In September 2026, Senegal made a staff-level agreement with the IMF for a $2.2 billion, three-year financing program. This money is meant to improve the country’s condition by fixing its broken finances and debt sustainability after a scandal of incorrect representation of debt that ruined the country’s credibility. But the people for whom they made the agreement are ultimately the ones who will pay for it by paying higher taxes.

The agreement is not final. It still needs approval from the IMF Executive Board. Senegal must take “decisive corrective actions” related to past misreporting of debt data and secure financing assurances from creditors.

Senegal has been borrowing money from the IMF since 1979. It has followed the same path for decades: to take a loan and then adjust accordingly. Things were going well until 2010, and then everything dropped after 2024.

When Bassirou Diomaye became president, his government looked at the performance of the last government, and what they found was shocking. Billions of dollars were hidden in loans, and nobody was aware of that, not creditors and not its citizens. Senegal’s debt went from a reported 74% of GDP to 132%. Almost a quarter of government money went into interest on debt. Senegal’s international bonds dropped to half their value after that scandal. Investors feared losses.

When a government makes such a huge mistake in secret, they don’t take responsibility for fixing it; instead, they split the burden. They cut government spending on people and raise taxes.

The IMF reforms are simple: collect more taxes, spend less, and open the economy. Senegal will widen the tax base in 2027, which means more people will pay taxes, and people already paying taxes will pay more taxes. The government will cut spending and end energy subsidies. These subsidies cost Senegal nearly 1,800 billion CFA francs over three years.

They also have some positive sides, like they will make business easier by simplifying laws and making access to banks and credit easier. They will try to help poorer people. The safety net budget will increase from 70 billion CFA francs in 2026 to 140 billion in 2027. The goal is to help 1 million poor households, which is around 7.8 million people.

It may look fair, but it totally depends on how it is done. The IMF promises to “restore debt sustainability.” It promises to “protect vulnerable households.” But when governments cut spending and raise taxes, the pain is not shared equally. When governments borrow money in the people’s name, the people rarely see the benefit. They see the bill. They see higher taxes. They see higher prices. They see a life that gets harder, not easier. It made life smaller, not bigger. That is the opposite of economic freedom.

Countries like Pakistan and Zambia show the same story. In Pakistan, the IMF demanded higher taxes and fewer subsidies. Poverty climbed to 28.9%, and nearly 70 million people now live below the poverty line. In Zambia, the IMF required VAT hikes and fuel price increases. Inflation rose sharply, and rural households — only 14% of whom have electricity — bore the brunt of the subsidy cuts. The money is borrowed in the people’s name, but the people pay the price.

The IMF program provides a plan. The agreement is a step forward. But what happens next will decide everything. Is this a real turning point? The government borrowed billions in the people’s name. Will the people ever see the benefit? Or just the bill? That is the only question that matters.

This edition covers developments across Yemen, Syria, Libya, Bangladesh, Kazakhstan, Morocco, and Saudi Arabia, spanning conflict, institutional reform, labour rights, political participation, freedom of expression, and public policymaking. The stories include renewed displacement and disruption of essential services in Yemen, changes to Syria’s legal institutions and Libya’s electoral framework, developments in domestic workers’ awareness of labour rights in Bangladesh, cases involving journalism and public expression in Kazakhstan, Morocco’s recent parliamentary election and appointment of its first female prime minister, and Saudi Arabia’s use of public consultation in developing economic regulations.

We organise Muslim-majority countries into four zones based on their current conditions of conflict, transition, stability, and development.

The Four Zones

Zone I: Experiencing War, Conflict, Oppression, Genocide

Yemen: Renewed Fighting Displaces More Than 120,000

Renewed fighting along Yemen’s western coast and the southern Ta’iz frontlines has displaced more than 120,000 people, including around 30,000 women of reproductive age and more than 2,700 pregnant women. According to UNFPA, at least 500 pregnant women among the displaced population require comprehensive emergency obstetric and newborn care, while some health facilities and women’s safe spaces have closed or reduced their operations because of the fighting. The latest escalation is therefore disrupting more than shelter and physical security. It is also restricting access to healthcare, protection services and safe childbirth for women already living through prolonged displacement.

Zone II: Transition toward Peace and Stability

Syria: Abolishing Assad’s Terrorism Court Opens a Path to Restoring Lost Rights

Syria’s parliament unanimously approved legislation on September 17 abolishing the Assad-era Terrorism Court and cancelling the legal effects of its previous judgments. According to figures cited by the Syrian Network for Human Rights, more than 90,000 cases had been brought before the court, while the wider confiscation system associated with terrorism cases resulted in at least 40,602 property seizure and confiscation orders affecting around 320,000 people. The new legislation assigns the Supreme Judicial Council responsibility for addressing the consequences of the old judgments, including the return of confiscated property.

Libya: Elections Begin with Rebuilding the Institutions Behind Them

Members of Libya’s Smaller Convening met in Tunis on September 20 to advance an agreement to reconstitute the High National Elections Commission and amend the legal framework for presidential and parliamentary elections. The participants reaffirmed their commitment to elections under unified and legitimate institutions and agreed to continue engaging other Libyan stakeholders to build broader support for the process. The meeting was the first follow-up since the agreement was signed in August. Before citizens can vote, institutions must agree on who administers elections, which laws govern them, and how competing political actors will recognise the result. In a country still divided between rival centres of power, rebuilding those institutions is itself part of the transition.

Zone III: Stable but Economically Struggling

Bangladesh: Domestic Workers’ Rights Awareness Rises to 74%

A seven-year Securing Rights for Women Domestic Workers in Bangladesh (SUNITI) project by Oxfam and partners found that awareness of labour rights among domestic workers rose from 12% in 2019 to 74% in 2025. Their ability to negotiate wages increased from 23% to 61%, while written employment arrangements rose from 8% to 28%. 41% of surveyed workers reported higher wages, with average monthly income increasing by Tk850. Despite these gains, workers continue to face low wages, long hours, harassment, limited social protection, and incomplete legal recognition. The findings suggest that awareness and bargaining capacity can expand workers’ agency, but meaningful protection still depends on enforcement, social recognition and stronger worker organisation.

Kazakhstan: Satire Can Become a Crime

Kazakh satirist and political commentator Azamat Omarov, who had been held in pretrial detention since April on charges of “inciting discord,” reached a plea agreement with prosecutors and was released on September 15. He received a three-and-a-half-year restricted-freedom sentence and a five-year ban on socioeconomic and political activity, including activities such as monitoring trials. The restrictions also prevent him from resuming his political satire programme and from expressing political or social opinions online during that period. Human Rights Watch said Kazakhstan has repeatedly used the broadly worded “inciting discord” provision against government critics, bloggers, journalists and activists.

Zone IV: Developed or Emerging Economies with Peace and Stability

Morocco: First Female Prime Minister Takes Office

Morocco appointed Fatima Ezzahra El Mansouri as its first female prime minister on September 29, following parliamentary elections held on September 23. Her Authenticity and Modernity Party won the largest number of seats with 97 out of 395. The election recorded a turnout of around 38%, down from 50% in 2021 and the lowest level since 2007. The election followed youth-led protests over unemployment, healthcare, education and public spending. El Mansouri’s appointment represents a significant development in women’s political participation in Morocco. At the same time, the low turnout raises a different question about participation: political representation can expand while public engagement with formal political institutions declines.

Saudi Arabia: Public Consultation Influences More Than 500 Regulatory Proposals

Saudi government agencies incorporated more than 500 public comments and proposals into draft regulations during the first half of 2026, according to a September 27 report on the government’s Istitlaa consultation platform. During the same period, 54 government entities placed 209 economic and development-related draft regulations on the platform, receiving 8,475 comments and around 1.6 million visits. Some proposals were subsequently changed through the removal or modification of regulatory requirements and reductions in certain fines and fees. The development offers an example of participation operating through regulatory rather than electoral institutions. Public consultation does not determine policy on its own, but it can allow businesses, professionals and members of the public to shape rules before they take effect.

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The passage of major legislation on Pakistan’s defence and nuclear command structures in a single day has raised questions about parliamentary scrutiny, debate, and the opposition's role in the legislative process.

On August 20, the National Assembly of Pakistan considered amendments to the National Command Authority Act and the Defence Forces of Pakistan Act 2026. The manner in which these measures were introduced and passed has prompted discussion about the extent of parliamentary scrutiny involved in their passage. Reports on the proceedings indicate that the legislation moved through the parliamentary process within a very short period, with opposition members raising concerns about the time available to review and debate the bills.

The federal cabinet approved the bills on the morning of August 20, after which they were placed before the National Assembly. Some members of the National Assembly reportedly stated that they had not received copies of the legislation sufficiently in advance to study them. The bills subsequently cleared the Senate and were signed by the president on the same day. Contemporary reporting also reported that opposition members walked out of the National Assembly after PTI Chairman Barrister Gohar Ali Khan was not permitted to speak.

These circumstances raise a question that is separate from the substance of the defence policy itself: what level of parliamentary scrutiny is appropriate when legislation makes significant changes to the country’s defence and nuclear command structures?

To understand the significance of the changes, it is useful to examine the institutional framework that existed previously. The National Command Authority is responsible for Pakistan’s nuclear weapons programme. Established in 2000 and given a statutory framework in 2010, it is chaired by the prime minister and includes senior military leadership, while the Strategic Plans Division handles its day-to-day functions.

One component of this structure was the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee (CJCSC). The position provided coordination among the Army, Navy, and Air Force but did not itself carry direct command over the armed forces. The institutional separation meant that the position of CJCSC was distinct from that of the individual service chiefs.

Under the changes approved on August 20, the CJCSC position was abolished and a new position of Chief of Defence Forces (CDF) was established. The Chief of Army Staff, Field Marshal Asim Munir, became the country’s first CDF. The changes therefore place the responsibilities of the Army chief and the newly created CDF position with the same officeholder.

