Political Islam in the News

CSPII Commentary: The Ahmadis, a 19th-century Islamic movement originating in British India, present themselves as a nonviolent branch of Islam and frequently preach to non-Muslims that Islam is a religion of peace and poses no threat, while deliberately misrepresenting Islamic doctrine and portraying violent and hostile Islamic actors as misinterpreting the ideology.

CSPII Commentary: The article cites several Koranic verses and Sahih Hadiths. Although it explicitly rejects terrorism and indiscriminate attacks occurring in some places, the author declares that the objective of jihad is to establish Islam and its supremacy everywhere, bringing people from the “injustice of different religions” to the “justice of Islam.”

CSPII Commentary: An association of Islamic school administrators in Uttar Pradesh, India's most populous state, has endorsed nine candidates from the Samajwadi Party, whose traditional electoral base includes Muslim voters. The move raises questions about the political mobilization of religious educational networks against the ruling BJP.

CSPII Commentary: Türkiye’s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan calls for greater solidarity among Muslim-majority countries, especially on Palestine, at the OIC meeting in Baghdad. Islam demands greater solidarity amongst brothers over the non-Muslim, the kafir, as Pickthall renders the Koran 3:28: “Let not the believers take disbelievers for their friends in preference to believers.”

CSPII Commentary: Houthis have tightened their siege on Taiz, blocking supplies and worsening the humanitarian crisis, as the Financial Times reports. Muhammad used sieges to help win battles, as the Koran commands in Koran 9:5: “slay the idolaters wherever ye find them, and take them (captive), and besiege them, and prepare for them each ambush.”