Qanta Ahmed

Qanta Ahmed

Dr Qanta Ahmed is a British American Muslim physician and journalist, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a senior fellow at the Independent Women’s Forum.

Tuesday

Qanta Ahmed

What will Iran – and the United States – do next?

From our UK edition

From time to time, even the most belligerent warmongers get taken down: whether it’s bad weather, or other unseen forces, there are always bigger powers at work. For now, the helicopter accident that claimed the life of Iran's president appears to have been an act of nature, the will of God, as we like to remind ourselves in Islam. Sometimes good things do happen in bad helicopters. In the days before his death, Ebrahim Raisi was busy. Right before he left Azerbaijan for Iran, Raisi met with the country's president at a ceremony to open a dam. Days earlier in Tehran, Raisi saw the president of the Kurdish regional government. Their talks, initiated by the Kurdish president, had been on building peace in the region and diminishing the intense conflict Iran had generated.

Friday

Qanta Ahmed

Why is Colombia turning its back on Israel in its hour of need?

From our UK edition

Colombia's president Gustavo Petro has terminated diplomatic relations with Israel and described the country's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu as 'genocidal'. Thankfully, not all Colombians share Petro's view of the Jewish State. Many of the ten million or so evangelical Christians in Colombia are outraged at the message Petro's outburst sends to the 4,000-strong Jewish Colombian community. Prominent Colombians have also expressed dismay at Petro’s self indulgent proclamation. When I visited Colombia for ten days as a guest of the Israeli ambassador Gali Dagan last month, I met many Colombians who apologised for Petro’s comments. 'He doesn’t represent us,' they said. Colombia is turning its back on Israel in its hour of need.

Saturday

Qanta Ahmed

Hamas is targeting Saudi-Israeli peace talks

From our UK edition

Why the attack? Why now? What pretext? For Muslims like me, who have been following the Israel-Arab peace talks with hope and expectation, the atrocity does have a monstrous logic: Hamas wants war. Hezbollah wants war. But in recent months and years we have seen peace talks between Israel and the Emirates, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. Today's attack, certain to solicit a furious response by Israel, will push Middle Eastern opinion back towards polarised extremes. This is an attack not just against Israel but on the whole process of Israeli-Arab rapprochement. Sunni jihadis (Hamas) and Shi'ite jihadis (Hezbollah) joined forces for today's attack and this alliance needs to be seen the context of recent events.

Saturday

Qanta Ahmed

God save our Islamophilic King

From our UK edition

Britain today celebrates the crowning of a new king, but the coronation will be watched and celebrated by millions across the Commonwealth. To an extent that is often not appreciated abroad, the Queen – who was Defender of the Faith – was revered by her subjects of all faiths. In our often sectarian world, she exerted a unifying force: one that her son recognised and exemplifies. King Charles is deeply informed of Muslim beliefs, culture and mores Muslims in Britain and the world over will recognise, in King Charles, a monarch who is deeply Islamophilic. He has spoken about his attempts to learn Arabic in order to understand the Quran in its original script.

Tuesday

Qanta Ahmed

A new world order will emerge from America’s humiliation

From our UK edition

When America decided to save Afghanistan from the tyranny of the Taliban, it acted on two major beliefs. The first was that the US had the might, the tech and the ability to reshape Afghanistan — what could a superpower have to fear from a ragtag bunch of insurgents? — the second was a belief that this Kabul project was not about colonialism. History was moving America’s way and all it needed was a nudge. Both theories have now been tested to destruction. The humiliation that America has just inflicted upon herself (and her western allies) will reverberate globally and in a way that emboldens all the wrong people. To leave Kabul in such an undignified and callous manner is a victory not only for the Taliban but for both Russia and China.

Wednesday

Qanta Ahmed

Inside Hamas’s tunnel complex

From our UK edition

In the wake of its ceasefire agreement with Israel, Hamas has again attempted to paint itself as a struggling resistance movement against an occupying force. After 11 days of fighting, which left more than 250 people dead, Hamas’s co-founder, Mahmoud Zahar, claimed a strategic and a symbolic victory.  ‘The new element here is the degree of the resistance movement, in particular in Gaza, to attack the Israeli targets and very important points, including most of the overcrowded areas... the civilian society,’ he told Sky News. ‘So for how long will the Israelis accept that?’ By painting itself as a plucky victim, Hamas is trying to convince the Arab world – and Muslims in the West, like me – that we should be on its side.

