The attention in the West, especially in the United States, now accorded Islam and those who conduct themselves according to its precepts betrays woeful ignorance of both. As Graham Fuller has persuasively argued in his recent book, "A World Without Islam", Western culture owes much to Islam as well as to Muslims and would be greatly impoverished…

The "foreign languages" considered in this paper are the non-European contemporary tongues whose study was encouraged by the Crusades and related projects for recovering the Holy Land from the Muslims, Arabic, Hebrew and Syriac (Chaldaic), of which Arabic held pride of place. No-one was more significant in advancing the study and…

This article reports on new universities for Muslims, many supported by groups in the Middle East, which are spreading through the sub-Saharan region. The Islamic University in Uganda is a prime example of a new kind of institution that has slowly been spreading its way across the continent. Embracing both conservative Muslim values and modern…

This article reports on two Mideast-themed schools which have attracted fierce controversy amplified in the news media and the blogosphere. A new public school with a focus on Arabic language and culture is set to open in New York City this week, after being assailed for months by opponents who claim it will be a taxpayer-funded Islamic school…

The attacks of September 11th, followed by U.S. military actions in Afghanistan and Iraq, have brought greater attention to the simmering conflict between Islam and the West--a conflict most brutally played out historically during the Crusades. The series of holy wars for control of Jerusalem and the Holy Land stretched over centuries--from 1096…

The population of the Republic of the Philippines is largely composed of common racial stock except for a small minority of ethnic Chinese. Ethnic differences are largely on the basis of language and religion. Over 90 percent of the people are Christians, mostly Roman Catholics, approximately 5 percent are Muslims, and the remainder adhere to the…

Steps away from where a concrete wall once divided this city east from west, a group of Muslim 1st graders at E.O. Plauen Elementary School sing a phrase that is unfamiliar to most German ears. Though the Roman Catholic and Protestant churches have long provided voluntary religion classes in Berlin schools, only recently have the courts allowed an…

On May 3-4, 2003, the Foreign Policy Research Institute held its tenth History Institute for Teachers. Forty-two teachers from fourteen states participated in a weekend of lectures and seminars, featuring seven outstanding scholars. Although Muslims define themselves and the Christian West in terms of religion, Western countries view relations…