Read the Critical Muslim Top Ten Lists. Sometimes utilising satire, and always designed to provoke thought, we bring you our exclusive top ten from Towering Fatwas to Things we Love about Pakistan.
A Power List That is Not a List
Power is endlessly fascinating. Power is perennially enigmatic. The more complex society becomes the harder it is to define exactly where power resides. How ...
Barnaby Rogerson's Nineteen Islamic Numbers
There is One God, One Prophet and, allegedly, one international Muslim community – the ummah. There are five daily prayers and five pillars of ...
Maha Sardar's Ten Persecuted Communities
Over the last decade, I have advocated on behalf of hundreds of refugees. I have listened to their traumatic stories of horrific persecution and ...
Samia Rahman's Top Ten PostWest Films
Much like Zayn Malik’s ‘shock’ departure from One Direction, one of the world’s least well-kept secrets is the unfailing power of ...
Seven Climate-Denying Wonders of the World
Contrarians have always existed. Sometimes celebrated, other times ridiculed. Subversives who defy dominant thinking to advocate an alternative truth ...
Seven Wonderful Future Foods
Not so long ago, a prawn cocktail was the height of futuristic sophistication. Radioactive-looking frozen curries would be thawed out on a Friday night ...
Ten Cities to Visit Before You Die
1. Fez
There is only one city that can be on the top of your travel list: Fez. After the destruction of Aleppo, it is the only Islamic city that not only ...
Ten Emerging Issues
Emerging issues are a tough cookie to pin down.They are items that exist just below the horizon of tomorrow with the potential of becoming fully- fledged ...
Ten Freethinkers to Think About
Freethinkers have three basic characteristics. First, they actually think – often outside or against the dominant modes of knowing, doing and being. ...
Ten Key Texts on Islamic Education
You want to be happy, educated and true to the spirit of Islam? Well, good fortune smiles on you: there is no lack of great thinkers eager to walk you ...
Ten Moroccan Oddities
Morocco, the land of bougainvillea, snow-capped mountains, ochre pise’ walls, water sellers in hats with fuzzy red guy-ropes, sticky black soap, ...
Ten Non-Western One Hit Wonders
One-hit wonders are disappointing occurrences. A new artist breaks onto the scene with a fresh and innovative sound. Much excitement abounds as they capture ...
Ten Populist Moments
There are many unexamined assumptions about populism that don’t stand up to scrutiny. Many journalists and academics discuss it as if it were some ...
Ten Species of Angry Muslim Men
You are sitting comfortably in an assembly of Muslim men. Women are, as usual, segregated and ...
Ten Things We Love About Pakistan
A country allegedly and perpetually at the edge of chaos. A nation shrouded in darkness...
Ten Tips for Visiting West Africa by Yovanka Paquete Perdigao
You might be thinking it’s time to visit ‘Africa’, the place of wonder. If it’s your first trip to this continent, naturally ...
Ten Xenophobic European Political Parties to Avoid
A spectre is haunting Europe: the spectre of the far right. Right across the continent, extremist political parties are attracting millions of votes. They ...
The Andalusi Dozen
Three monotheistic faiths lived and thrived side by side for eight centuries, from 711 when
Muslims first entered the Iberian Peninsula to their ...
Top 10 Please-God Gadgets
Thanks to the wonders of technology, delivered courtesy of Western civilisation, Muslims can now fulfill their religious duties with relative ease. ...
Top Ten Jihadi Janes by Shanon Shah
There’s an old riddle that is surprisingly current. If you haven’t heard it before, allow yourself some time to answer before reading past the ...
Top Ten Malaysian Obsessions
‘Malaysia, truly Asia’, declares the advertisement for the Malaysian airline. We could also add that racially diverse and multi-religious ...
Top Ten Muslim Characters in Bollywood by Rachel Dwyer
Muslims have long played a major role in the Indian film industry.
Top Ten Relationship Break-ups
In the words of Echo and the Bunnymen, nothing ever lasts forever. Relationships are precarious creatures, causing joy, pain and wonder almost at the same ...
Top Ten Towering Fatwas
A spectre is haunting Muslims - the spectre of fatwas. All the powers of old Islam have entered into a holy alliance: to issue more and more fatwas, each ...
Turkey's Top Ten Enchantments
Being in Turkey can make people imagine that they are at the midpoint of the world, and in many ways there is no other place on earth that provides such a ...
Ziauddin Sardar's Twelve Postnormal Plagues
I don’t know about you. But I feel a bit unnatural. It has become rather unnatural to be an ordinary, caring, socially conscious human being. We ...