2016

All years and months

The Army is on the job..

The author argues that the Pakistan army uses every crisis, here the latest attack, to elbow civilians aside, with ISPR press releases presenting its action in Punjab as unilateral and…

Brown Pundits Archive30 March 20160 comments
Scott Atran Proposes.. Boy Scout troops??

The author criticises Scott Atran’s proposal of community-based, youth-led ‘peace-building’ as an alternative to ISIS, arguing it is vague and offers no actionable recommendations.

Brown Pundits Archive24 March 20160 comments
Brussels. Islam, War on Terror, History..

After the Brussels attacks, the author reposts excerpts from earlier pieces on cultural and religious issues in the war with Islamist terror, adding that policing matters more in the short…

Brown Pundits Archive22 March 20160 comments
Trump, the phenomenon

The author recommends Adam Elkus’s essay on the Trump phenomenon and adds that the internet’s bypassing of gatekeepers helps explain ‘why now’, quoting the essay’s closing paragraphs.

Brown Pundits Archive15 March 20160 comments
Drone Warfare; The Unblinking Eye

Hamid Hussain surveys armed drones as the most open secret of modern warfare, reviewing how target killing grew out of post-9/11 detention problems and weighing opponents’ claim that drones kill…

Brown Pundits Archive1 March 20160 comments
The Triumph of Classical Islam and the slow fall of the Islamicate World

Asking whether the solidification of Islamic theology harmed the Islamicate world, the author reproduces a review of Robert Reilly’s book The Closing of the Muslim Mind, which blames the victory…

Brown Pundits Archive13 February 20160 comments
Adonis: “Islam Cannot be Modernized”

The author thinks Adonis is probably right about classical Islam, whose apostasy and blasphemy rules resist top-down reform, but argues change will still come as practice outruns legal and theological…

Brown Pundits Archive13 February 20160 comments
Bhutto Hereticizes the Ahmedis

The author preserves a Facebook comment by Ammar Ali Qureshi about whether Bhutto intended the 1974 amendment declaring Ahmadis non-Muslim, or was pushed by agitation, recalling a police officer’s account…

Brown Pundits Archive27 January 20160 comments
Sahibzada Yaqub Khan

Marking Sahibzada Yaqub Khan’s death, the author posts notes by Hamid Hussain, Agha Humayun Amin and Abbas Raza, and asks unanswered questions about his role in March 1971, calling him…

Brown Pundits Archive27 January 20161 comment
More “collateral damage” in Bacha Khan University

After the attack on Bacha Khan University that killed at least 22, the author notes the same Taliban group that claimed the 2014 school massacre again claimed it, and mocks…

Brown Pundits Archive22 January 20161 comment