Aymen M. Khalifa is the editor-in-chief of the monthly magazine Civil Society, published by the Ibn Khaldoun Center for Development Studies in Cairo, Egypt.
If they are to understand Islam authentically and to embrace the modern world freely, Muslims must take a new attitude toward their traditions of interpretation.
The U.S.-led reconstruction effort has so far failed to establish democratic institutions in Iraq. But as troubled as that effort has been, it provides valuable lessons for future nation-building endeavors.
By giving Hamas a parliamentary majority, Palestinian voters were neither endorsing extremism nor rejecting the peace process. Other Palestinian institutions have the potential to restrain Hamas, but there is a…