The legislation also gives five-star military officers certain permanent privileges and protections. These provisions build upon changes made through the 27th Constitutional Amendment. Reporting on the amendment describes changes concerning the position of the Chief of Defence Forces and protections associated with five-star military ranks. Other reporting and legal commentary have examined the implications of changes to Articles 243 and 248, including provisions concerning the status and legal protections of senior officeholders. One such analysis argues that these provisions significantly expand protections for certain senior military figures.

The August legislation can therefore be viewed as part of a broader institutional change rather than as an isolated measure. The 27th Constitutional Amendment established important elements of the new framework, while the subsequent legislation provided a statutory basis for implementing those changes.

The parliamentary process surrounding the two sets of changes has also attracted attention. Both involved legislation being considered over a relatively short period, while opposition members objected to aspects of the process. This has led to questions about whether members of parliament had sufficient opportunity to examine the proposed changes before voting on them.

This distinction is important because there are legitimate policy questions on both sides of the institutional debate. Supporters of a unified command structure may argue that placing greater coordination under a single senior military officeholder could improve administrative and operational efficiency. Critics may be concerned about the concentration of authority, particularly when the same officeholder occupies multiple senior positions within the military command structure.

Those questions can be debated on their merits. A separate issue concerns the legislative procedure itself. Parliamentary scrutiny generally provides members with an opportunity to examine proposed legislation, raise objections, propose changes, and explain their positions before a vote. When legislation is introduced and passed within a very short period, the amount of time available for these functions becomes an important question.

The August legislation is also part of a broader pattern of accelerated lawmaking in Pakistan. The 26th Constitutional Amendment, for example, made significant changes to the judicial framework and generated substantial debate about the implications for judicial independence. The International Commission of Jurists criticised the amendment on those grounds. Similarly, legislation concerning counterterrorism has previously been introduced and passed amid criticism regarding the adequacy of parliamentary debate. Contemporary reporting documented some of those concerns.

Fast-tracked legislation is not inherently inconsistent with parliamentary government. Legislatures may need to act quickly in response to security, economic, or other urgent circumstances. The institutional question is therefore less about speed itself and more about whether parliamentarians have meaningful opportunities to examine legislation, debate its provisions, raise objections, and hold the government accountable for major decisions.

The events of August 20 consequently raise broader questions about the relationship between legislative efficiency and parliamentary scrutiny in Pakistan. Elections provide the basis for representative government, but parliamentary institutions also depend on procedures that allow elected representatives to examine legislation and publicly debate decisions. How Pakistan balances the need for timely decision-making with these functions will remain relevant as further changes to the country’s defence and constitutional framework are considered.

The Makkah Joint Defence Agreement, signed by Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Türkiye on 7 August 2026, marks a significant moment in the search for a new regional security order. Its core message is simple: an armed attack against one signatory will be treated as an attack against all. That language invites comparison with NATO’s Article 5, and Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan described the pact as “technically the same”, although any response will still be shaped by consultation and political judgement.

Its symbolism matters. The agreement was concluded in Makkah, Islam’s holiest city, giving a conventional defence pact a wider register of covenant, sanctuary and moral obligation. It links state security to the defence of sacred space and religious dignity. That is why the pact will not be judged only by its response to missiles, drones or attacks on territory. It will also be judged by whether it can articulate a credible collective position on repeated incursions and restrictions at Masjid al-Aqsa, Islam’s third holiest mosque, and on the wider question of whether Muslim-majority powers can defend sanctities as well as borders.

The pact should not be read as a declaration of hostility towards Washington. Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Türkiye all retain important relationships with the United States. Riyadh still values access to American weapons systems, diplomatic cover and strategic prestige; Pakistan depends on careful management of its international relationships; and Türkiye remains a NATO member. The more accurate interpretation is that these states are hedging against uncertainty. They are not abandoning America. They are preparing for a world in which American protection is no longer sufficient on its own.

Why Now?

The timing reflects a region unsettled by the aftermath of the Hamas attacks of 7 October 2023, Israel’s wars in Gaza and beyond, Iranian reprisals, and the growing sense that Gulf territory is no longer insulated from direct attack. The strike on Doha in September 2025 was especially consequential. Qatar, long treated as a mediator in the Gaza war, suddenly appeared vulnerable inside its own capital. For Gulf capitals, that episode turned abstract discussions about collective defence into a practical question: if one state can be hit, what guarantee can still be trusted?

The answer emerging from Makkah is layered security. The Gulf will continue to cultivate Washington, but it is also building arrangements closer to home. That helps explain why Saudi Arabia can pursue a major civil nuclear cooperation agreement with the United States while simultaneously deepening defence links with Pakistan and Türkiye. The two moves are not contradictory. They are part of the same strategy: diversify risk, widen deterrence and reduce single-source dependency.

The Pact’s Promise — and its limits

Each partner brings a distinct asset. Pakistan offers military depth and nuclear ambiguity. Saudi Arabia brings financial weight, energy centrality and custodianship of the two holy mosques. Türkiye contributes NATO experience, an expanding defence industry and growing regional confidence. Together, they can create a more credible deterrent than any one of them could build alone.

Yet the pact’s weaknesses are equally clear. Ankara’s threat perception is shaped heavily by Israel and the eastern Mediterranean. Riyadh remains deeply concerned by Iran and its network of regional allies. Pakistan must balance Gulf commitments against geography, domestic politics and its relationship with Iran. Even when states sign sweeping defence language, they do not automatically share identical priorities.

That tension has already been visible. During the first phase of the 2026 US/Israel–Iran war, Pakistan did not immediately come to Saudi Arabia’s aid. Instead, Islamabad helped Iran bypass a US naval blockade by rerouting trade through land corridors, before later deploying troops to Saudi Arabia as a ceasefire was agreed. The lesson is that the pact’s deterrent value will depend less on slogans than on operational clarity.

From Symbolism to Capability

Earlier regional defence projects offer a warning. The 1950 Arab League treaty and the GCC’s 2000 Joint Defence Agreement promised solidarity but rarely produced decisive collective action. The Makkah Pact will avoid the same fate only if it develops real military interoperability, joint exercises, shared planning mechanisms, intelligence coordination and credible procedures for responding to crises in the Gulf, the Red Sea, the Strait of Hormuz and conflict theatres such as Yemen, Sudan, Syria and Gaza.

The most durable area of cooperation may be defence industry. Saudi Arabia wants to reduce dependency on external suppliers and emulate elements of Türkiye’s and Pakistan’s domestic defence sectors. A model combining Saudi financing, Turkish technological capacity and Pakistani military-industrial experience could give the pact substance beyond diplomatic theatre. It could also reduce the leverage created by US weapons restrictions, especially those designed to preserve Israel’s qualitative military edge.

The nuclear question remains deliberately opaque. Pakistan has sent mixed signals about whether its nuclear capability could ever extend to partners. Ambiguity can deter, but it can also create dangerous miscalculation. None of the three states has yet clarified whether nuclear deterrence is part of the pact’s logic or merely a shadow behind it.

Regional Reactions

Iran has publicly downplayed concern, but it will watch closely for signs that the pact hardens into an anti-Iranian bloc. The more intriguing spoiler is that Tehran may not be permanently outside the tent: if the agreement is defined as defensive, inclusive and aimed at regional stability rather than regime confrontation, Iran could one day seek some form of association with it. Israel is likely to view the agreement through a different lens: as part of a widening challenge from Türkiye, Pakistan and Qatar to its regional room for manoeuvre. Egypt’s absence is also notable. Cairo’s US military aid, sensitivity over Israel and concern about being drawn into confrontation make its hesitation understandable, although Türkiye has suggested that technical barriers to Egyptian participation may eventually be resolved.

The agreement may also influence a parallel alignment involving India, Israel and the UAE, which links the Gulf more closely to the Indian Ocean and eastern Mediterranean. In that sense, the Makkah Pact is not just a local defence arrangement. It is part of a wider reordering of regional security around multiple axes rather than one American-led centre.

The Real Test

The pact’s central significance is therefore not that it creates an anti-American alliance. It does not. Its significance is that three major Muslim-majority powers are acknowledging the limits of inherited security arrangements and attempting to build strategic depth of their own. For Gulf capitals, the dilemma is stark: Washington remains too powerful to discard, but too risky to rely on alone.

The Makkah Pact will be judged by what follows: whether it produces institutions, exercises, procurement plans, crisis protocols and political courage, or whether it becomes another symbolic declaration in a region crowded with them. Its promise lies in turning shared exposure into shared capability. Its risk lies in confusing rhetoric with readiness.

Volatile geopolitical shifts could still expose divisions among the signatories. For now, however, the pact has been framed as defensive rather than offensive, and as a hedge against uncertainty rather than a bloc aimed at any single state.

Kaleem Hussain is a multi-disciplinary change management consultant, geo-political observer, risk analyst and author of “Peace and Reconciliation in International and Islamic Law (2023).”

