On 23 October 2014, Abdelaziz Kuwan, a second-year student of Islamic studies at a religious college in Saudi Arabia, was shot dead by a Syrian government sniper in the al-Hawiqa district of the eastern Syrian town of Deir Ezzor. Nearly three years earlier the teenager, a high-school dropout from Bahrain, had defied his parents and […]
It isn’t entirely true to say that the US-led Western intervention in Afghanistan has been an unmitigated disaster. For example, around 80 per cent of the Afghan population have access to basic health care, up from 9 per cent under the Taliban regime; more than eight million children, a third of them girls, are in […]
Muhammad Ibn Abd al-Wahhab (1703–92) remains a controversial figure, a fact exemplified by the title of Charles Allen’s 2006 book on Wahhabism, God’s Terrorists: The Wahhabi Cult and the Hidden Roots of Modern Jihad. This new biography by Michael Crawford, a former senior British civil servant specialising in the Arab world, is accurate, dry but […]
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Knowledge of Sufism increased markedly with the publication in 1964 of The Sufis, by Idries Shah. Nowadays his writings, much like his father’s, are dismissed for their Orientalism and inaccuracy.
@fitzmorrissey investigates who the Shahs really were.
Fitzroy Morrissey - Sufism Goes West
Fitzroy Morrissey: Sufism Goes West - Empire’s Son, Empire’s Orphan: The Fantastical Lives of Ikbal and Idries Shah by Nile Green
literaryreview.co.uk
Rats have plagued cities for centuries. But in Baltimore, researchers alighted on one surprising solution to the problem of rat infestation: more rats.
@WillWiles looks at what lessons can be learned from rat ecosystems – for both rats and humans.
Will Wiles - Puss Gets the Boot
Will Wiles: Puss Gets the Boot - Rat City: Overcrowding and Urban Derangement in the Rodent Universes of John B ...
literaryreview.co.uk
Twisters features destructive tempests and blockbuster action sequences.
@JonathanRomney asks what the real danger is in Lee Isaac Chung's disaster movie.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/eyes-of-the-storm