Book Review
-
How stay in Turkey inspired me to write my first novel The Bosphorus Bride
A novel about a woman full of contradictions ...Read MoreMay 23, 2025 1179 1 -
How discarding rational thinking has hurt Muslim societies
The false choice between reason and revelation ...Read MoreDecember 30, 2021 1105 4 -
Book Review: From Jerusalem to a Kingdom by the Sea
Affability and natural wisdom are part of the author's personality...Read MoreNovember 27, 2021 812 1 -
The Tribal and the Universal in Akbar Ahmed’s book Mataloona
“Don’t be like the frog that climbed a clod and said he saw Kabul:” ...Read MoreJuly 29, 2021 995 0 -
Two books open windows into the Pakhtoon culture and history
By Sahibzada Riaz Noor The tradition of scholar-administrators in British India did dwindle after partition, but totally extinct it did not become. Despite the censorious cavilling about civil servants from various quarters for being high browed mandarins...December 23, 2020 1569 0 -
Understanding the Pakthuns through their own words
Some years ago while working on an academic project with Ambassador Akbar Ahmed, the Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies at American University, I noticed a small book on the shelf. I began leafing through it...September 25, 2020 1240 0 -
A scholar’s journey into Europe leads to clarion call for coexistence
Scholars around the globe responded to the death of 3000 Americans in the 9/11 attacks differently. A surfeit of essays, books, films, documentaries—all aimed at understanding the reasons behind the rage—accumulated. In this context, one remembers...May 9, 2020 1488 0 -
The Eternal in The Ephemeral
When I joined Professor Akbar Ahmed of American University in Washington DC last semester break, he gave me the magnificent illustrated book of his friend Professor Akmal Hussain, Dean IT University, Lahore. He enquired whether I...January 2, 2020 1412 0 -
‘The Dragonfly and Other Poems’ reflects on Mashal Khan, blinded Kashmiris and much more
There is something about the old Frontier Province which lifts the heart when crossing the Attock into the land of the Pukhtun; the poet awakens. That is what Sir Evelyn Howell, the outstanding Pukhtunphile, wrote; or...June 16, 2019 1579 0 -
A Journey into Europe that reminds of enlightenment amid challenges
Professor Akbar S. Ahmed’s Journey into Europe is a multi-levelled endeavor. It is a journey into the soul of Europe undergoing its latest upheaval in which the values underpinning pluralistic democracy have been put into question;...March 6, 2019 1573 0