References

Reuters. “Turkey, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia defence pact technically same as NATO’s Article 5, Turkish minister says.” 8 Aug. 2026. https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/turkey-pakistan-saudi-arabia-defence-pact-technically-same-natos-article-5-2026-08-08/

AP News. “Turkey says defense pact with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan is not aimed at Iran or any other country.” 8 Aug. 2026. https://apnews.com/article/turkey-defense-pact-does-not-target-third-countries-1fd785d1c261621f8dcb33010c4f14e2

Responsible Statecraft. “The Mecca Pact could be an opportunity for Iran.” 19 Aug. 2026. https://responsiblestatecraft.org/mecca-pact-iran/

Radio Pakistan. “Pakistan, Saudi Arabia sign Strategic Mutual Defense Agreement.” 17 Sept. 2025. https://www.radio.gov.pk/17-09-2025/pakistan-saudi-arabia-ink-strategic-mutual-defense-agreement

Al Meezan Qatari Legal Portal. “The Joint Defence Agreement of the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf.” Production date 31 Dec. 2000. https://www.almeezan.qa/AgreementsPage.aspx?id=1527&language=en

Yale Avalon Project. “Treaty of Joint Defense and Economic Cooperation Between the States of the Arab League, June 17, 1950.” https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/arabjoin.asp

Reuters. “Israel targets Hamas leadership in military strikes on Qatar, officials say.” 9 Sept. 2025. https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israel-targets-hamas-leadership-military-strikes-qatar-officials-say-2025-09-09/

Reuters. “Israel attacks Hamas leaders in Qatar, Trump says he’s very unhappy about strike.” 9 Sept. 2025. https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israel-attacks-hamas-leaders-qatar-trump-says-hes-very-unhappy-about-strike-2025-09-09/

Reuters. “Israel’s Ben-Gvir visits flashpoint Al-Aqsa Mosque compound.” 23 July 2026. https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israels-ben-gvir-visits-flashpoint-al-aqsa-mosque-compound-2026-07-23/

U.S. Department of Energy. “United States and Saudi Arabia Reach Historic Nuclear Cooperation Agreement.” 22 July 2026. https://www.energy.gov/articles/united-states-and-saudi-arabia-reach-historic-nuclear-cooperation-agreement

Federal Register. “Presidential Determination on the Proposed Agreement for Cooperation Between the Government of the United States of America and the Government of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Concerning Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Energy,” Presidential Determination No. 2026-18. 28 July 2026. https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/07/28/2026-15273/presidential-determination-on-the-proposed-agreement-for-cooperation-between-the-government-of-the

Rohingya had been residing in informal settlements in Penang. Upon complaints from the residents and community leaders about their presence, 500 Rohingya agreed to leave the city overnight. When 110 of them arrived at the UNHCR office, they were arrested on the claim that the area outside UNHCR was a sensitive location, and could not be used as a temporary settlement. The Prime Minister Anwar further corroborated the claim by saying that refugees could not occupy public spaces in a way that disrupted public order.

This raises a bigger question: How much protection do refugees in Malaysia really have?

Malaysia hosts about 215,600 refugees and asylum seekers, most of them from Myanmar. At the same time, Malaysia is not a signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention and does not have a national asylum system. As a result, UNHCR has historically carried out refugee registration, documentation and refugee status determination in the country. However, the Malaysian authorities have made it clear that people holding UNHCR cards remain subject to the Immigration Act of 1959. In this case, the police later also confirmed that the detained refugees had valid UNHCR documents.

Indonesia, in comparison, offers a different approach to the same regional problem. Its regulations provide for local authorities to coordinate temporary shelters for Rohingya boat arrivals, while UNHCR continues to play a role in asylum registration and tracking. Malaysia, by comparison, has relied more heavily on immigration detention for people without recognised legal status.

This gap between documentation and legal protection is becoming more important as Malaysia changes how refugees are registered.

In January 2026, the government introduced the Dokumen Pendaftaran Pelarian (DPP), a new refugee registration system intended to replace UNHCR’s registration system. The system collects biometric information and is controlled by the Ministry of Home Affairs. Human rights organisations have raised concerns about privacy, surveillance and the lack of legal protections attached to the new document.

The situation becomes even more concerning when deportation is considered. Malaysia has announced plans involving the return of Myanmar nationals, while UNHCR has said it is not involved in Malaysia’s planned repatriation programme. The agency’s position on returns is that they must be voluntary, safe and dignified.

For Rohingya, returning to Myanmar is difficult. They remain stateless, and have faced persecution and oppression in the past. According to human rights groups, conditions for a safe return are non-existent. UNHCR has previously said that people fleeing Myanmar are likely to be in need of international refugee protection.

The Malaysian government’s stance on refugees is anchored strictly on national security, national sovereignty, and law enforcement rather than humanitarian integration. Because Malaysia is not a signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention, the state officially does not recognise refugee status under domestic law, classifying all undocumented displaced individuals strictly as “undocumented migrants” under the domestic Immigration Act.

The July incident therefore points to a problem that goes beyond one group being detained. For refugees who cannot safely return home, having a document may identify them as refugees, but it does not necessarily give them the legal protection that comes with that status.

And when the place they turn to for protection is also where they risk detention, what place do they have to call home?

On August 2, Jordan’s cabinet approved a major package that includes tax exemptions for qualifying projects, regulatory relief to limit bureaucracy, and electricity subsidies for the industrial zone in Rawda. Additionally, companies will receive a 75% discount on their electricity bills for the first two years. Apart from this, support will also be provided for workers’ salaries and their transportation costs.

The Cabinet stated that the main reason for this initiative is to attract investments, create jobs, and enhance competition among companies. For growing businesses, this package will reduce the costs associated with starting or expanding operations. Additionally, it will help workers find jobs more easily and lower expenses related to hiring.

Jordan has very few natural resources compared to its neighboring countries, such as Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and the UAE, which are rich in oil. In contrast, Jordan imports about 90% of its energy needs, including oil and gas, from other countries. As a result, Jordan’s electricity costs are higher, driving up prices for goods and services nationwide.

Jordan is a country that has faced a series of significant challenges. The first major issue emerged in 2011 during the civil war in Syria, prompting many migrants to flee to Jordan. As a small country with limited resources, Jordan now needs to accommodate about 1.3 million Syrians, which requires additional resources and jobs to support both the local population and the newcomers.

Additionally, Jordan’s economy heavily affected during COVID-19. In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic completely halted tourism, leading to the closure of restaurants and hotels, job losses for tour guides, and a dramatic contraction of the economy.

Furthermore, the ongoing war in Ukraine has led to rising fuel and food prices, significantly affecting Jordan, which imports most of its energy. Many locals are struggling to afford necessities, including bread.

To address this crisis, Jordan borrowed money from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which provided billions of dollars. However, in return, the IMF imposed certain conditions that included raising taxes and reducing subsidies. While these measures helped stabilize the budget, they negatively impacted civilians.

Today, Jordan is grappling with serious problems, including an unemployment rate of around 21.3%, a public debt that accounts for approximately 90% of its GDP, and slow economic growth of around 2.8%.

Jordan has tried special economic zones before. In the late 1990s, it created Qualified Industrial Zones that could sell goods to the United States without tariffs. These zones created thousands of jobs and brought in foreign investment. The Rawda package follows a similar model.

Jordan is not alone. China created the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone in 1980 with tax breaks and reduced bureaucracy. Shenzhen grew from a fishing village to a city of over 10 million people and became a hub for Huawei and Tencent. Vietnam launched the Doi Moi reforms in 1986, creating industrial zones with tax incentives. Vietnam transformed from one of the world’s poorest countries to a middle-income economy and major exporter. India passed the Special Economic Zones Act in 2005, offering tax holidays and simplified procedures. India’s IT and pharmaceutical industries grew rapidly.

The pattern is clear: countries that create special zones with real incentives attract investment. Countries that do nothing stay behind. The Rawda plan is not perfect. Critics say it is temporary and limited to one zone. They are right. But perfection is the enemy of goodness. Jordan cannot wait. A temporary boost is better than no boost. Helping one zone is better than helping none.

The story of literature begins with the word “Iqra” (اقْرَأْ) means “Read,” which changed history. The first revelation came to Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) when Allah SWT commanded him, “Read, ‘O Prophet, in the name of your Lord who created.” It made knowledge and reading central to its life of faith. The Prophet (PBUH) also encouraged Muslims to study, saying, “If anyone travels on a road in search of knowledge, Allah will cause him to travel on one of the roads of Paradise.” This quest for knowledge, from the first commandment to today’s books and libraries, has always been a path that brings people, generations, and cultures together.

This concept is passed on from one generation to another through literature. It allows one to write down experiences, preserve cultures, and learn about different lives. A piece of a novel can take the reader into a different century. Emotions are preserved in a poem, and a manuscript can keep a forgotten history alive. For the majority of people, the first real introduction to literature is through their school. Through books, readers are introduced to various characters, societies, and ideas. They can learn to be empathetic and to perceive things through another’s eyes. This is a journey that is not exclusively that of one language, nor of one civilization. Literature has been in a continuous state of change from handwritten manuscripts to print books to digital texts.

This broader role of books is reflected in UNESCO’s World Book Capital programme. Since 2001, 26 cities have been chosen to champion reading and books in all communities and ages. Rabat became the 26th World Book Capital in 2026, following Rio de Janeiro in 2025. Rabat was chosen on 8 October 2024 by UNESCO. UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay called Rabat “a cultural crossroads, where books carry knowledge and the arts in all their diversity.” The recognition was “more than a ceremonial title,” Bensaid said. He called it “a victory for knowledge in the heart of the City of Light,” highlighting Rabat’s rich cultural heritage and its growing role as a modern creative capital.

The choice was not only symbolic. Rabat has 54 publishing houses and a growing number of bookstores. It also hosts Africa’s third-largest international book and publishing fair. UNESCO also acknowledged the work of the city to promote literature and empower women and youth through reading. The year-long celebration started with World Book and Copyright Day on 23 April 2026. It will run for one year and will bring the joy of books and reading to new corners of city life.

The 31st International Book and Publishing Fair (SIEL), taking place in Rabat from 30 April to 10 May 2026, was another significant element of this celebration. The scale of the event highlighted the importance of literature in Morocco. The fair brought together 700 exhibitors from 50 countries. It offered over 130,000 titles to readers. The programme was not limited to book displays. About 720 thinkers and creators took part in more than 204 cultural events. France was the Guest of Honour, offering opportunities for Moroccan and French writers, publishers and translators to exchange ideas. The fair also honoured Ibn Battuta, and travel literature was at the heart of many of the debates. The programme for the wider World Book Capital in Rabat includes 342 activities and 12 themes. These programs are intended to take books beyond the library and bookstore walls. Reading activities are being brought to hospitals, reform centres, orphanages, public squares and transport hubs. That’s why the year in Rabat is special.

