Muslims in America
One of the most striking features of the British cemetery at Gallipoli is the attention given to honoring the diversity of the dead. Final farewells from loved ones carved upon stone plaques line...
Quran
Rizvi’s Reformation
The Atheist Muslim opens with snow in Saudi Arabia. The author, Ali Rizvi, is in fifth grade at the American school in Riyadh, where students are folding glittery snowflakes out of construction p...
Op-eds
Hamza bin Laden calls for regime change in Saudi Arabia
Hamza bin Laden, Osama’s heir, calls on Muslims to overthrow the Saudi monarchy in a newly released audio message. The junior bin Laden’s speech was disseminated by As Sahab, al Qaeda...
Op-eds
What it’s like to be a Muslim in the CIA
It was the day after the 2009 Fort Hood shooting. I was working as a CIA analyst. I sat in a room with the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, along with several other a...
Op-eds
BBC Newsday
FDD senior fellow Aykan Erdemir discusses the Turkish government's move to have Quran recitations at Hagia Sophia during the month of Ramadan. ...
Op-eds
Hezbollah doesn’t want a President – Because it doesn’t want a Lebanese Republic
Hezbollah appears to have switched loyalties in Lebanon’s never-ending presidential race. Despite maintaining long-standing support for the candidacy of the pro-Syrian former general Michel...
Op-eds
Hezbollah doesn’t want a President – Because it doesn’t want a Lebanese Republic
Hezbollah appears to have switched loyalties in Lebanon’s never-ending presidential race. Despite maintaining long-standing support for the candidacy of the pro-Syrian former general Michel...
Op-eds
The Middle East’s Conflicts Are About Religion
A meme is gaining traction within American government and media, and it goes like this: The conflicts of the Middle East aren’t about religion. Jihadist violence? Garden-variety ...
Op-eds
Hezbollah Casts Shadow over Lebanon’s Presidential Vote
Lebanon was scheduled for presidential elections on Wednesday, but for the 32nd time in two years, parliament failed to achieve the necessary quorum to select a president. The frontrun...
Policy Briefs
Victory Without Soldiers?
With the war in Syria becoming ever more complex and murderous, it’s worthwhile to revisit a guiding principle of Barack Obama: The use of American military power is likely to do more harm...
Op-eds
Saudi Arabia Honors Its Nastiest Clerical Ideologues
On Friday, September 2, a group of over fifty Saudi clerics joined in a petition condemning “Russian intervention against Syria&r...
Op-eds
Our Iranian Interlocutor
Antisemitism has never been an easy subject for America’s foreign-policy establishment. Read through State Department telegrams and Central Intelligence Agency operational and intelligence...
Op-eds
The Ayatollah’s Message to the World
The supreme leader of Iran has published a book entitled Palestine. As you would expect, it is a call to the Muslim world to destroy Israel and establish control over its territory...
Op-eds
Radical Islam and the Culture War
What are we to do with radical Islam? Ever since 9/11, Western leaders have insisted that we are "not at war with Islam," have sometimes said that "Islam is a religion of peace" and bent over in...
Op-eds
The Gulf Cooperation Council Camp David Summit: Any Results?
Chairman Ros-Lehtinen, Ranking Member Deutch, and distinguished Members of the Subcommittee: thank you on behalf of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies for the opportunity to testify before...
Legislative Testimonies
Meet Saudi Arabia’s Biggest (and Most Controversial) Twitter Star
Saudi Arabia is changing, some say. The authoritarian desert kingdom is becoming more responsive to the will of its people and the demands of the global information economy, say others. This idea...
Op-eds
The King of Saudi Arabia Skipped Obama’s Camp David Summit
While Saudi Arabia’s crown prince and deputy crown prince headed to America for a summit w...
Op-eds
Preaching Hate and Sectarianism in the Gulf
As Saudi Arabia expands its involvement in wars across the Middle East, the kingdom has given a platform to an extremist cleric who seems to believe this struggle is not...
Op-eds
The Ayatollah in Winter
The Lord works in mysterious ways. That sentence does not appear in the Koran. Nor, actually, is it found in the Bible. But in recent days it has probably occurred to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran...
Op-eds
Violent Extremist vs. Holy Warrior
Is Barack Hussein Obama wrong to avoid appending “Islamic,” “Muslim,” “Islamist,” or even “jihadist” to the terrorism that has struck the West with...