Thursday

Qanta Ahmed

Pilgrimage in the age of pandemic

From our UK edition

To complete the Hajj is the pinnacle of Islamic worship, required once in the lifetime of every able-bodied Muslim who can afford the journey. In its 1,400-year history, the annual pilgrimage has been cancelled dozens of times, by wars, political strife and pandemics. As I found out when I made the journey, it is a swirling sea of humanity: some 2.5 million visiting Mecca over a few days, from all over the world. When the Covid crisis came, worship was suspended. But then something was attempted that would have once seemed impossible: carrying on the tradition, but under digitally monitored social distancing. The results were extraordinary.

Thursday

Qanta Ahmed

Could coronavirus hasten the demise of religion?

From our UK edition

38 min listen

This is an Easter like no other - so what happens to Christianity when Christians can't go to church (1:00)? We also hear reports from the New York frontline (12:20), and discuss just why humour is so important in dark times (19:40).

Qanta Ahmed

In New York’s hospitals, we need all the help we can get

From our UK edition

New York I hear it said now and again that Covid-19 is just a nasty winter bug, nothing more than a new form of flu. From what I’ve seen in New York’s intensive care units in the past few days, I can assure you this is not true. Last month I was still doing my usual job, treating patients with sleep disorders. But my training — and for many years my work — was in critical care medicine. As the coronavirus crisis developed, it was clear to me that I was needed back in the hospital, so I volunteered before the call came. Soon I was making decisions about keeping blood pressure going, when to use ventilators, whether a patient’s organ systems are functioning normally or whether support is needed.

Monday

Qanta Ahmed

The terrifying reaction to a panel debate on Islamophobia | 28 October 2019

From our UK edition

Have you ever wondered why so few moderate Muslim voices are heard in the public debate? I used to, until I started to defend my faith against its extremist defamers. I then found out that any Muslim who ventures into this arena to stand up against hardliners is subject to fierce and immediate character assassination. The process is exposed in a Civitas pamphlet, out this month, entitled ‘The No True Muslim’ fallacy. It provides examples of the attempts to silence people like Sara Khan and Fiyaz Mughal by those who have appointed themselves as Islam's spokesmen. But I can offer another example: the reaction to a recent event at the last Tory party conference.

Qanta Ahmed

The terrifying reaction to a panel debate on Islamophobia

From our UK edition

Have you ever wondered why so few moderate Muslim voices are heard in the public debate? I used to, until I started to defend my faith against its extremist defamers. I then found out that any Muslim who ventures into this arena to stand up against hardliners is subject to fierce and immediate character assassination. The process is exposed in a Civitas pamphlet, out this month, entitled ‘The No True Muslim’ fallacy. It provides examples of the attempts to silence people like Sara Khan and Fiyaz Mughal by those who have appointed themselves as Islam's spokesmen. But I can offer another example: the reaction to a recent event at the last Tory party conference.

Saturday

Qanta Ahmed

What does the Muslim Council of Britain have against Muslims like me? | 13 July 2019

From our UK edition

Have you ever wondered why there are so few moderate Muslim voices in the press? It’s not because they don’t exist. There are over a billion of us in the world. In many cases, it’s because of the way we are treated by hardliners. Once again, they have trained their crosshairs on me, this time charging me with ‘misrepresenting Muslim behaviour and belief’ and ‘negating the belief of some Muslims’. If a Muslim speaks up against political Islam – questioning the legitimacy of these self-appointed spokesmen – this is what we can expect. Just look at this week’s report by a group called the Centre for Media Monitoring, which claims that ‘Islamophobia’ is on the march in Britain.

Qanta Ahmed

What does the Muslim Council of Britain have against Muslims like me?

From our UK edition

Have you ever wondered why there are so few moderate Muslim voices in the press? It’s not because they don’t exist. There are over a billion of us in the world. In many cases, it’s because of the way we are treated by hardliners. Once again, they have trained their crosshairs on me, this time charging me with ‘misrepresenting Muslim behaviour and belief’ and ‘negating the belief of some Muslims’. If a Muslim speaks up against political Islam – questioning the legitimacy of these self-appointed spokesmen – this is what we can expect. Just look at this week’s report by a group called the Centre for Media Monitoring, which claims that ‘Islamophobia’ is on the march in Britain.

