Page 2 - Talmiz Ahmad

Why Islam is not 'exceptional'

Shadi Hamid's analysis points to a fundamental misreading of the history and politics of West Asia

The war that began all wars in West Asia

A detailed study of the Iran-Iraq war provides a timely reminder of the eight-year conflict that shaped the current conflagration in the region

Neo-Ottomanism in the West Asian quagmire

Global jihad and its discontents

Talmiz Ahmed examines two authoritative new books that explain the wellsprings and proliferation of radical Islam

A new book that explores how the Islamic State clicks

One of the Arab world's most distinguished commentators has provided unique insights into how this phenomenally successful jihadi group leverages the power of the Internet for propaganda, recruitment

End of an empire and the roots of the West Asian malaise

A new book about the Great War looks at the less-discussed Eastern Front with a fresh perspective

Isis: anatomy of a new scourge in West Asia

Understanding Islamism through history

Talmiz Ahmad: Why the Gulf is still confident about oil revenues

OPEC just decided not to cut output, but the Gulf is looking forward to the 2020s, and the decline of shale

Mecca: spiritual sanctum and terrestrial realities

Muslim angst in the modern world

Pakistan's call to arms

Pakistan: Zionist ideal and harsh reality

The evolution of an Arab-American

Muhammad, prophet and human being

An important new biography paints an intimate portrait of a complex and all-too-human thinker, redressing the culture of Islamophobia that has gripped many parts of the world

The Arab Spring withers into winter

Its promise has fallen short before the onslaught of the votaries of the old order and ruthless extremist forces

Pakistan - A dangerous failure

The superpower in winter - and dispensable

Foreign policy expert Vali Nasr argues that the US pivot away from West Asia is ill advised

Islam defended: too loud, too late

Anne Norton reviews the principal areas where Western philosophers and political commentators have painted a negative view of Islam

Little traditions in composite India

Journalist Saba Naqvi travels across India and records the myriad examples of syncretic traditions and cross-dimensional belief that belie the hardening communal divide