A few years ago, FrontPageMag.com columnist Paul Marek wrote an article titled “Why the Peaceful Majority Is Irrelevant.”  His thesis was that even if the majority of Muslims abhor violence, it doesn’t matter because “the fanatics rule Islam at this moment in history....  The hard quantifiable fact is, that the ‘peaceful majority’ is the ‘silent majority’ and it is cowed and extraneous.”  For Marek, the upshot is this: “We must pay attention to the only group that counts: the fanatics who threaten our way of life.”
 He’s wrong.  No, he’s worse than wrong, because his position could be used to justify mass murder.
 

 In February 2008, Rowan Williams, the archbishop of Canterbury, gave a nuanced, scholarly lecture in London about whether the British legal system should allow non-Christian courts to decide certain matters of family law. His tentative suggestion was that, subject to the agreement of all parties and the strict requirement of protecting equal rights for women, it might be a good idea to consider allowing Islamic and Orthodox Jewish courts to handle marriage and divorce.
 

 Noted Swiss Muslim scholar addresses issues of Muslim-Christian dialogue, universalism and Muslim identity in the West -- calling for struggling for justice as an act of love, consistency in moral principals, and the eradication of "religious illiteracy" in order to promote what he calls elsewhere an "inclusive memory"of the shared history and values of Muslims and the West.
 

 Biological and social differences among humans are a Divine decree, permitting us not only to know one another, but to know our own selves, says noted Northwestern University Professor Souleymane Bachir Diagne.
 

 Gary North, a prominent Christian libertarian writer, explains the real reasons behind the Christian Right's support for Israel: so Christians can enjoy the Rapture and allow God's Judgment to descend on the Jews.
 

 In a recent interview with Islamica Magazine, Harvard University Professor Samuel Huntington says he believes his theory on the rising importance of cultural affiliation has been misinterpreted to mean an inevitable clash between Islam and the West.
 

 Noted historian Howard Zinn questions the ability of war to solve the problem of terrorism.
 

 Starting with the term "Islamic fascists," Libertarian analyst writer Charley Reese deconstructs some of the more obvious stereotypes of Islam and Muslims currently endemic among U.S. media and politicians alike.
 

 Prominent Muslim Anthropologist Talal Asad speaks on Islamism, the West, tradition and modernity. Excerpts from an interview with Saba Mahmood.
 

 The current manipulation of Islam by both secular and reactionary ideologues leaves any onlooker genuinely concerned about the future viability of Muslim societies at an impasse. Both extremes present naïve solutions to complex problems, ideologies whose historicization reveals the lack of any tangible link to the Islamic tradition itself. This article argues that justice, stability and peace can only prevail in Islamic communities when they reestablish links to their own traditions, in other words, only when the opinions of thoroughly trained classical scholars are respected.
 

 Professor Mazrui reexamines the stereotype that Islam is irreconcilable with both secular modernity and civil society. By distinguishing between "theological Islam" (that of law and ritual) and "historical Islam" (Muslim experience), Mazrui says Islamic societies had realized many "modern" precepts, especially in terms of religious tolerance. Islam needs to discover its own tradition of "creative synthesis" that defined the apex of Muslim civilization, where there was "learning from others, letting others learn from Islam."
 

 Imam Omar's recent article, "Overcoming Religiously Motivated Violence," examines the relationship between religion and contemporary conflicts around the world. A more nuanced understanding of religion and violence is needed, where religion may be "implicated in violence," but is the not the primary cause. On the other hand, none of the major religious traditions can be said to have been explicitly pacifist. The author provides some guidelines for interfaith dialogue aimed at preventing religious violence. Imam Omar resides in South Africa and is a program director for the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies.
 

 A critique of the methodology of the academic field of "Islamic studies" which necessarily objectifies Islamic history and civilization through common symbols allegedly applicable to all religions. Instead of this "Occidentalized Islam," writer Tazim Kassem advocates looking at Islam from within its own "worldview," where symbols and tradition are permitted a greater degree of dynamism.
 

 This short list of resources will be updated from time to time. It is intended to provide alternative insights to the increasingly monolithic voice with which major media in this country speak.
 

 As we deploy new technologies at an accelerating pace, social consequences arise we neither understand nor know how to effectively manage. This article reviews some of these consequences and draws implications for Muslim use of the Internet.
 

 Noted Islamicist and former Catholic Nun, Karen Armstrong situates recent anti-Islamic remarks by the Vatican within a longer Western tradition of willed ignorance of the Muslim world.
 

 This article concerns a topic of great importance to the development of Islam in America; namely, the de facto social division between the immigrant and African-American communities. In order for our comm unity to transform the social fabric of this country, we must all struggle to become aware of the attitudes and opinions we hold that prevent true brotherhood from flourishing.
 

 Abdal Wadod Shalabi has remarked that a society only becomes truly decadent when "decadence" as a principle is never referred to in public debate. Prior generations of Muslims and Christians were forever fretting about their own unworthiness when measured against past golden ages of goodness and sanctity. But in our self-satisfied era, to invoke the idea of decadence is to invite accusations of a retrograde romanticism: it is itself perceived, perversely enough, as a decadence.
 

 By "divorcing information from the possibilities of action," television media has turned life into a spectator sport, argues Khalid Baig.
 

 Noted natural scientist Steve Talbott frames the importance of "meaning" within scientific discourse. True clarity cannot be found by reducing the world to skeleton formulas, but only through remembering the essentially religious perspective of the created world as logos.