Dr Ishtiaq Ahmed

At one stage in history, the Ottoman Empire was the biggest land-based empire in the world spread over three continents, Asia (Middle East and central Asia), Africa (North Africa minus Morocco) and Europe (Eastern Europe including the Caucasus). Although Muslims, or rather Sunni Muslims, were a privileged group, the various Christian sects and Jews were, […]

My article last Tuesday, ‘The Khilafat Movement and Turkish gratitude’ (Daily Times, August 19, 2014) elicited a host of responses. Some readers wondered if I was not falling into the flawed anti-imperialist leftist trap that, because the Taliban, and by that token the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), are fighting the west and […]

Turkish affinity for Pakistanis is well known. I shall explain why. The Ottoman sultans were considered symbolic heads of the global Sunni community. Tipu Sultan had sought an investiture decree as ruler of Mysore from the Ottomans. However, the Ottoman Empire was beset with decline and defeat from the beginning of the 19th century. At […]

Leftwing Zionists wanted to convince the Arabs that Jews and Arabs could live in peace in Palestine. However, rightwing Zionists overruled peace overtures towards the Palestinians. Thus, for example, on the orders of Yitzhak Shamir, later the prime minister of Israel, the UN mediator, Count Folke Bernadotte of the Swedish royal family, was assassinated on […]

The origins of Zionism can be traced to multiple factors: the appalling plight of Jews in eastern Europe where, from the end of the 19th century, pogroms against them intensified; the campaign launched by Theodore Herzl and other prominent Jews to convince the western powers that Israel would serve as an outpost of western civilisation […]

On November 26, 1938, Mahatma Gandhi published in his paper The Harijan, a historic statement: ‘The Jews in Palestine’. Some excerpts from his somewhat longer statement are presented here but the complete text can be accessed on the internet (http://www.countercurrents.org/pa-gandhi170903.htm). He wrote: “Several letters have been received by me, asking me to declare my views […]

My article, ‘Mass murder: a matter of terminology and counting’ (Daily Times, July 8, 2014) evoked diverse responses and comments. Writing on a subject for a newspaper column is different from academic writing; I had simplified the discussion on genocide to make is easily accessible to most readers. However, some very pertinent remarks also arrived […]

The mass murder of Jews under the German Nazi regime is proverbially called the Holocaust. It means destruction or slaughter on a mass scale. A synonym for it is genocide, which is now used generically for all cases of mass murder. Some writers have argued that the Holocaust is sui generis, a Jewish tragedy — […]

At long last the Pakistani military has decided to take strong action against terrorists in the tribal areas of FATA. It was correct of the Nawaz government to try to resolve the conflict with the Taliban and their associates peacefully through negotiations but, after the attack on Karachi airport, little doubt remained that the terrorists […]

In February 2013, I visited the famous house built by the founder of Pakistan, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, revered as the Quaid-e-Azam by millions of Pakistanis, on Malabar Hill, Mumbai. Although now kept under lock and key and in a state of neglect, its splendour must have once been considerable. A story has been making the […]