As the attack on the niqab by politicians and the media intensifies in Britain, Canada, and other Western secular states, Muslims have once again felt pressure to defend yet another of their Islamic practices and to argue against its ban. There is no doubt that it is not a piece of cloth that is on trial here but the latest face of the attack on Islamic values and beliefs. It…

News: Within the last two weeks of October 2013, a number of reports and various discussions had been raised in the Malaysian press, in particular the alternative media sites and the various social media sites on issues related to the practices and spirit of Islam. The issues concern the use of the word ‘ALLAH' by non-Muslims, the submission of a report by the Coalition of Malaysian NGOs (COMANGO) in the…

The savage gang-rape of a five year old girl in Lahore this September whose body was then dumped outside a hospital, horrified Pakistan and the world. This brutal attack was then followed within a week by two more appalling rapes that hit the headlines - that of a young girl in Faisalabad and a college girl in Toba Tek Singh. In recent years, rapes of children and women in Pakistan…

The key ideas in Liberalism emerged and developed in Britain from the 17th Century to the 19th Century CE. In these centuries, the ideas of Liberalism were used to defend important vested interests against their opponents. Locke used Liberal ideas to support the English mercantile elite against the monarchy; and the Utilitarian philosophers used Liberalism to support British Capitalists against entrenched country lords. Meanwhile, Liberalism was used by radical French…