Russell Senate Office Building by Architect of the Capitol (US-PD). During his second term, President Barack Obama attempted to restart the Israel-Palestine peace process, following in the footsteps of every president since George H.W. Bush. Like other attempts, it fell apart quickly, much to the frustration of all. In April of 2014, then U.S. Secretary…
School of Athens, painting by Rafael (US-PD). Throughout history, rulers facing crises have often turned to oracles, sages, and spiritual guides for wisdom. More than 2,500 years ago, King Croesus of Lydia consulted the Oracle at Delphi on whether to wage war against Persia. The Oracle replied that if Croesus attacked, he would “destroy a…
Image by Paasikivi on Wikimedia (CC BY-SA 4.0) The implementation of Islamic criminal law has been characterized as a paradox. Muslims are scripturally instructed to apply the Qur’anic punishments for “crimes against God” (murder, theft, slander, adultery). Nevertheless, prophetic practice, legal canons, and the evidentiary rules elaborated by Muslim jurists often appear designed to prevent…
Photo of Kaifeng North Mosque by Windmemories (CC BY-SA 4.0) The following essay is reprinted and adapted on Canopy Forum in collaboration with the journal Derecho en Sociedad, a biannual electronic publication that is free and open access. Their issue 19(1) features full length articles in Spanish and English. Read Gaffet’s long-form essay on Religious Freedom in China here. See other…
Main chamber of Badshahi Mosque by User:Amjad.m (CC BY-SA 3.0) On January 16th, 2025, the government of Punjab, Pakistan’s most populous province, demolished a historic Ahmadi mosque in the city of Daska. This mosque was built by Zafrullah Khan (1893-1985), Pakistan’s first foreign minister and one of the founding fathers of the country. This is…
Russian Orthodox Church, Rocklea, Russia by Bert Knot (CC 2.0) This article is part of our series on Transnational Christian Nationalism, and its impact on politics, the rule of law, and religious freedom. If you’d like to explore other articles in this series, click here. For many years, Russia has been known as one of the main…
Image by Mariya Popovich from Pixabay This article is part of our “Religious Perspectives on Assisted Reproduction and Surrogacy” series. If you’d like to explore other articles in this series, click here. While a great deal has already been written about cross-racial surrogacy and surrogacy in India, there are, however, no significant or credible studies concerning gestational surrogacy from…
Nuremburg Trials Protocols by David Shay (CC BY 3.0 DEED) Prologue Rabbi Dr. Emanuel Rackman (b. 1910, d. 2008) was a unique figure in the Orthodox Jewish community. Besides his well-known intellectual brilliance, he was involved with nearly every important Orthodox organization in America for many decades and then moved to Israel to be the…
Islam, Women, and Genderization in Professions: The Case of UzbekistanRahimjon Abdugafurov The following is an excerpt from Rahimjon Abdugafurov’s chapter titled, “Islam, Women, and Genderization in Professions: The Case of Uzbekistan” featured in The Political Economy of Education in Central Asia, an open access collection of essays on Central Asia. Reprinted here with permission from…
A sign with “Woman, Life, Freedom” (Jin, Jiyan Azadi) in Central and Northern Kurdish by Pirehelokan (CC BY-SA 4.0). As a scholar in the field of Islamic studies and material culture since the early 1990s, I have continually read and written about veiling and the hijab in Muslim cultures. In Iran, the hijab has had…