Qantara.de - Dialog mit der islamischen Welt

In the wake of the Paris attacks, the question is how such an outbreak of hate and violence could have happened in France. French crime novelist Karim Miske described life in the desolate banlieues of Paris in his novel ″Arab Jazz″. In interview with Claudia Mende he advises against simplistic answers and talks about the difficulties French society has in accepting its immigrants, who feel more French than ArabMore

The latest attacks by IS are an attempt to exploit societal rifts at the heart of Europe. Without a concerted effort to address deep-seated and justified concerns relating to domestic social and economic policy, France′s retaliatory strikes are likely to achieve little. By James DorseyMore

In her engrossing fourth novel, "The Kindness of Enemies", the Sudanese-British writer Leila Aboulela tackles themes of identity, jihad and Sufism. She does so through two parallel narratives, one set in contemporary Scotland and Sudan, the other in nineteenth-century Imperial Russia and the Caucasus. By Susannah TarbushMore

The world is horrified by the brutality of Islamic State (IS). Two young sisters are now doing what they can to prevent young Lebanese people from joining radical Islamist groups. By doing so, they are risking their lives. Juliane Metzker reports from BeirutMore

In this essay, Felix Koltermann takes a closer look at the image policy of IS and how media and politicians around the world have reacted to it. He argues that in spite of the horror of the images being disseminated by IS, it is important not to fall into the rhetoric of a war of images, because the goal of such a rhetoric is to take pictorial acts as a justification for military actionMore

What is the appropriate way to inform young Muslims in schools about the dangers of Salafism? In co-operation with the Hamburg University of Applied Sciences, the association ufuq.de provides teaching materials on Islam, Islamophobia, Islamism and democracy. Gotz Nordbruch provides a personal account of preventive work in this fieldMore

Muslim intellectuals have called on their fellow believers to indentify the failures of Muslim societies and develop an Islam for the twenty-first century. Loay Mudhoon believes that Europe should unreservedly support this effortMore