Thursday

Qanta Ahmed

Africa’s liberal Mufti

From our UK edition

 Kigali, Rwanda To most outsiders, Rwanda is still synonymous with genocide. Nearly a million killed in 100 days; almost three quarters of the Tutsi population dead. The country’s attempts to rebuild have been much commented on, but something else is overlooked: Rwanda has become an astonishing oasis of tolerant Islam and, in many ways, an example to the West. In Rwanda, there is an Islam which stands firm against the petrochemical ‘Gulf Stream’ of Wahhabi finance, despite lacking the huge wealth that Muslims in the Arab world enjoy. It also refuses to yield control to the neo-fundamentalists of the Muslim Brotherhood now backed by Qatar and Turkey. This independence and liberalism are embodied by the spiritual leader of Rwandan Muslims, Sheikh Salim Hitimana.

Thursday

Qanta Ahmed

‘Islamophobia’ is a shield for jihadis

From our UK edition

Last weekend the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, described the massacre in Christchurch as the result ‘of failing to root out Islamophobia and anti-Muslim sentiment from our society’. His intention is to crack down on Islamophobia and give it a formal definition. He is right about anti-Muslim sentiment. But he is dangerously, terrifyingly wrong about Islamophobia. It has become common to hear the New Zealand atrocity described using this word, but it is loaded with sinister implications that the vast majority of well-intentioned people will simply not understand. And the reality is that it plays straight into the hands of the jihadis. The Christchurch attack was not an act of Islamophobia.

Friday

Qanta Ahmed

My grief for the victims of the New Zealand mosque attack | 15 March 2019

From our UK edition

'We belong to Allah and to Allah we shall return'. Muslims around the world, including me, are now reciting the verse from the Quran that Muslims say on hearing of the death of a fellow believer. Taking in news of the murder of 49 worshippers at a mosque in sleepy, safe New Zealand at the hands of a white supremacist, this verse came to my lips again and again. I felt the same grief when I watched the attacks on 9/11 unfolding. In the days afterwards, I also struggled with the reaction of others in Riyadh, where I was living at the time, and their shameful sense of schadenfreude. This was hard to deal with as I struggled to comprehend the attacks on New York, a city I love and call home.

Qanta Ahmed

My grief for the victims of the New Zealand mosque attack

From our UK edition

'We belong to Allah and to Allah we shall return'. Muslims around the world, including me, are now reciting the verse from the Quran that Muslims say on hearing of the death of a fellow believer. Taking in news of the murder of 49 worshippers at a mosque in sleepy, safe New Zealand at the hands of a white supremacist, this verse came to my lips again and again. I felt the same grief when I watched the attacks on 9/11 unfolding. In the days afterwards, I also struggled with the reaction of others in Riyadh, where I was living at the time, and their shameful sense of schadenfreude. This was hard to deal with as I struggled to comprehend the attacks on New York, a city I love and call home.

Sunday

Qanta Ahmed

“As a Muslim woman, I’d like to thank Boris Johnson for calling out the niqab”

From our UK edition

We’re closing 2018 by republishing our ten most-read articles of the year. Here’s No. 9: Qanta Ahmed on the niqab: As a Muslim woman observing Islam, I am fully supportive of Boris Johnson’s rejection of the niqab. And I wonder how many of the former Foreign Secretary’s critics understand my religion, what this form of dress represents and the subjugation it implies. To defend the niqab and to defend Muslim women are, I can assure you, two very different things indeed. Growing up Muslim in Britain, not once was I compelled to cover my hair. This changed when I moved to Saudi Arabia to practice medicine.

Qanta Ahmed

As a Muslim woman, I’d like to thank Boris Johnson for calling out the niqab

From our UK edition

We’re closing 2018 by republishing our ten most-read articles of the year. Here’s No. 9: Qanta Ahmed on the niqab: As a Muslim woman observing Islam, I am fully supportive of Boris Johnson’s rejection of the niqab. And I wonder how many of the former Foreign Secretary’s critics understand my religion, what this form of dress represents and the subjugation it implies. To defend the niqab and to defend Muslim women are, I can assure you, two very different things indeed. Growing up Muslim in Britain, not once was I compelled to cover my hair. This changed when I moved to Saudi Arabia to practice medicine.

Thursday

Qanta Ahmed

The ECHR’s ruling on defaming Mohammed is bad news for Muslims

From our UK edition

In a monumental irony, the ECHR’s agreement with an Austrian court that offensive comments about the Prophet Mohammed were 'beyond the permissible limits of an objective debate' has handed a big victory to both Islamists and Islamophobes – while infantilising believing Muslims everywhere. The case concerns an unnamed Austrian woman who held a number of seminars during which she portrayed the Prophet as a paedophile. After she was convicted by an Austrian court of 'disparaging religion' (and fined nearly €500), she appealed to the ECHR claiming the punishment breached her right to free expression. The court disagreed.