Asia does not need to borrow liberty as a slogan. It needs to recover liberty as a living project—rooted in its own histories, sharpened by sound theory, and tested through practical reform.

Liberty Before Liberalism

The Indian subcontinent offers a useful starting point. Before the rise of the modern centralized state, political authority in the region was often plural, layered, and negotiated. Kings, rajas, nawabs, sultans, local communities, merchant networks, religious institutions, guild-like associations, and customary authorities all formed part of a complex social order. This was not liberal democracy. It was not a constitutional government in the modern sense. But it does remind us that centralized, uniform, bureaucratic power is not the only political imagination our region has known.

One striking historical data point is the existence of hundreds of princely states at the end of British rule. In 1947, around 565 princely states existed in the subcontinent, with varying degrees of internal autonomy under British paramountcy. Their later integration into India and Pakistan was one of the defining acts of postcolonial state-building. It also marked the consolidation of political authority into national states after a much more fragmented political past.

This history matters for liberty advocates because it gives us a way to talk about freedom that is neither nostalgic nor derivative. The argument is not that premodern Asia was liberal. It was not. The argument is that Asian societies often contained institutional limits, customary autonomy, legal pluralism, commercial exchange, and local self-ordering. These experiences can help us build a liberty vocabulary that is both universal and local.

The Warning From Property Without Justice

History also warns us against simplistic claims. The Permanent Settlement of 1793, introduced under Lord Cornwallis in Bengal and Bihar, recognized zamindars as landholders responsible for fixed revenue payments to the East India Company. In theory, it was meant to create stable revenue and stronger incentives for land improvement. In practice, it often strengthened intermediary landlords, weakened cultivators, and embedded extractive agrarian relations.

This is an important lesson for classical liberals. Property rights are not meaningful simply because ownership is assigned. Property rights must be secure, broad-based, transferable, and protected by impartial law. If ownership becomes a privilege granted to politically connected intermediaries, it may produce hierarchy rather than freedom. Liberty requires private property, but it also requires justice in the rules by which property is acquired, protected, and exchanged.

Constitutional Politics As A Liberty Tradition

The region’s modern political history also contains a constitutional inheritance. The Indian National Congress, founded in 1885, did not begin as a revolutionary organization demanding immediate independence. In its early decades, it was substantially constitutionalist and reformist. Its leaders demanded representation, civil service access, administrative accountability, fairer taxation, and equality before law. Later, the freedom movement became broader and more radical, but its early constitutional vocabulary should not be forgotten.

For the liberty movement today, this matters because constitutionalism is not a minor institutional detail. It is the architecture that allows freedom to survive political competition. Elections without limits on power can become majoritarianism. Markets without rule of law can become favoritism. Rights without enforcement can become slogans. Constitutionalism translates liberty from aspiration into durable practice.

Building an Asian Liberal Vocabulary

Compared with Europe’s canon of liberal theorists—Locke, Smith, Tocqueville, Mill, Hayek, Friedman—South Asia has not produced a single, widely recognized classical liberal school. But the absence of an established canon should not be mistaken for the absence of liberty-oriented thought. Ideas of moral agency, limited authority, tolerance, voluntary exchange, commercial society, and social cooperation have appeared in different forms across our region.

The task before us is not imitation but articulation. We need to build a language of liberty that speaks to Asian circumstances without diluting universal principles. Liberty is not merely lower taxes or fewer regulations, though both can matter deeply. It is a moral and institutional order in which individuals and communities are trusted to act, exchange, cooperate, dissent, and build. It is the opposite of arbitrary power.

Pakistan has seen the beginnings of such a vocabulary over the last two to three decades. Writers, researchers, entrepreneurs, policy advocates, and think tanks have made the case for markets, limited government, property rights, and institutional reform. Dr. Khalil Ahmad and the Alternate Solutions Institute helped create an explicit free-market intellectual space in Pakistan. That space remains small, but it is no longer invisible.

Pakistan’s Liberalization Moment

Pakistan today appears to be entering a new phase of economic liberalization, even as political liberties remain under strain. The National Tariff Policy 2025–30 aims to rationalize tariffs, simplify duty slabs, phase out additional customs duties and regulatory duties, and create a more predictable trade regime. Alongside this, reforms around business registration and small and medium enterprises signal an awareness that growth cannot be commanded from above; it must be enabled from below.

For ordinary entrepreneurs, economic freedom is not an abstract seminar phrase. It means being able to register a business without harassment, import inputs without punitive duties, comply with taxes without opaque discretion, hire workers without fear of sudden rule changes, and sell goods and services in competitive markets. Lower tariffs and simpler regulations can therefore have a direct liberty effect: they expand the choices available to citizens.

But liberalization without institutional trust is fragile. Investors and entrepreneurs need confidence that contracts will be enforced, regulators will act predictably, taxes will be stable, courts will be credible, and political uncertainty will not erase economic gains. If people believe rules are temporary, discretionary, or selectively applied, they will adapt by staying informal, investing less, or seeking protection through connections rather than competition.

Economic Freedom Needs Institutional Trust

The liberty movement should therefore resist the temptation to separate economic reform from institutional reform. Open markets need the rule of law. Deregulation needs judicial credibility. Tax simplification needs fiscal restraint. Tariff reform needs policy predictability. Digital facilitation needs protection from arbitrary state action. The goal is not merely a smaller state, but a state limited enough to be trusted and competent enough to perform its legitimate functions.

Asia’s liberty movement will succeed only if it can integrate three tasks. It must recover history without romanticizing it. It must build theory without merely importing it. And it must pursue reform without ignoring institutions. Liberty survives when economic freedom, political freedom, and institutional trust reinforce one another.

That is why the central message is simple: liberty in Asia is not a borrowed idea. It is a living project. Economic freedom can open the door, but institutional trust keeps it open.

Edraak is our newsletter that honours the Muslim world’s diversity, reflected in the multitude of its socio-economic conditions and political institutions spanning across the continents. Traced back to its Arabic origins, إدراك encompasses timely and thorough insights into the developments of the Muslim-majority countries.

We organise the Muslim-majority countries into four zones as per their current conditions of conflict, transition, stability, and development.

The Four Zones

Zone I: Experiencing War, Conflict, Oppression, Genocide

Women Now Head Nearly One in Four Households in Gaza

UN Women reported on September 8 that women now head almost one in four households in Gaza, roughly double the pre-war proportion, a shift driven by deaths, displacement, detention, and the disappearance or injury of male household members. The figure is a demographic snapshot of how the war has restructured Gazan family and economic life, with women increasingly holding sole responsibility for household survival amid ongoing scarcity.

Taliban Defends Blanket Protest Ban

The Taliban publicly defended its newly imposed ban on all forms of protest on September 3, arguing that demonstrations have no place under its interpretation of Islamic law. The justification folds a routine tool of political liberty, public assembly, into a religious framing that forecloses debate on the ban’s legitimacy entirely.

Zone II: Transition toward Peace and Stability

Somalia’s National Security Conference Exposes the Limits of “One System” Somalia held a national conference on governance and oversight of its internal-security sector, bringing together federal institutions, parliament, federal member states, the UN, the African Union mission, and other partners to improve coordination, oversight, and financial sustainability as the country builds a more self-reliant security sector. However, two of Somalia’s most consequential federal member states, Puntland and Jubaland, did not participate, according to a Somali political-monitoring source. A national security architecture that two major regions opt out of discussing is, by definition, not yet national, and the absence says as much about the state of federal-regional trust as the conference agenda does about security reform.

Zone III: Stable but Economically Struggling

Pakistan Orders Expulsion of Afghan Medical Students

Pakistan’s Medical Regulator Board ordered all medical and dental institutions to expel enrolled Afghan students and halt new admissions, with Lahore’s King Edward Medical University giving 20 students, including 4 women, 24 hours to leave. The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan estimates up to 100 Afghan medical and dental students in Lahore alone are affected, 20 to 40 of them women. HRW noted that for Afghan women specifically, deportation “ends their chances of ever becoming doctors or dentists,” since the Taliban bars women from university and medical training entirely. Pakistan’s former special envoy to Afghanistan, Asif Durrani, called the move “not just an administrative matter” but “a question of humanity, compassion and Pakistan’s own moral responsibility.” A Lahore High Court intervention has since paused the expulsions amid public outrage.

Bangladesh’s Cyber Protection Act Amendments Threaten Press Freedom Proposed amendments to Bangladesh’s Cyber Protection Act would criminalize online reporting deemed “unsubstantiated or unverified,” carrying prison terms of up to 10 years and the potential loss of a news outlet’s operating licence. The vague “unverified” standard gives the state enforcement discretion over the kind of early, developing reporting a free press depends on being able to publish before every fact is locked down.

Zone IV: Developed or Emerging Economies with Peace and Stability

Indonesia’s Military Court Cuts Acid Attack Sentences, Reinstates Officers The Jakarta High Military Court II-06 reduced the prison sentences of two soldiers convicted in the March 2026 acid attack on KontraS activist Andrie Yunus and overturned their dishonorable discharge, reinstating both to military service. Yunus suffered burns across roughly 20% of his body and permanent damage to his right eye. Civil society groups renewed longstanding criticism that military courts, the only venue Indonesian law permits for prosecuting soldiers, structurally under-punish crimes against civilians; lawyers for the Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation are pushing the Constitutional Court to grant civilian jurisdiction in such cases.

