Saad Hafiz

It’s important to remember that minorities make up about 20% of India’s population, with Muslims as the largest minority at 14 percent. There was a time that Hindus, Muslims, and other minorities together, fought for freedom against British colonial rule. ManyIndians firmly rejected the theory, propagated by self-serving politicians, that Hindus and Muslims cannot live […]

President Trump’s much-hyped Israeli-Palestinian peace plan has joined the other peace plans on the shelf. The advocates of the Trump plan sold it as a vision to improve the lives of the Palestinian and Israeli people. But the plan essentially imposed victor terms on the vanquished. Both sides are backed by powerful historical narratives that […]

The scale of the devastation from the decade-old civil war in Syria shows that a viable and functioning state isn’t on the horizon soon. Syria needs billions of dollars for humanitarian aid to the injured, the permanently disabled and internal refugees and to rebuild the country once the violence stops. Neighbouring Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, and […]

The tussle between religion and modernity hasn’t been confined to Islam. Western civilization also experienced a similar tug-of-war. The West chose the path of evolutionary secularism. It made room for the assertive secularism sans religion dominant in France and the passive secularism more accepting of religion in the United States. But the West generally downgraded […]

Faith-based conflicts have largely shifted from Europe to the Middle East and South Asia. These regions can learn from the European experience. We know that religion and politics are a deadly mix and that religious nationalism can complicate matters. The Israeli-Palestinian dispute, the Iran-Iraq war, the conflicts in Iraq and Syria, Saudi Arabia and Iran, […]

In retrospect, the creation of Pakistan in 1947 with two territories a thousand miles apart, could be viewed as a recipe for discord, if not disaster. That the flawed arrangement lasted as long as it did is a miracle in itself. But we must not forget that Bengali Muslims largely supported the creation of Pakistan […]

The Indian Supreme Court has rendered its final verdict in the long-standing Babri Masjid dispute in Ayodhya. In a unanimous decision, the court allowed the construction of a temple on the site despite ruling the earlier demolition of the mosque illegal. As compensation, the court gave Muslims an alternate piece of land to build a […]

Since 9/11, radical Islamic terrorism has made inflammatory headlines across the world. Terrorist atrocities have heightened hostility towards Islam and Muslims. In the wake of vicious terrorist attacks in the United States and Europe, one can understand the harsh reactions of political and military leaders. Politicians and pundits in the West and jihadists have something […]

Bloodletting has blighted Afghanistan throughout its tortured history. Possibly the worse outcome to the Afghan problem is more violence by the parties involved. Most rulers killed, maimed, or tortured opponents on the way to power and to force elusive modernity. The people, tied by tradition and religion, had to deal with harsh punishments, executions, and […]