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Articles and Blog Posts by Daniel Pipes
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Bashir signals his outlook in the first paragraph: "Let us for a moment imagine a world in which Muslim seminaries are training scholars to actively challenge 'modern slavery' across the globe." Having established that, he poses a first question, one derived from Muhammad Abduh: Given that Islam "eagerly anticipates the liberation of slaves, why have Muslims spent centuries enslaving the free?" Then comes a second question: How did it come to be that "In the contemporary world, Muslim nations have unanimously rejected the institution of slavery on numerous occasions"?
Despite his requisite fashionable academic signaling, invoking Edward Said and bashing Bernard Lewis, Bashir offers a sophisticated analysis that reviews classic Qur'anic exegesis and classic legal rulings, then looks at reform ideas generally before focusing on two main schools of interpretation: what he calls Qur'anic abolition and Qur'anic gradualism. The final section attempts to reconcile these many contradictions, exploring "why there remain such clear differences among scholars."
Continue Readingreview of Possessed by the Right Hand: The Problem of Slavery in Islamic Law and Muslim Cultures
by Daniel Pipes • Spring 2025 • Middle East Quarterly
Recalling Muhammad's apocryphal last words about Muslims needing to take care of their slaves, Freamon, a Black American Muslim and professor emeritus at Seton Hall Law School, argues that they "have not lived up to this admonition" either in law or in practice. Writing with anguish in his large, rambling, and original study, he calls these "vexing problems ... that have never been solved." Possessed by the Right Hand explains this discrepancy and then offers a remedy.
Freamon expresses dismay at Islamic scholars' endorsement of slavery: That they "would ignore and sometimes give their imprimatur to the horrific practices of slave raiders and slave dealers for over 1,300 years raises profound and deeply disturbing questions about the viability of Islamic law as an effective legal tool for reform and progress, particularly in the colonial and post-colonial eras."
Thus, while "Hindu and Buddhist slavery eventually died out ... slavery and slave trading in Muslim communities in the region [of South Asia] did not." Rather, "the illusion of abolition occurred across much of the Muslim world." Indeed, "the abolition of slavery in the Muslim world has been an illusion and will remain illusory if Muslims do not come to grips with the problem." Worse, "attitudes toward [slaves] in the Muslim world have not improved and perhaps have even gotten worse."
review of Reform and Its Perils in Contemporary Islam
by Daniel Pipes • Spring 2025 • Middle East Quarterly
In her interesting and significant book, Oweidat, a historian at Kansas State University, focuses for three reasons on the life and work of Egyptian scholar Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd (1943-2010).
First, in a case that attracted international attention, a Cairo court in 1995 ruled that the writings of a mild-mannered and then-obscure professor of Arabic language and literature rendered him an apostate from Islam. For good measure, the court also nullified Abu Zayd's marriage, forcing him and his wife to flee to Europe. As such, he personifies the "peril" in the title.
Second, Abu Zayd claimed to be "among those few who have been trying to keep the Qur'an relevant to the modern age," and Oweidat agrees with him. She sees Abu Zayd as "a representative of modernist Islamic thought" and someone who "carved an exceptional place for himself in contemporary Islamic thought." His work is "uniquely rich." Indeed, "In some ways, his work is nothing short of revolutionizing the field of interpreting the Qur'an." She expects that "Abu Zayd will continue to shape the conversation into the future" about traditional Islam and modernity.
review of Oman's Transformation After 1970
by Daniel Pipes • Spring 2025 • Middle East Quarterly
Connoisseurs of improbable history will forever appreciate Oman in 1970. That is when the 59-year-old sultan of the world's most insular and backward-looking government, Sa'id bin Taimur, found himself deposed by his 29-year-old son, Qaboos, who turned out to be a relentless modernizer throughout his half-century reign.
Peterson's understated description of that palace coup d'état includes such memorable passages as: on the day of the event, Sa'id spent "his afternoon counting his money"; confronted by Qaboos's demand that he sign a letter of abdication, Sa'id "grabbed a pistol and started firing," killing one person and wounding another; after this, Sa'id "barricaded himself in his bedroom"; a British military ally of Qaboos, Edward Turnill, used a megaphone to call on Sa'id and two slaves to surrender, "but the only answer was several bursts of automatic fire"; Turnill ordered his troops to storm the sultan's bedroom; after an exchange of gunfire, Sa'id's "voice was heard from inside the bedroom, shouting that he had shot himself. Turnill persuaded the sultan to open the door. When he entered alone and unarmed, the sultan was behind his desk holding two pistols. Turnill asked him to hand them over and Sultan Sa'id did so, saying 'I don't think I will need these any more'."
review of Nazis, Islamic Antisemitism and the Middle East
by Daniel Pipes • Spring 2025 • Middle East Quarterly
Strangely, as the decades pass since the Nazi regime fell in 1945, historians assess its impact on the Middle East as greater and greater; Küntzel's excellent study adds significantly to that process. Coming out of a far-left background, for the past quarter century he has focused his great talents on antisemitism in general and the German role in particular.
