Religious politics after NA-120
The house and the last resting place of Syed Maududi, the founder of the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI), is located in Ichra, an area of Lahore that falls in the National Assembly…
Perils of religious chauvinism
The majority of humanity is associated with four major religions. On top of the list is Christianity with 2,200 million in its fold followed by Islam with 1,600 million followers.…
Terrorism financing in Pakistan
Terrorism is a contested term -- difficult to define, and a cause of contention in academics and policymaking for years. There is no universal definition of terrorism. According to the…
Informative books
The country is in the grips of blood-spilling events like the murder of Mashal Khan in Mardan. The political bout between Imran Khan and his followers: Naeemul Haque, Muhammad Ali…
Under siege in Madina
If there is a threshold of pain and tolerance, this must be it. If this does not wake us up, I do not know what will. The unimaginable and unthinkable…
The terror landscape
There are three clear divisions of the TTP collage. The first is TTP Central, based in North Waziristan and controlling operations from there. Mostly consisting of the Mehsud tribes and…
Hear O Israel
“Hear O Israel the Lord Our God the Lord is One” murmured Rabbi Akiva, as he was painfully tortured to death by the Romans in front of all in plain…
All about electoral participation
As elections are likely to be held in January 2024, there is renewed talk about improving electoral participation and making elections credible. On that basis, a discussion paper by Tahir…
Anatomy of a protest
No sane person can condone the violence and arson attacks that rocked Pakistan in reaction to former prime minister Imran Khan’s arrest on May 9, 2023. These acts of vandalism…
The big ‘howevers’
The pattern of commentary on Pakistani politics has fed an argumentative style where a lot of importance is given to what follows a ‘however’ in a comment – the part…
