Education
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Book review: ″Vanished″ by Ahmed Masoud
The youngest detective
Ahmed Masoud′s debut novel is a nuanced chronicle of one of the world′s most troubled regions. Reflecting the way children are forced to grow up before their time in the beleaguered Gaza Strip, this whodunnit centres on a child detective. Nahrain Al-Mousawi read the book
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Interview with the social scientist Edit Schlaffer
Mothers Schools challenge extremism
The Austrian "Mothers Schools" programme aims to prevent the recruitment of potential jihadists. Edit Schlaffer, founder of the organisation "Women without Borders", has spent the last ten years researching the root causes of Islamist radicalisation. Her core finding: mothers play a key role. Interview by Iris Mostegel
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Islamic theology in Germany
Mission accomplished?
Rarely does interest in a subject grow so fast. Introduced as a course of study at German universities just five years ago, Islamic theology is now being taught to 1,800 students at five centres around the country. Arnfrid Schenk takes stock
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″Islamic State″: lessons learnt
What chance a Muslim reformation?
Muslims who describe IS as un-Islamic and declare that it has nothing to do with genuine Islam cannot deny that many of their fellow believers identify with the image of Islam promoted by the jihadists and their ideology. A thorough examination of the Muslim faith is long overdue. By Hakim Khatib
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Science and research in the Islamic world
Rebuilding the Muslim House of Wisdom
Muslim governments know that economic growth, military power, and national security benefit greatly from technological advances. Many of them have sharply increased funding for science and education in recent years. And yet, in the view of many – especially in the West – the Muslim world still seems to prefer to remain disengaged from modern science. By Jim al-Khalili
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NYC Children’s Museum celebrates Muslim diversity
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Tunisian cleric Abdelfattah Mourou speaks out
During a Friday sermon in New Jersey on 1 January 2016, cleric Abdelfattah Mourou bemoaned the state of the Islamic world today, with its high rate of illiteracy and lack of scientific achievements. "I believe that you have a role to play," he told the congregation at the Islamic Center of Passaic County, in Patterson, New Jersey
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Mother-tongue instruction in multi-ethnic Iran
Linguistic diversity as opportunity
Iran is a state of many ethnicities where over a dozen languages are spoken, including, among others, Persian, Baluchi, Luri, Arabic, and Turkish. Unfortunately, the country’s education policy does not take account of this linguistic diversity. By Manutschehr Amirpur
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The Avicenna scholarship programme
Cosmopolitan and female
Avicenna is the first state-sponsored Muslim scholarship programme in Germany. It supports gifted and socially-committed students of all disciplines. Report by Arnd Zickgraf
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Culture and education in the Islamic world
The lonely Arab crowd
The cultural and educational turbulence within the Arab world is due – at least in part – to the absence of a contemporary home-grown intellectual tradition capable of providing societies with an inner compass based on local values and modern perspectives. An essay by Sami Mahroum
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Fighting jihadism
The fatal attraction of IS
In seeking to explain the rise of terrorist militia such as IS, we must look beyond school curricula, Friday sermons and religious texts, argues the Jordanian political scientist Mohammad Abu Rumman
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Muslim Brotherhood texts
Once valued, now proscribed
In recent months, both Egypt and Saudi Arabia have begun withdrawing literature relating to the Muslim Brotherhood from the public domain. Tracts and treatises that once held pride of place on bookshelves – with some even enjoying official textbook status – are being confiscated and burned. By Joseph Croitoru