This book, a fine translation of Nazis und der Nahe Osten: Wie der islamische Antisemitismus entstand (2019), views the Arab attack on the nascent Israeli state in 1948 as an "aftershock" of the Holocaust. The author explains:
the Nazis' antisemitic propaganda was one of the decisive factors that led to the Arab states going to war against Israel in May 1948. I show that there is an ideological link between the Nazi war against the Jews and the Arab war against Israel three years later so that the latter can be interpreted as a kind of aftershock of the great catastrophe of 1939–1945.
More broadly, "rather than antisemitism resulting from the exacerbation of the Middle Eastern conflict, it was the other way round: antisemitism exacerbated the conflict."
Angry Conservatives, Explained
by Daniel Pipes • March 1, 2025 • Boston Globe
The fiasco Friday, with President Trump bullying and insulting Ukraine's leader, Volodymyr Zelensky, is one of the worst diplomatic incidents in U.S. history. It mortifies me as an American and a conservative — and especially as someone who, reluctantly, voted for Trump in the 2020 and 2024 general elections.
I voted for Trump because he aspires to reverse lax border controls and to dismantle the administrative state (agencies of the executive branch that write, judge, and enforce their own laws), progressive educational institutions, racial preferences, and "woke" gender ideology.
But Trump 2.0 has in just over a month pushed me, a traditional conservative, to agree with Democrats on many key issues: that Russia began the war against Ukraine and must be defeated, that America needs free trade, a strong NATO alliance, anti-bribery laws, press freedom, an independent judiciary, and federalism. Additionally, I trust vaccines, mistrust cryptocurrencies, and respect the 2020 presidential election result.
The Genteel Martyrdom of Israel Haters
by Daniel Pipes • February 22, 2025 • Australian
Melbourne-based supporters of Hamas, the Palestinian jihadist organization, have engaged in puzzling acts of aggression since Oct. 7, 2023. Why did they break into the University of Melbourne's main library, cause damage on many floors, and destroy expensive book-scanning equipment? Why injure 24 police officers with rocks, acid, and manure outside a defense exposition? Why invade a Starbucks store, chant anti-Israel slogans, steal merchandise, and spit on a barista?
Blankets, Bombs, or Bribes
Why Give Foreign Aid?
by Daniel Pipes and Michael Rubin • February 6, 2025 • MEF Observer
After President Donald Trump froze United States Agency for International Development (USAID) grants, its outgoing administrator Samantha Power stumbled for words as she strained to vent her indignation:
Programs that we're running, the people we're depending on, in some cases, for life-saving medicine. ... Or if you're in Sudan and you have a child who's wasting away because of malnutrition, a miracle paste, a peanut paste that USAID provides brings that kid back from the brink of death – all of those programs are shuttered.
In plain English: Don't touch USAID!
Power, however, conveniently ignored a wide array of outrages engaged in by USAID, such as the $122 million it sent to groups aligned with designated terrorist entities, mostly on her watch. In other words, the full reconsideration of USAID now starting is very long overdue and urgently needed.
by Daniel Pipes • February 3, 2025 • MEF Observer
Donald Trump forcing Gustavo Petro, Colombia's far-left leader, to back down in the face of the threat of sky-high tariffs was a welcome change after four years of Joe Biden's geriatric passivity. But Trump's broader threat of indiscriminate tariffs – including against Canada and Mexico – will have dire foreign policy consequences. Close allies will distance themselves and trading partners will flee to other markets.
Consider recent Trump's threats against Egypt and Jordan. Here's the chronology:
Israel's Military Failure, Gaza's Dismal Future
by Daniel Pipes • February 1, 2025 • Australian
Israelis widely agreed in the aftermath of the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre that Hamas must no longer rule Gaza; indeed, it had to be destroyed. Some 16 months later, however, Hamas remains a powerful institution. The question of Gaza's future governance, as a result, has become fluid and confused.
This situation raises several questions: Why did the powerful Israeli military, the one that defeated three Arab state armies in six days, fail to defeat a rag-tag militia? What are the possible ways forward for Gaza? What is the most likely outcome? What would be the best one?
Further Signs of Palestinian Defeat
by Daniel Pipes • January 25, 2025
I argue on p. 204 of my 2024 book Israel Victory: How Zionists Win Acceptance and Palestinians Get Liberated that
Palestinians might appear unanimously to abhor Israel and seek its destruction but that is not the case. In fact, a significant percentage of them has either given up the fight; accepted Israel's existence; expressed appreciation of it; or chosen to move to it. Such overlooked persons have great importance, implying an unwonted receptivity to Israel and its messages.