Asia Liberty Forum Convenes in Colombo, with ILN Represented on Both Sides of the Stage

Atlas Network’s Asia Liberty Forum 2026 brought together roughly 250 think tank leaders, policymakers, and civil society figures from across Asia to Colombo, Sri Lanka, for two days of sessions on economic opportunity and individual rights across the region. As part of Atlas Network Academy’s flagship Fundraising 360 training, ILN’s Noor Netusha Nusaybah was named a finalist in the programme’s Elevator Pitch Competition, where she made the case for funding ILN’s work advancing religious, political, and economic freedom in Muslim societies.

ILN CEO Dr. Ali Salman joined a panel titled “Roots of Liberty in Asia”. Ali Salman highlighted that while liberalism as a comprehensive philosophy may have Western origin, liberty as a lived experience has universal roots. The session pushed back on the assumption that liberty is a Western export, asking whether individual agency, limited power, tolerance, and pluralism are uniquely Western ideas at all, and arguing that Asia’s own philosophical, religious, and cultural traditions have long wrestled with the same questions, an argument with obvious resonance for ILN’s own project of locating liberty within Islamic intellectual tradition rather than importing it.

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In 1883, Ernest Renan stood before the Sorbonne and told the world that Islam was an iron band encircling the Muslim mind — rendering it, in his words, “completely impervious to science, incapable of learning anything or opening itself up to any new idea.” The leading Muslim intellectuals of the day responded. Their responses were earnest, and deeply re…

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This question arises for many people attempting to cross the border between Morocco and Ceuta, a small Spanish city located at the northern tip of Africa. On August 14, 2026, Moroccan authorities arrested 111 people when a large crowd tried to cross the border. The crowd consisted of young Africans who see Europe as their only hope for a better future.

Ceuta is a small piece of land, about 18 square kilometers. For the European Union, Ceuta serves as a borderland between Africa and Europe. Migrants have been using this border to reach Europe for years. These migrants come from countries such as Mali, Senegal, Guinea, Cameroon, and even Morocco itself. They spend months travelling, crossing deserts, hiding from the police, and running out of food.

The main reasons behind the large number of migrants are varied; they do not risk their lives for fun. One of the primary reasons is unemployment in many African countries, where there are simply no job opportunities. In North Africa, the youth unemployment rate is around 30%, while in the Sub-Saharan region, the rate is even higher. Young people graduate from school and then search for jobs that do not exist. They witness their parents struggling, which further motivates their desire to migrate.

Additionally, those who do have jobs often receive very low wages. Many work full days of hard labor but earn only a few dollars, which is insufficient to support their families, pay for their children’s education, or afford necessary medications.

Moving forward, climate change and conflicts are among the biggest reasons people leave their hometowns. Many individuals migrate from their home countries where farming is no longer possible due to droughts that have dried rivers and floods that have destroyed crops. Similarly, in some regions, conflicts among authorities in different African countries have forced people to flee their homes. So, when a person from such a region tries to cross a border, it is not because they are criminals; rather, it is because they want to survive. This is often the only way they can do so.

The Moroccan government stated that they had no choice but to take a tough stance, as every government has the right to protect its borders. They cannot allow everyone to enter their territory; if they did, it would create problems for both Morocco and Spain, as well as for all of Europe.

From a legal point of view, Morocco has a valid claim under international law. Every country has sovereignty and the right to choose who can enter its territory and to protect its country by securing its borders. But people from such regions have no other way to survive and live better.

In such circumstances, the government can take several possible actions. One effective approach is to improve the system. Currently, there are very few legal options for low-skilled individuals seeking visas to work in Europe. This lack of opportunities drives many to choose illegal means of entry.

The government could create legal work programs for sectors that require labor, such as farming, manufacturing, and caregiving. Instead of allowing illegal migration to persist, they should actively recruit workers through announced visa programs. By doing so, these workers can apply and travel safely, earn money, and contribute to the economy. This approach would also allow the government to benefit from the taxes these workers would pay. It’s a win-win situation for everyone involved.

Europe can invest in Africa’s future by partnering with African governments to build schools, hospitals, and businesses instead of spending billions on border fences and security. This approach will create opportunities for young people, allowing them to remain in their hometowns instead of seeking opportunities elsewhere.

This event raised a fundamental question: What kind of world are we creating? Why have we built walls that allow only the fortunate to live in peace while countless others are dying from hunger due to failed governments and drought? We need to create bridges that allow people to move freely and safely, so they can contribute to their societies. No one chooses to be born in a country with no jobs or opportunities. The world should provide them with opportunities to work, instead of building walls that prevent their survival.

“With what can all this be paid for? The monsters are said to go to hell; but what can hell undo of the mischief, what can it restore of the ruined lives? Would you consent to be the architect of this building with its foundations laid on human tears, tell me straight without a lie!”

— Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

In Gaza, over the last three years, at least 73,000 Palestinians have been killed, including at least 25,000 children. According to UNICEF, more than 64,000 children have been killed or injured in Gaza since October 2023.

Although some label this a ‘war’ or a ‘conflict,’ what we have witnessed for three years is the deliberate trapping of people within a tiny enclave—their homes, apartments, and entire neighborhoods reduced to rubble, their living spaces bombed, and their lives extinguished by denying them medicine, food, and water.

These children did not perish in a clash between two armies; they lost their lives as a result of systematic attacks by Israeli forces—where the daily average toll of child deaths is entirely predictable. For three years, images of children with severed limbs and partially or completely charred bodies have flashed before our eyes every single day, marked with ‘sensitive content’ warnings.

They are still flashing.

“Since the ceasefire was announced in the Gaza Strip, at least 300 children have been killed in 300 days,” says Louise Wateridge from UNICEF. “The world calls it a ceasefire, but families in Gaza are still burying their children,” she notes.^*

The crux of the matter is not Hamas. Because while these horrors were unfolding in Gaza, 1,186 unarmed and defenseless Palestinians were killed in the West Bank—where Hamas or any armed resistance has no presence—by Israeli forces and ‘settlers’ carrying out pogroms under their supervision. There, too, a systematic ethnic cleansing continues to escalate through occupations, home demolitions, and the confiscation of vacated lands.

What is happening there?

Why is all of this happening? What is going on? How do we explain this event that we are forced to watch online, which some describe as ‘the largest mass killing of children in history’?

When we set aside religion, ancestry, and nationality, what do we actually see?

A group of people with the means and power is displacing and killing another group of people who are entirely defenseless, seizing their homes and lands. To achieve this, they annihilate cities, rain bombs down upon others, slaughter tens of thousands of children, clear an entire region of its inhabitants, and hand over what they have taken to someone else.

Look down upon what is happening below, bypassing Palestine, Israel, Jew, and Arab. If your vision has not been distorted by nationalism, false beliefs, and unjust ideologies, this is exactly what you will see.

An Analysis of a Choice...

Can a person build a blissful, happy life there without erasing the people whose lives they took and whose property and land they seized from their conscience? Can they live a peaceful life at the expense of another’s catastrophe? Can a house built on tears ever bring joy to the one who smiles?

Or does the phantom of the people whose rights were violated perpetually haunt them, no matter how much they rationalize their wickedness, and regardless of the religious, national, or ideological justifications they manufacture?

What lies in the deepest recesses of the human soul, and which of these narratives is true? Revealing those depths is no easy feat. However, we can clearly see and expose what is currently happening in the world and what human beings are doing to one another.

“The Spoils of a Sinking Ship”

Believing that a happy life can be built upon the catastrophe, death, and destruction of other families must be a grave delusion.

Yet, humans can choose this path too.

The issue is not a lack of awareness. We cannot claim that a person is unaware of the injustice when they displace someone, kill them, and confiscate their home. Nor can we claim that those to whom these homes and lands are ‘gifted’ do not know where they came from. Just as we cannot say that those who established a ‘New World’ by committing the greatest genocide in history following the ‘discovery’ of America did not know where the indigenous populations—tens of millions of Native Americans, including their women and children—had gone.

The entire issue crystallizes in Dostoevsky’s question: Would you reside in a building whose foundation is built upon the bodies of children?

Would you kill someone and seize their home and land? Or would you become a part of the authority that kills them and confiscates their property? Would you approve of them killing on your behalf? Would you accept what is given to you, or would you say no because of the bloodstains on it?

The answer ‘yes’ given to this question explains Israel’s policy of ethnic cleansing and genocide, as well as the historical narrative built upon that political choice. Naturally, it also explains the ‘Nakba’—the great catastrophe that Palestinians have been enduring for a century, which is the name of the Holocaust in Palestinian history.

“The Fruit Will Be Bitter”

“This is your paradise. But its soil is soaked with the blood of the innocent. And what about its fruit? Is it not black and bitter?”

Agatha Christie’s detective, Hercule Poirot, spoke these words to a woman who had strangled a child to death for the sake of land.

There is an unaccountable, irreplaceable agony of 25,000 children standing before us. A monumental sorrow that no land returned and no victory achieved can ever compensate.

Those who rejoice today, thinking, ‘the global conjecture is favorable, we did it and it’s done. After a while, no one will remember Gaza,’ are mistaken. Because the fruit harvested from the stolen lives of those children will also be bitter. It will bring a state of perpetual vigilance, an enduring anxiety that accountability will be demanded every single day, anywhere in the world. It will mean always feeling forced to be strong, constantly keeping one’s guard up, and living in perpetual fear of exposure. It means being acutely aware that even if ‘that topic’ is never brought up, and even if no one asks, everyone knows what is left unsaid.

And feeling that, sooner or later, these files will be opened.

Antisemitism has always existed; but times are coming when we will be most helpless in combating it. What kind of consequences this will yield can be debated, but what is certain is that everyone, including Israel, will now live with this reality.

We are at the beginning of a long, exhausting, and painful history for everyone.

Can the World Stomach It?

It is evident that the people who encroach upon the homes of others—or, to use a polite expression, the ‘settlers’—feel no shame or discomfort about sitting in houses and gardens built upon the bodies of children; in fact, they view it as their right.

