Kunwar Khuldune Shahid

Donald Trump's defeat in the US election was widely predicted, but what was less anticipated was the level of support Trump received from Muslim voters, a third of whom backed him, according to the AP VoteCast survey. It seems many Muslim voters reflected on Trump's tumultuous time in office and liked what they saw: there was an almost three-fold increase in the number of Muslim voters who turned out for Trump compared to 2016. This marks a stark contrast to Barack Obama and George W Bush, who lost a significant chunk of these voters after their first stints at the White House. So what happened?

Emmanuel Macron’s staunch defence of the right to publish caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad proved popular in France. But now the president has a big fight on his hand abroad: French products have been removed from shops in Kuwait, Qatar and Jordan – and calls for a boycott are spreading.  Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan is the latest to join in: today he urged Turks to stop buying French goods. In a televised speech, he also told world leaders to intervene 'if there is oppression against Muslims in France'. Meanwhile, Pakistan's leader Imran Khan has accused Macron of ‘deliberately provoking Muslims’ as Islamabad hauled in the France ambassador for a dressing down.

Pakistan's stock exchange isn't typically seen as one of the world's best, but in recent weeks it has outperformed almost every other rival market. In terms of weekly profit, the Pakistan stock market was among the world’s top-performing last week. In August, it was Asia’s best and the fourth-best globally. For many, this has been a surprising turnaround in a country that registered a nine-year low growth rate only 12 months ago. Not to mention that the Pakistan stock exchange crashed with much of the rest of the global market when Covid-19 hit in March. So what explains Pakistan's success?

'Our stand on Israel is clear,’ Pakistan’s prime minister Imran Khan said this week. ‘We cannot recognise Israel until Palestinians get their right’, he said. For Khan, the UAE’s deal with Israel – which will inevitably lead to more Muslim states formalising relations with Israel – counts for little. But Khan is no stranger to volte-faces. It’s time for him to make another one – and formalise ties with Israel. Pakistan was actually closer to recognising Israel this time last year, in the aftermath of India scrapping the special status of Jammu and Kashmir, than it is today.

As the covid-19 pandemic rages on, Pakistan is emerging as an unheralded, and unlikely, success story. Despite having the fifth highest population in the world, Pakistan’s cumulative covid-19 cases at 281,136, and 6,014 total deaths. rank the country 14th and 19th in the world. However, most remarkable of all is Pakistan’s progress over the last month, which has seen it rebound from the brink of disaster. Last week, Pakistan’s recorded daily covid-19 cases returned to the three-figure mark – the lowest since May. On Tuesday, Pakistan reported 432 new cases and 15 deaths, signifying a ten-fold decrease in both stats within a span of two months. This is a remarkable turnaround given the predictions of the awful toll the virus might have.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan is a sucker for conquest symbolism. As Covid-19 restrictions were being eased this year, he ensured that mosques reopened on 29 May to coincide with the 567th anniversary of the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople. The Turkish president has now gone on to sign a decree converting Hagia Sophia into a mosque, just in time for the fourth anniversary of the failed coup against him, which symbolises his own conquest over Turkey’s military and judiciary. For Erdogan, the conversion of Hagia Sophia – which he has described as a ‘souvenir’ from the Ottoman conquest – has been a lifelong aspiration.

The parents of Suntara Kohli, Bhagwanti Kohli, Aisha Megwad and Priyanka Kumari continue their protests against the abductions and forced conversions of their daughters. The four Hindu girls were among seven cases of forced conversion in Pakistan reported by local newspapers last week alone. Suntara, Bhagwanti and Aisha are still teenagers; the former only 15. But their stories are far from exceptional here. At least 1,000 non-Muslim girls are forcibly converted to Islam in the country annually, according to a Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) report. Many of these girls belong to the Hindu community in Sindh, where most of Pakistan’s eight million Hindus live.

Imran Khan has dedicated much energy to the plight of Muslims around the world. Now, his government has finally decided to pay heed to the suffering of its own religious minorities, by putting together a long-planned commission last month. Days after the commission was formed, it was decided to exclude Ahmadis from it. Since coming to power in 2018, Khan has vociferously spoken up for Muslim minorities, most notably for those in India. In the meantime, Khan has overturned decisions to include a preeminent Ahmadi economist in a financial advisory body, and has now retracted membership of Ahmadis from a commission that merely reaffirms them as a religious minority.

It was only a matter of time before a Pakistani cleric blamed the Covid-19 outbreak on women. It just happened that the allegation came on national television. Pakistan’s most popular Islamic cleric, Tariq Jameel, claimed ‘immodest women’ caused the pandemic in a telethon broadcast throughout the country as prime minister Imran Khan watched on. The day after the telethon, Khan decided to speak at length on ‘vulgarity’ spreading in Pakistan owing to inspirations from ‘Bollywood and the West’, as exemplified by the growing divorce rate in the UK. This was hard to take from a man with a personal divorce rate of 67 per cent, who has spent much of his adult life living as a playboy.

The number of confirmed Covid-19 cases in Pakistan currently sits at 2,042 alongside 26 deaths. With only limited healthcare facilities, the country is facing a perilously delayed reaction. Most of Pakistan’s initial cases were pilgrims returning from places like Iran and Saudi Arabia. But the virus quickly spread thanks to a failure to screen and quarantine. Even so, almost a third of the infections in Pakistan are now being spread from within the community. That figure is expected to rise owing to a combination of appalling mismanagement and masochistic inaction. Such failures can be gauged by the state’s refusal to shut down the mosques.