure, a case study in hypocrisy - an argument for those who think that there is no rational reason for people in other parts of the world to despise the west with a burning passion.
He died in prison today, on the first of Ramadan, after denial of urgent care for 10 days. The Saudi government killed Abdullah al-Hamid.
I'm heartbroken, and I'm so angry.
Awful news - Abdullah Alhamid is one of the most influential Saudi reformist thinkers, promoting ideas of a civil state, constitutional monarchy and allegiance to rulers being conditional on accountability.
After being denied heart surgery in jail he is now reportedly in a coma.
Two YouTubers, Mohammed Hijab and Ali Dawah, turned up in Golders Green last Saturday to ask Jews whether they'd condemn Israel and its actions - while displaying a van with messages on, including: "Did we not learn from the Holocaust"
This is a totally different phase - other countries had to overthrow a single dictator, but in these nominal democracies there isn't one - it's either systemic change or nothing. And the protestors fully understand that.
This is all you need to know about Corbyn's internationalism. Evo Morales has stacked the constitutional court, ended freedom of press, had thugs attack activists, ran for an unconstitutional fourth term and opened national parks for hydrocarbon exploitation.
To see
@evoespueblo
who, along with a powerful movement, has brought so much social progress forced from office by the military is appalling.
I condemn this coup against the Bolivian people and stand with them for democracy, social justice and independence.
#ElMundoConEvo
The genius of
@Billbrowder
's Magnitsky Act and campaign for its global adoption: target their pockets and safe cash havens, and they have no more incentive to back the regime - their loot will never be safe.
For anyone doubting the efficacy of the Magnitsky Act, please read this Manila Times piece about the meltdown of Philippine officials in the Duterte regime after they were targeted with Global Magnitsky
I stopped trusting most institutions in the Muslim community many years ago, and my own daughter sure as heck won't see the inside of any of them since they're so clearly crawling with mincels from top to bottom.
Fascinating article on the psychological impact of holding power, which reduces empathy so greatly that it's effects approximate brain damage, and how that can affect the performance of political leaders.
Last year during peak lockdown boredom, me and
@NadineDahan
were looking for something to do. We started experimenting with cooking - specifically Libyan food.
This International Day of Persons with Disabilities, the IDF HQ is lit up in purple in honor of people with disabilities in Israel and around the world.
Wish there was some way to stop the Twitter timeline from automatically updating - I hate losing the thing I was reading because it decided to roll up by itself.
When I first started intermittent fasting a year ago, the biggest surprise was finding out how little I actually needed - how much of my eating through the day was more entertainment than nourishment. Once I broke the habit, I didn't miss it at all.
I feel sorry for people going through a personal crisis because they grew up learning from Hamza Yusuf and have admired him for decades. He's been engaging in unconscionable apologism for Middle Eastern dictatorships for several years and it's reaching a crescendo.
Another
#Saudi
citizen flees the country and claims asylum in Europe. She's a journalist, and details the ordeal of being banned from writing, then detained, interrogated and threatened for two days, on the orders of
@saudq1978
.
أنا ريم سليمان الكاتبة في صحيفة مكة والوئام وأنحاء، أود أن أروي لكم ما تعرضت له من قمع وتعسف قبل أن أتمكن من الخروج من البلد والوصول إلى هولندا كلاجئة
بعض مقالاتي بصحيفة مكة والوئام
As I watch the horrific atrocities unfolding, I can't help but occasionally think: every single crime we've seen Israel commit, every one, was prototyped by Bashar al-Assad against his people in Syria.
Impunity is a contagion. When these crimes are ignored, they always spread.
Observation: none of the people I'm seeing comparing the outcry over Russia's invasion of Ukraine to silence over bombing of Palestine and Syria and muttering whataboutisms... are actually Syrians or Palestinians.
Extremely worried about Tunisia. The region's lone democracy, but a governance system haemorrhaging legitimacy in the face of mismanagement, economic crisis, political impasse, corruption and COVID. A coup is never the answer.
I've found this difficult to reckon with over the last few days. I didn't want to go down side-conversions about EU hypocrisy whilst Ukraine is being invaded, but I keep getting hit in the face by how little Europeans respect my people or value our blood. It's not avoidable.
Most conversations I'm seeing in Arabic on Ukraine have shifted from being about the war itself and its implications, to being about Western racism, hypocrisy, and double standards. The message many are getting is that the West's humanism/universalism is a charade.
I find photos of the earth at night from space calming and deeply reassuring. This beautiful ball we live on is chaotic but it's home.
I also have a strong preference for non-nation-delineated maps, or any maps which disrupt conventional thinking.
Our book is out in 10 days!
@iyad_elbaghdadi
and I cover a century of our region's history, showing how the vicious triangle of terrorism, tyranny and foreign intervention emerged and how we can escape it and create a just and peaceful future.
As you tuck into your dinner today in the warmth of your home, know that the people of
#Sudan
are on the streets demanding and end to impunity and the rule of corrupt thieves. This is happening now:
#sudanuprising
In full solidarity with the protestors in
#Hongkong
, with every fibre of my being. Inspired by their courage, creativity, patriotism.
#HongKongAirport
Noman Benotman is brandishing the Qur'an on Libyan satellite TV and yelling about his political enemies, promising to break their heads. He's president of Quilliam Foundation, a counter-extremism think tank in the UK.
I love the idea of this "mathematics village" in Turkey, where math enthusiasts gather to study and professors voluntarily come to "teach what they enjoy". The place is at full capacity (500) all year round.
Middle East Eye ought to be ashamed for enabling this. They published irresponsible, overreaching poorly-argued content and ignored the consequences - which include help being cut off from millions of desperate people because of smears.
The UAE's fall from grace is pretty spectacular - they destroyed their own brand themselves. Just think how few people 5 years ago associated the UAE with words like disinformation, media manipulation, war crimes, military aggression, proxy conflict, cluster bombs…
The real
#reform
for
#SaudiArabia
would be to become a constitutional monarchy like
#Morocco
or
#Jordan
- or the late
#Ottoman
Empire.
That would allow political participation and some balancing of power.
Otherwise, one despotic prince may go, another one may come.
"The people are the shit we grow our money in" - Ukrainian phrasing of how oligarchs think. So apt a phrasing for the
#ArabTyrantManual
, thanks
@AndreaChalupa
! Loved this episode.
In the latest episode of
@gaslitnation
, we discuss the racist
@IvankaTrump
who helped bring a racist to power and defends her administration's racist border policy that established a child sex trafficking ring paid for with our tax dollars:
Earlier I saw someone on Instagram struggle to go on live to talk about Gaza. She changed the title of the stream to "makeup tutorial" and it worked immediately.
I don't get this compulsion to link Uighur suffering to the silence of dictatorships, what's the strategy? You're (a) implying that only coreligionists should care, (b) conflating nations with their dictators who don't care about rights, (c) trying to shame govts who don't care.
Two things are clear about the Uighur Muslims of Xinjiang:
1. The Chinese government is massively detaining and severely persecuting them.
2. The Muslim-majority nations of the world are shamefully silent.
Have these nations sold out their fellow Muslims?
Emmanuel Macron took far-right narratives on Muslims and ran with them for several years. He thought he'd steal the right's voters, but he just normalised them.
The Turkish Lira has lost about 85% of its value in the last 10 years, and accelerating.
What this line on a chart doesn't show is the dashed dreams of the tens of millions losing their life savings to the economic delusions of a power-mad president.