To avoid working a lifetime and saving money for years to own a home and land, it is enough to simply choose one of the narratives spun for justification.

“Our ancestors were here three thousand years ago,” or “God promised these lands to us,” or as an Israeli man responded to his Arab neighbor who accused him of stealing his home in a widely viewed video: “If I don’t steal your home, someone else will.”

Now, while Israel continues to take lives in Gaza despite the ceasefire, there is talk—in the words of Trump—of beachfront real estate development projects on the rubble of Gaza and the annexation of the West Bank.

But today, the situation is different.

Because ethnic cleansing in Palestine was historically stretched out over time, the world did not fully see what was happening. Israel’s response to Hamas’s October 7 attack with a genocide, and the atrocities witnessed in Gaza over the last three years, have laid bare the core of the Palestinian issue to even the most reluctant observers.

We did not personally witness the suffering of the past. It is no longer possible to turn back time and save those innocents today. But how the story concludes in the face of today’s suffering depends entirely on us.

Now, the world knows; it sees the essence of the problem in all its stark nakedness. Now, the question is what eight billion people will do—whether their stomachs can turn it away or endure it.

Seeing creates accountability. As the world is being rebuilt once again, granting or denying a permit to this construction built upon the bodies of children imposes, above all else, a moral responsibility on every human being living on Earth.

What was asked in The Brothers Karamazov? “Would you consent to be the architect of a building to be settled on the tears and life of a child?”

This question is being asked to us today, and it addresses all eight billion people on Earth equally—whether Arab, Jew, Mexican, Chinese, Kenyan, Buddhist, Christian, liberal, conservative, or socialist. And it forces everyone to make a choice: Will we consent to be the architects of a world whose foundations are washed with the tears of innocents, or will we not?

The kind of place our world will become in the near future—not just Palestine—will depend heavily on the answer we, as humanity, give to this question.

About the Author:

^* In a statement on June 19, 2026, UNICEF spokesperson James Elder also described the current ceasefire as a “cruel and deadly illusion,” expressing his profound sorrow over the loss of hundreds of more children’s lives. “Let us be clear about what this means,” Elder said. “These children were not killed in a war zone. They were killed in their homes. In their schools. Playing football. Fishing.”

For many, a wedding is a day of celebration and happiness. But in Afghanistan, even these moments are now being restricted.

On July 23, 2026, the Taliban introduced new restrictions on wedding and engagement ceremonies. The restrictions were announced the next day in Friday sermons by the Taliban’s Ministry of Hajj and Religious Affairs and the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice. The directive bans brides from wearing makeup, perfume and hair extensions, as well as from visiting beauty parlours. Couples are also prohibited from exchanging rings and applying henna to each other’s hands.

The Taliban justify these restrictions through their interpretation of Islamic law. They describe customs such as ring exchanges as Western influences. To preserve moral purity, they deem segregation of unrelated men and women necessary, banning mixed gatherings. Existing restrictions on music, singing, dancing and fireworks at weddings were also reinforced.

Alongside these new restrictions, Afghan women continue to face many existing measures that affect their daily lives. Beauty parlours were previously forced to close across the country, leading to the loss of around 60,000 jobs. Women and girls also continue to face restrictions on education, employment and participation in public life.

The broader impacts of these restrictions have also been documented by international organisations. UNESCO has reported that around 2.4 million Afghan girls are currently excluded from secondary education, making Afghanistan the only country in the world where girls and women are formally prohibited from education beyond the primary level. These restrictions limit their access to further education and employment opportunities.

The Taliban’s policies have faced criticism from Muslim countries. At the 9th Ministerial Conference on Women in Islamabad, the 57 member states of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) adopted a 32-point resolution expressing concern over the treatment of Afghan women. The resolution called on Afghanistan to ensure the full, equal and meaningful participation of women and girls in public life in accordance with Islamic values.

The statement is significant because the Taliban has repeatedly justified its policies through its interpretation of Islamic law, while the OIC has argued that restrictions on women and girls are inconsistent with Islamic values.

The Taliban did not attend the conference after the OIC requested an authorised female representative from Afghanistan. The Taliban’s white banner was also not displayed at the conference, with Afghanistan instead represented by its traditional tricolour flag.

Following the conference, Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid rejected the idea that Afghanistan should define women’s rights according to the demands of international organisations. He argued that the Taliban would not accept rights or recommendations that it considers to be contrary to Islam or reflective of Western culture. The Taliban hold the stance that Shariah is sufficient to protect the rights of women.

Thus, the disagreement is not limited to wedding traditions. It reflects a wider disagreement over how Islamic values should be interpreted and applied to women’s lives.

Afghanistan’s new wedding restrictions may concern makeup, rings, henna and celebrations, but they also raise a broader question: when the state begins deciding how people should dress, celebrate and practise their traditions, where does religious guidance end and state control begin?

Syria took a bold step by breaking old authoritarian rule, forming a new parliament, and introducing currency reforms. This represents an extraordinary opportunity for national rebirth and also poses a test for a country with fragile institutional capacity.

Syria established a genuine legislative body for the first time in five decades. On July 12, 2026, Parliament conducted its first meeting in Damascus following the fall of Bashar al-Assad in December 2024. The Assembly consists of 210 members. Parliament prepared a 30-month transition plan during which the country will draft a new constitution and approve a national budget.

In addition, UN Secretary-General António Guterres made a historic visit to Damascus. He praised Syria and referred to it as a pillar of stability in the Middle East. He also called for comprehensive international support for reconstruction efforts.

To understand today’s event, one must look back at history. The Assad family ruled Syria for over 50 years. During this period, basic rights to vote and oppose were totally diminished. Parliament was only there to legitimize presidential decrees.

In 2011, a civil war erupted in Syria, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people and displacing millions. The country’s economy was completely destroyed during this time. The Syrian currency lost 95% of its value, and inflation surged, making it extremely challenging for people to afford basic necessities of life.

In December 2024, a major collapse occurred when an army led by Hayat Tahrir Al Sham reached Damascus and ended Assad’s rule. Ahmad al-Sharaa became the interim leader and promised a stable political order, breaking away from the past that oppressed them.

The new parliament is a hybrid body consisting of 210 members. Two-thirds of its members are selected by electoral bodies through elections, while one-third of its members are appointed directly by the interim leader, Ahmad al-Sharaa.

Arthur Quesnay, a researcher at Paris 1 Pantheon-Sorbonne University, noted that while the assembly aims to build a new political base, many members lack organizational backing and parliamentary experience, making institutional effectiveness its immediate hurdle.

However, a Syrian political analyst, Ahmad al-Ashqar, put it: “The real challenge is not the composition of the parliament. It is whether its members can function as one institution. The assembly’s long-term credibility will be measured by its ability to debate legislation meaningfully, restore public trust, and advance economic recovery.

Syria is not only focused on political restoration but is also implementing currency reforms. Since January 2026, the central bank has been working on replacing about 80% of the Syrian currency with redesigned banknotes. Two zeros have been removed, meaning that 100 old pounds are now equal to 1 new pound. Additionally, the portrait of the Assad family has been removed from the currency. The new banknotes now feature wheat, olives, and oranges, which reflect Syrian identity rather than that of the previous regime.

The recent visit of the UN Secretary-General to Syria, the first since 2009, signifies the country’s return to the international community. According to Syria’s interim leader, this visit validates Syria’s reintegration into the UN. Al-Shaibani described it as reflecting “a new phase in Syria’s relations with the UN.” He also mentioned that the focus will now shift from humanitarian relief to reconstruction and sustainable development. Additionally, he noted that approximately 3.5 million people have returned to Syria.

Syria’s journey can be illuminated by looking at examples of other countries. South Africa (1994) succeeded through reconciliation and strong leadership, becoming a global model for peaceful transition. Iraq (2003) failed due to sectarian divisions and weak institutions, leading to prolonged instability. Libya (2011) collapsed into factional warfare after Gaddafi’s fall, becoming a cautionary tale of failed state-building.

Syria’s future depends on strong institutions, inclusive governance, and international support. The world is watching whether Syria becomes a model or a warning is yet to be decided.

Religion is often misused by political leaders and extremists for their own gain. However, Nigeria is making history by breaking barriers and fostering religious harmony through the development of organized bodies for dialogue.

This new approach will provide a platform for religious leaders to address problems and find solutions through discussion, helping to prevent minor disagreements from escalating into major conflicts.

Nigeria is divided largely along religious lines, with the north predominantly Muslim and the south mostly Christian. In the central region, both communities coexist. Historically, politicians have exploited these religious differences to win elections, while extremists have used them to justify violence.

Despite this, there is hope for change as Muslim and Christian leaders have established a new interfaith organization aimed at promoting understanding and cooperation.

To understand why this initiative matters, let’s take a look at the history of Nigeria. Nigeria is Africa’s most populous country, with a population of over 200 million people. The population is evenly split between Christians and Muslims, and in the central region of the country, both groups coexist. This religious diversity can be a strength; however, political issues and the greed for power have complicated this relationship.

For years, extremist groups such as Boko Haram have been terrorizing the northeast region of Nigeria. Although they claim to be Muslims, they have killed both Muslims and Christians. These communities are distrustful of each other because of what they have done. Many Christians view Muslims as terrorists and Muslims view Christians as misled and blame them for the acts of the terrorists.

Many people tend to vote for a political party because of their religion, and not because of the party’s positive work. They are afraid that if another religious party is elected, then they might lose their identity. Politicians use people’s fear for their own benefit and manipulate them with religion. If, for example, a Christian party wins, Muslims may feel left out; if a Muslim party wins, Christians may feel threatened. This cycle continues on and on.

Interfaith cooperation was done after events, as the leaders were called upon to meet after the bombing or the massacre, talk about peace, take pictures, then go back home and do nothing about it. This new effort is unique in that religious leaders will not only meet once, but on a regular basis. They aim to address issues proactively, working to resolve problems before they escalate into larger conflicts.

