This year’s Ramadan initiatives, focused on a sense of community and contributions to development, demonstrate how the Saudi government increasingly relies on citizens to play a role in the ongoing transformation.
The marginalization of religious figures in Saudi Arabia has prompted a rise of trends focusing on spirituality and meditation to promote self-awareness.
Most speculation about the candidates and outcome of Iran’s upcoming presidential election appears premature, and assessments about potential impact on U.S.-Iranian relations seem exaggerated.
The outcome of the upcoming parliamentary elections will be a test of clerical influence in Iraq and of the hold that protesters can continue to exert over Iraqi politics.
Moderate Islam can be seen as a comprehensive strategy to tackle the kingdom’s regional and domestic concerns while at the same time reshaping the religious and social scene in line with the leadership’s new sociopolitical objectives.
The contest among Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Iran, and Malaysia over the symbolic leadership of the Muslim world places a heavier burden on these states to appear as champions of Muslim causes.
Kuwaiti Foreign Minister Sabah Khaled al-Sabah’s visit to Tehran on January 25 was officially billed as a bilateral meeting, but also widely reported to have included a broader outreach to Iran by Kuwait’s partners in the Gulf Cooperation Council, including Iran’s major regional rival, Saudi Arabia.
As Saudi Arabia embarks on Vision 2030, its comprehensive plan to confront oil dependence and meet the challenges of economic diversification and social change, there are signs that the leadership is opening space for much-needed religious debate.
The appalling massacre on Bastille Day in Nice, France – in which at least 84 people were killed by a French-Tunisian man driving a 19-ton refrigerated truck and armed with an automatic pistol – capped off several weeks of virtually unprecedented terrorist carnage around the world.
Donald J. Trump’s scandalous proposal that the United States bar entry to all Muslims — though he later clarified his view that American citizens and a few others might be allowed in — raises two fundamental but largely unaddressed questions: Who and what is a “Muslim”? Mr.
Learn MoreThrough its careful examination of the forces shaping the evolution of Gulf societies and the new generation of emerging leaders, AGSIW facilitates a richer understanding of the role the countries in this key geostrategic region can be expected to play in the 21st century.
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