Date Posted: January 28, 2011

By Arsalan Iftikhar, Special to CNN

Editor's note: Arsalan Iftikhar is an international human rights lawyer, founder of TheMuslimGuy.com and legal fellow for the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding in Washington.

(CNN) – President John F. Kennedy once said, "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."

The recent pro-democracy mass protests around the Arab world -- in places like Tunisia, Yemen and Egypt --reflect the beginnings of a "democracy Renaissance," launched by the millions of citizens within these countries that have been ruled for decades by ruthless autocrats and soft dictators.

The recent "Jasmine Revolution" in Tunisia began with the desperate act of a young unemployed man who set himself on fire. And that passionate fire would ultimately rage against the Tunisian government machine until its long-serving president would be forced into exile two weeks ago. The young man was 26-year-old Mohammed Bouazizi, an unemployed fruit stand owner who became distraught when a policewoman confiscated his unlicensed produce stand. He died from his burns.

Following suit, several other unemployed youth around the country tried to commit suicide, and subsequent mass protests would soon topple the 23-year reign of Tunisia's strongman, 74-year-old Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali.

Long-standing autocratic rule within the Arab world shows a "depressingly familiar pattern" in terms of regional suppression of democracy, notes Egyptian-American writer Mona Eltahawy, in a recent Washington Post opinion piece. Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi, 68 years old, has been in power since 1969; Yemen's Ali Abdullah Saleh (64) has ruled since 1978 and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak (82) since 1981.

Eltahawy wrote that these dinosaur political figures are "not so much fathers as grandfathers of their nations, these autocrats clinging to office -- and are increasingly out of touch with their young populaces."

Much larger than Tunisia, the nation of Egypt is home to some 80 million people -- with Mubarak as its not-so-democratic leader since the assassination of Anwar Sadat in 1981. From creating a virtual police state to promoting censorship by placing all media under state control, Hosni Mubarak has spent the better part of 30 years strengthening his autocratic rule, while millions of young Egyptians remain hungry and unemployed.

Read the rest of Arsalan’s column here: http://www.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/01/28/iftikhar.egypt.protests/index.html

Date Posted: January 5, 2011

By Arsalan Iftikhar, Special to CNN

Editor's note: Arsalan Iftikhar is an international human rights lawyer, founder of TheMuslimGuy.com and legal fellow for the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding in Washington.

(CNN) – With the recent deadly attacks on Christian churches, the maniacal terrorists of al Qaeda seem to be aiming at unraveling the neighborliness among Muslims, Jews and Christians throughout the Middle East that has existed for centuries.

In Baghdad, 58 people died in a bomb attack on a church; in Alexandria, Egypt, 21 people were killed and about 80 injured in another bombing.

Of course, al Qaeda has not limited its attacks to Christianity. Before its attacks on churches, al Qaeda was targeting mosques all around the region.

In 2006, for example, Iraqi members of al Qaeda attacked the Al-Askari mosque in Samarra, Iraq, during the morning hours, killing at least 101 Iraqi Muslims at one of the holiest sites in Shia Islam.

In July 2007, hundreds of militants barricaded themselves in the Red Mosque in Islamabad, Pakistan, in a bloody standoff with the Pakistani army, resulting in the deaths of at least 154 people in the nation's capital.

Al-Azhar University -- one of Egypt's oldest centers of Islamic study and worship -- issued a statement on Egyptian television condemning the Alexandria bombing.

"This is a criminal act that can never be justified in any religion. Islam specifically prohibits any attacks on religious places. As a matter of fact, our religion of Islam tasks Muslims with protecting religious places of worship for Muslims and non-Muslims alike."

Read the rest of Arsalan’s column here: http://www.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/01/05/iftikhar.church.terror.attacks/index.html

Date Posted: October 22, 2010

By Arsalan Iftikhar, Special to CNN

Editor's note: Arsalan Iftikhar is an international human rights lawyer, founder of TheMuslimGuy.com and legal fellow for the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding in Washington.

(CNN) -- Imagine for a moment that there was a prominent American conservative journalist who ignorantly disparaged an entire minority group on national television, got fired for it by the nation's largest public radio media organization and then still managed to pull down a $2 million payday with the television network where he made the remarks.

Man, it must be nice to be Juan Williams.

A quick recap: Williams, a National Public Radio "news analyst," appeared on Fox News Channel's "The O'Reilly Factor" on Monday to talk about Bill O'Reilly's recent remarks about Muslims on ABC's "The View;" the latter' shows co-hosts, Joy Behar and Whoopi Goldberg, had walked off the television set in protest.

When asked what he thought about the incident, Williams responded: "Look, Bill, I'm not a bigot. ...You know the kind of books I've written about the civil rights movement in this country. ... But when I get on the plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous."

When someone begins with the weak disclaimer that he is "not a bigot," you can probably bet the farm that he is about to say something pretty bigoted.

Read the rest of Arsalan’s column here: http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/10/22/iftikhar.juan.williams/index.html?npt=NP1

Date Posted: September 22, 2010

My Take: Reviewing Deepak Chopra’s book ‘Muhammad’

Editor's note: Arsalan Iftikhar is an international human rights lawyer, founder of TheMuslimGuy.com and legal fellow for the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding in Washington.

By Arsalan Iftikhar, Special to CNN

It was nearly one year ago - in November 2009 – that Deepak Chopra first told me about his upcoming historical fiction novel about the Prophet Muhammad. It was during a coffee meeting of ours at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Washington right before Deepak's attendance at President Obama’s first official state dinner at the White House.

Deepak mentioned that his latest fictional novel was part of his desire to complete a "religious trilogy" of such books. He'd previously written about Jesus and Buddha.

I received my advance copy of Muhammad: A Story of the Last Prophet in the mail during the last days of Ramadan this year. I thought it fitting that I would read and review the book without the distractions of food or water during the Muslim holy month.

Upon reading the first few pages, it becomes clear that the first thing Chopra wants his readers to know is that this novel about Muhammad is not an authenticated biography of the Prophet of Islam. It's based on an imagined historical narrative as told by those people in 7th century Arabia within close proximity to the Prophet: friends, enemies and family.

Read Arsalan’s entire book review here: http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2010/09/22/my-take-reviewing-deepak-chopra%E2%80%99s-book-%E2%80%98muhammad%E2%80%99/

Date Posted: September 14, 2010

By Arsalan Iftikhar, Special to CNN

Editor's note: Arsalan Iftikhar is an international human rights lawyer, founder of TheMuslimGuy.com and legal fellow for the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding in Washington, D.C.

Usually in America, when a lone crackpot of any political or religious persuasion threatens to commit a publicity stunt that will needlessly enrage millions of other innocent people, our basic common sense tells us that our national media should not even give that person the time of day.

Sadly, not only did Terry Jones successfully receive media attention, but because of the overexposure of this one man, we are beginning to see other "copycat" Quran burnings around the country.

Read the rest of Arsalan’s CNN column here: http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/09/13/quran.case.roundup/index.html?hpt=C1