Religious liberty is not only about being able to enter a mosque or church without fear. It encompasses the freedom to express your ideas, live your life without feeling marginalized, and participate in public discourse. This is what the new interfaith body aims to protect.

The new initiative creates a safe space for religious leaders to meet regularly. They don’t have to argue about their theological differences, nor do they need to change each other’s beliefs. However, they must agree on one important principle: to treat each other not based on their religion, but as citizens of the same country.

This isn’t the first time Nigeria has attempted to form a peace group. Previous efforts have all failed. It’s important for these initiatives to focus on rural areas, as many of the issues originate in villages rather than big cities. The initiative should involve local imams and pastors since politicians often exploit these communities for their own benefit. It may take time, but consistency is key. Engagement should continue regularly, even in the absence of crises.

Nigeria’s new interfaith body is not a miracle; it will not erase years of hatred or stop violence, but it is a crucial step. The initiative acknowledges a simple truth: people may disagree, but disagreement does not mean violence or hatred. It establishes a permanent forum where Muslims and Christians must sit together not just after a bombing or a massacre, but every week, every month, even when times are calm. That is new, and that is important.

This initiative will face resistance. Some politicians want division. Some extremists want war. But the leaders who started this body have chosen a different path. They have chosen to build instead of burn.

Edraak is our newsletter that honours the Muslim world’s diversity, reflected in the multitude of its socio-economic conditions and political institutions spanning across the continents. Traced back to its Arabic origins, إدراك encompasses timely and thorough insights into the developments of the Muslim-majority countries.

We organise the Muslim-majority countries into four zones as per their current conditions of conflict, transition, stability, and development.

The Four Zones

Zone I: Experiencing War, Conflict, Oppression, Genocide

Senegal Signs $2.2 Billion IMF Deal

Senegal and the IMF reached a staff-level agreement on a $2.2 billion, three-year programme to restore debt sustainability, per the IMF announcement. Reforms include greater domestic revenue mobilisation, tighter expenditure controls, stronger oversight of state-owned enterprises, and measures to improve the business environment and financial inclusion, alongside strengthened targeted cash transfers for vulnerable households. The real test of economic liberty here is not the fiscal discipline itself but the follow-through: reforms can widen opportunity if they genuinely lower barriers to entry, or narrow it if austerity lands hardest on the households the cash transfers are meant to shield.

Zone II: Transition toward Peace and Stability

Kurdish Language Rights Test Syria’s New Unity

Days after Kurdish-led forces formally integrated into Syrian state institutions on August 21, parents and students in Qamishli protested a decision limiting Kurdish-language instruction to three lessons a week, demanding Kurdish-medium curricula instead. Kurdish political figures said integration “does not resolve outstanding questions about Kurdish cultural and political rights.” A seat at the state’s table is not the same as the freedom to educate your children in your own language, and Damascus’s unity narrative is being tested in a classroom in Qamishli well before it is tested anywhere else.

Zone III: Stable but Economically Struggling

Nigeria’s Foreign Aid Bill Alarms Civil Society

A proposed Foreign Aid (Regulation, Transparency and Disclosure) Bill 2026 is drawing formal objections from Nigerian civil society. SERAP and the Nigerian Guild of Editors warn it could give government broad powers over any organisation receiving foreign assistance, including NGOs, independent media, religious groups, and humanitarian actors, through mandatory registration and disclosure rules. The bill looks procedural on its face, but a government that controls the paperwork required to receive foreign funding controls, indirectly, which watchdogs and outlets can keep operating, making this a direct test of civic space rather than a technical filing requirement.

Moroccan Lawyers Extend Strike Over Judicial Reform

Morocco’s lawyers announced they will continue their nationwide strike, now in its third month since it began in June, over judicial reforms that undermine the legal profession’s independence. Bar associations say they are defending “the independence of the profession, the immunity of the defense, and its organizational autonomy,” and want the reforms withdrawn. The strike has disrupted litigants’ access to legal representation nationwide. Judicial independence is usually debated as a constitutional principle, but here its erosion is being measured in real time by ordinary Moroccans left without a lawyer while the profession fights for its own autonomy.

Pakistan Passes Military Bills Amid Walkout

Pakistan’s National Assembly passed bills reshaping the National Command Authority and defence-force structures on August 20, with opposition members walking out over how the legislation was introduced. The content matters less than the process: legislation touching the country’s most powerful security institutions passed without the elected opposition’s participation. That is a political-liberty question in its own right, going to whether Pakistan’s civilian institutions can meaningfully check, or even scrutinise, the security establishment when it moves to entrench its own authority through fast-tracked legislation.

Zone IV: Developed or Emerging Economies

Malaysia’s Merdeka Invites Prosperity

Malaysia marked its 69th National Day on August 31 with a Putrajaya parade drawing tens of thousands, under the theme “Malaysia MADANI: Kesejahteraan Dinikmati” (shared prosperity). The Merdeka programme included RIUH Merdeka’s free family activities and multicultural performances. Alongside it, an Agriculture, Horticulture and Agrotourism Exhibition that opened August 28 drew 1.8 million visitors and nearly RM6 million in sales within three days, targeting RM58 million overall. The pairing of pageantry with genuine commerce shows how the state narrates unity, prosperity and multiculturalism as one story, even as that story is contested elsewhere in the country.

Kuwait Teaches National Identity

Kuwait’s National Council for Culture, Arts and Letters built a children’s event around the Arfaj, the country’s national flower, as part of its Summer Cultural Festival. Children aged five to twelve took part in storytelling, drawing, and craft activities designed around resilience, belonging, and national identity. Cultural liberty rarely makes headlines at this scale, but state-run identity programming aimed at five-year-olds is exactly where a country’s narrative about belonging gets built first, well before it ever reaches a courtroom, a newsroom, or a ballot box.

Indonesia’s Muslim LifeFest Merges Faith and Commerce

Indonesia hosted Muslim LifeFest 2026 from August 28 to 30 at the Indonesia Convention Exhibition, alongside the 25th IFRA Business Expo, bringing businesses, franchise brands, Muslim consumers, and entrepreneurs into one space. IFRA featured franchising and licensing opportunities, while LifeFest placed lifestyle, commerce, and religious identity in the same marketplace. This is economic liberty expressed through consumer choice rather than legislation: a halal-consumer economy large enough to support its own franchise ecosystem is, in effect, Indonesian Muslims voting with their spending on what a modern, faith-anchored lifestyle looks like.

Article Pick

Project Taliban

Five Years of Taliban Rule: The Longer History of Gender Apartheid in Afghanistan

August 13, 2026 — When Kabul fell in August 2021, the world watched Afghan women disappear from classrooms, workplaces, parks and public life. It was tempting to imagine that gender apartheid had arrived suddenly, fully formed, with the Taliban…

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2 months ago · 11 likes · 2 comments · Mandana Hendessi

When a country’s founding father promised religious freedoms and rights to all minorities at the time of its formation, those rights should be embedded in the nation’s vision. Yet for discriminatory laws and violence against minorities to persist in such a country despite the constitutional promise of protection highlights the distance still to travel.

The case of minority rights in Pakistan is a case in point. On 11 August 2026, Pakistan officially commemorated the National Minorities’ Day. On the occasion, National Assembly Speaker Sardar Ayaz Sadiq praised the role minorities played in the country’s development.

These contributions came from religious minority communities like Christians, Hindus, Sikhs and Ahmadis—which make up only 4% of the population. Prominent personalities in this context include Justice Alvin Robert Cornelius, who shaped Pakistan’s early legal and judicial framework, and Group Captain Cecil Chaudhry, who dedicated his life to education and advocacy. To celebrate the contributions of these individuals and highlight the issues faced by the minorities, Shahbaz Bhatti, a Christian advocate for religious freedom, campaigned for a day to be marked as a day for minorities. Following this, 11 August was declared as the official National Minorities Day in 2009. The reason for 11 August being chosen for celebrating minorities was the landmark speech given by the founding father, Quaid-e-Azam, on this day in 1947. In the speech, delivered to the first constituent assembly, he famously stated:

“... You are free; you are free to go to your temples; you are free to go to your mosques or to any other places of worship in this State of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion or caste or creed — that has nothing to do with the business of the State....”

Ironically, the lived reality for minorities in Pakistan is very different from the freedoms promised by the founder of the country. Reports of attacks on churches and temples, and of blasphemy accusations leading to mob lynching of minority communities and destruction of entire neighbourhoods, are not an anomaly. From 1994 to 2024, 104 individuals have been killed by mobs following blasphemy accusations, including 26 Christians, 7 Ahmadis, 1 Hindu and 1 Buddhist. While blasphemy-related violence and extrajudicial killings affect people of all faiths in Pakistan, the impact is more severe for minorities. A blasphemy accusation against a Muslim endangers only that individual’s life; a similar accusation against a Hindu or a Christian endangers the lives and assets of their entire community. In 2023 alone in Punjab, after a blasphemy allegation against a single Christian man, thousands of people attacked and burned multiple churches and Christian homes in the Jaranwala neighbourhood.

Further, the blasphemy law has created additional space for discrimination against minorities. Under section 295-C of the Pakistan Penal Code, “Whoever by words, either spoken or written, or by visible representation, or by any imputation, innuendo, or insinuation, directly or indirectly, defiles the sacred name of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) shall be punished with death, or imprisonment for life, and shall also be liable to fine.” This broad and vague wording has enabled the law’s misuse to settle personal disputes, particularly against minorities. Multiple civil society actors and even some Islamic scholars have advocated for amending the law.