This weblog entry logs occasional supporting evidence for that assertion.
Tahani Abu Daqqa, a Gaza-born Palestinian Authority politician spoke on Al-Arabiya television:
In 1948, 1956, and 1967, my family and I were not expelled from our land and our home, and were not turned into refugees. In this war, however, I was driven out of my home, I became a refugee in Egypt. My house is now under occupation, because it is in the buffer zone. My land, on which I had some projects that were destroyed, is also under the control of the occupation.
The Momentous, "Horrific" Hamas-Israel Deal
by Daniel Pipes • January 18, 2025 • Australian
The ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas announced on Jan. 15 has implications nearly as momentous as the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre that precipitated it.
The deal comes after fifteen months of protracted indecision by the government of Israel, during which Jerusalem followed two contradictory policies toward Hamas: Destroy the organization. Make a deal with it.
The first policy, victory over Hamas, clearly appealed more to Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. By my informal count, he mentioned "victory" 216 times in 76 discreet statements, from the immediate aftermath of Oct. 7 to lighting the Hanukkah candles three weeks ago. At times, as in a statement on French television, his sentences amounted to a barrage of victory talk: "Our victory is your victory," he said. "Our victory is the victory of Israel against antisemitism. It is the victory of Judeo-Christian civilization against barbarism. It is the victory of France."
Why Jihadists Wage War on Christmas (and Other Holidays)
by Daniel Pipes • January 5, 2025 • Wall Street Journal
Few things foster a sense of common humanity as much as the adherents of one religion offering warm holiday wishes to members of another. Yet some people reject this geniality on principle. Islamists—Muslims intent on returning to a medieval law code—despise any holiday not sanctioned by Islam. This archaic and bigoted attitude provides context for the New Year's Day massacre in New Orleans that left 14 dead and dozens injured.
Islamic theologians of the Middle Ages set out the general approach. Ibn Taymiya (1263-1328) argued that joining non-Muslims in their festivals is equivalent to "agreeing to infidelity." His student Ibn al-Qayyim (1292-1350) specified that congratulating non-Muslims on their holidays "is a greater sin than congratulating them for drinking wine, having illegal sexual intercourse, and so on."
Of all infidel holidays, Islamic authorities most detest Christmas, when Christians believe God became man. As historian Raymond Ibrahim has noted, these theologians, who believe that polytheism is the ultimate sin in Islam, consider Christmas "the biggest crime ever committed by humanity."
Proof that COVID-19 Came from the Wuhan Institute of Virology
Letter to the Editor
by Daniel Pipes • December 26, 2024 • DanielPipes.org
To the Editor:
Hats off to Michael R. Gordon and Warren P. Strobel for an in-depth analysis of the U.S. intelligence community's wrangling over the origins of COVID-19, whether coming from an animal or the Wuhan Institute of Virology ["Behind Closed Doors: The Spy-World Scientists Who Argued Covid Was a Lab Leak," Wall Street Journal, Dec. 26].
They mention only in passing "China's stonewalling," that U.S. officials believe "efforts to investigate the virus's origins [were] unduly constrained by the Chinese," and that "a conclusive assessment about the virus's origin cannot likely be made without China's cooperation."
Conjuring up my inner Sherlock, I propose that this information blackout provides the clue. Had the coronavirus come from an animal, the Chinese Communist Party would have been eager to make information available. Its fervent and protracted efforts to censor its origins sends an irrefutable signal that the disease originated in the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Case closed.
Yours sincerely,
Daniel Pipes
Philadelphia
Facilitate America's Enemies Killing Each Other in Syria
by Daniel Pipes • December 7, 2024 • MEF Observer
President-elect Donald Trump wants nothing to do with Syria. On December 7, 2024, he wrote that "THE UNITED STATES SHOULD HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH IT. THIS IS NOT OUR FIGHT. LET IT PLAY OUT. DO NOT GET INVOLVED!" (his capital letters).
I disagree. In fact, the U.S. government should help Bashar al-Assad, a brutal, totalitarian dictator, to remain in power. This unhappy example of counter-intuitive Realpolitik follows on the circumstances in Syria.
Simply put, when both sides to a conflict are loathsome, Americans must put aside their usually welcome and instinctive feelings of short-term humanitarianism and instead think strategically. What outcome, they should ask, will do least long-term damage to civilians and to U.S. interests?
As I wrote about Syria in 2013, "Evil forces pose less danger to us when they make war on each other. This (1) keeps them focused locally and it (2) prevents either one from emerging victorious (and thereby posing a yet-greater danger)."
In the prototypical example, the Roosevelt administration correctly helped Stalin against Hitler. It did not do so out of sympathy for the Soviet Union but out of concern that it would fall, thereby augmenting the power of Nazi Germany. Better they should battle each other on the Eastern Front than aggress globally. In similar spirit, the Reagan administration supported Iraq against Iran.
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