Paradoxically, the 1973 Constitution of Pakistan promises protection of minorities. Article 36 of the Constitution states, “The State shall safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of minorities, including their due representation in the Federal and Provincial services.” Thus, the distance still to travel in Pakistan lies in strengthening policing systems against hardliners, eliminating Islamic extremism and radicalization, and reforming the blasphemy laws. According to Reuters, police actions against hardliners have been strengthened in the past year. However, reform of the blasphemy law and the elimination of extremism and radicalization remain a long and difficult road, particularly given the deep-rooted influence of extremist ideas propagated by Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP).

Ultimately, violence against minorities in Pakistan has not only harmed its people but also the international image of Pakistan. The road to travel in curbing this violence and discrimination will be much more difficult in the ideological domain than in the policing or safeguarding domain.

Since Sindh province raised the minimum legal age of marriage to 18 for both males and females in 2013, this can help us understand what to expect from the new law in Balochistan. According to data from the Pakistan Demographic and Health Surveys, the percentage of young women aged 15–19 in Sindh who were married rose slightly from 12.7% in 2012–2013 to 13.5% in 2017–2018. This raises questions about whether changing the legal minimum age for marriage is enough if implementation is absent.

A survey in Balochistan by Save the Children found, through a sample of respondents, that nearly 2/3 of marriages took place before the age of 18, while 40% of marriages took place before the age of 16. Moreover, 1 in 4 girls had their first child before 16, and 60% of girls had given birth before turning 18. This data is not representative of the entire province as it is based on local targeted samples. Still, this data suggests a close connection between early marriage and early pregnancy.

The health consequences of early pregnancy further lay the ground for the need for legislation. Early marriage increases the likelihood of early pregnancy, carrying greater health risks for young mothers. According to UNFPA, girls aged 15–19 are twice as likely to die from pregnancy and childbirth as women in their 20s. Furthermore, in 2018, UNFPA reported that 3,000 women died annually from pregnancy complications in Balochistan.

The consequences are not limited to health. Early marriage can interrupt a girl’s education, limiting her professional life and increasing economic dependence. In a province where female participation in the job market remains low, keeping girls in education and delaying marriage can have consequences that extend beyond individual households to the wider economy.

Moreover, the new law recognises anyone below the age of 18 as a child. It considers child marriage a cognizable and non-bailable offence, permitting the police to arrest without warrant. Furthermore, an adult male marrying a minor can face 2-3 years of imprisonment. The punishment also extends to the facilitators of the marriage, which may include parents, guardians, nikah registrar, and other adults. The fine for such a violation will be between 100,000 and 200,000. The legislation further prohibits informal settlements through traditional community councils such as jirgas, removing the possibility of resolving child marriage cases outside the formal legal system.

The new law has faced opposition from the Council of Islamic Ideology (CII), as they believe it contradicts Islamic principles about puberty and marriage. They argue that there shouldn’t be a fixed age for marriage; instead, puberty should determine when a girl can get married. The CII plays an advisory role to the Parliament and provincial assemblies, but it does not hold the power to veto legislation passed by the elected assembly.

Balochistan’s new legislation marks a turning point in the government’s fight against child marriage, but changing the law is just the beginning. The legal age limits the practice on paper, but actual enforcement depends on addressing the root causes of child marriage, such as community education, economic support for families, and the ability of local institutions to enforce the law. A legal number is not sufficient on its own if the social practices aren’t changed and violators aren’t held accountable.

This question has become particularly urgent in the age of social media. Never before has information been so abundant, so immediate, and so accessible. Yet this extraordinary expansion of access to information has not necessarily produced greater confidence in knowledge. On the contrary, many societies are experiencing a growing uncertainty about whom to trust, which institutions to believe, and how to distinguish reliable knowledge from opinion, speculation, and manipulation. The internet initially appeared to promise the democratization of knowledge by removing many of the barriers separating individuals from information. But the digital revolution has also created an enormous and largely unregulated marketplace in which scientific knowledge exists alongside personal opinion, expertise alongside speculation, evidence-based analysis alongside conspiracy theories, and reliable information alongside misinformation.

The problem, therefore, is not simply that people may believe false information. A deeper and potentially more dangerous problem emerges when people begin to believe that no source of information can be trusted. This is what I call epistemic despair: not simply ignorance or a lack of knowledge, but a loss of confidence in the possibility of acquiring knowledge that is sufficiently reliable to understand the world and act within it. When individuals can no longer distinguish between knowledge and opinion, evidence and assertion, expertise and influence, they may gradually lose not only confidence in particular institutions but also confidence in knowledge itself.

The work of the French sociologist Gérald Bronner helps us understand this transformation. We are living in what can be described as an enormous marketplace of information, but attention has become its scarce resource. Digital platforms do not necessarily reward the most accurate, careful, or scientifically reliable content. They reward content that attracts attention, generates emotion, provokes reaction, and encourages further engagement. This creates a profound paradox. Scientific knowledge is often complex, cautious, and probabilistic. It acknowledges uncertainty and changes when new evidence becomes available. Content competing for attention, by contrast, often prefers certainty, simplicity, emotional intensity, and clear explanations for complicated events. As a result, the information that is most reliable may not always be the information that is most competitive in the attention economy.

This transformation is also changing the nature of authority. In the past, the authority of a scientist, scholar, teacher, or religious expert was closely associated with education, expertise, institutional recognition, and accumulated knowledge. Today, visibility can become a source of authority in its own right. A person with millions of followers may exercise greater influence over public opinion than a specialist who has spent decades studying a particular subject. The number of views, shares, and followers can gradually become a substitute for expertise. The person who attracts the most attention can begin to appear to be the person who knows the most.

This does not mean that all popular content is false or that all institutional knowledge is correct. Nor does it mean that established authorities should be protected from criticism. Doubt is an essential part of intellectual life. Science itself depends upon questioning, criticism, testing, revision, and the possibility of correcting mistakes. A healthy society needs citizens who are capable of questioning governments, experts, religious authorities, journalists, and other institutions. The problem begins when critical doubt is transformed into generalized distrust. There is a fundamental difference between saying, “I want to verify this claim,” and saying, “Nothing can be trusted.” The first is critical thinking; the second can become a form of epistemic nihilism.

This distinction is particularly important in the digital environment. Statements such as “Do not trust anyone,” “All scientists are paid,” or “The truth is always hidden” may initially appear to express intellectual independence. Yet they may have the opposite effect. They do not teach people how to evaluate evidence; they teach them to distrust every possible source of knowledge. A critical citizen is not someone who rejects every claim. A critical citizen is someone who can distinguish between claims, sources, evidence, degrees of certainty, and competing explanations. Generalized doubt does not necessarily produce more rational citizens. It can produce citizens who no longer believe that rational inquiry can lead anywhere.

Conspiracy theories flourish within this environment because they offer something that is particularly attractive in a world of uncertainty: meaning. They provide simple explanations for complex events, identify clear actors responsible for them, and create the feeling that one has discovered a hidden truth that others cannot see. From this perspective, conspiracy theories should not be treated simply as strange beliefs held by irrational individuals. They should also be understood as products of a broader informational and social environment in which people are searching for explanations, certainty, and control.

The danger is not only that particular conspiracy theories may be false. Their deeper social consequence may be the erosion of confidence in the possibility of collective action. If institutions always lie, why trust them? If scientists are part of a conspiracy, why listen to them? If the media deliberately conceal the truth, why believe anything they report? And if major events are secretly controlled by invisible forces, what difference can an ordinary citizen possibly make? At this point, epistemic despair can become social despair. The loss of confidence in knowledge can become a loss of confidence in institutions, in collective action, and eventually in the possibility of changing the future.

This question is particularly important in many Muslim societies. Misinformation, conspiracy theories, and declining institutional trust are certainly not uniquely Muslim phenomena. They are global features of the contemporary information environment. Yet their consequences can be especially significant in societies where the relationship between religion, political authority, social institutions, and knowledge is highly sensitive. Young people in many Muslim societies today encounter a crowded field of competing authorities: governments, traditional media, official religious institutions, scholars, preachers, intellectuals, influencers, and anonymous voices on social media. At the same time, there may be significant gaps in trust between citizens and government institutions, or between younger generations and established religious authorities.

When trust in traditional sources of authority declines, however, the demand for knowledge does not disappear. It moves elsewhere. A social media influencer may become more influential than a qualified scholar. An anonymous post may circulate more widely than an official statement. A conspiracy narrative may receive more attention than a carefully documented analysis. The resulting problem cannot simply be solved by telling young people to return to traditional authorities. Trust cannot be commanded from above.

This is particularly important when considering trust in governments. It would be too easy to explain conspiracy theories simply as the result of ignorance or poor education. Such narratives can also flourish in environments where there are genuine problems of transparency, inconsistent communication, corruption, or limited opportunities for public accountability. For this reason, combating misinformation cannot simply mean telling citizens to “trust the institution.” The more important question is whether the institution provides reasonable grounds for trust. If governments expect citizens to trust official information, they must also be willing to answer citizens’ questions, explain their decisions, acknowledge mistakes, and accept scrutiny. Accountability should not be understood as the enemy of trust. Accountability is one of the conditions of trust.

The same principle applies to religious authority. In an environment in which young people can encounter thousands of competing interpretations of religion online, official religious institutions cannot maintain legitimacy simply by insisting on their authority. They need to engage with questions, explain their reasoning, acknowledge legitimate disagreement, and communicate with younger generations in ways that recognize the intellectual realities of the digital age. The answer to the fragmentation of authority is not necessarily to impose more authority, but to create forms of authority that can justify themselves through knowledge, openness, competence, and dialogue.

When an information crisis interacts with a crisis of institutional trust, it can produce what might be called social despair. This does not mean that every person who loses trust will become violent or seek to leave their country. Human beings respond to social crises in very different ways. Some become politically apathetic, some withdraw from public life, some turn to cynicism or anger, while others search for increasingly radical narratives that provide a sense of meaning and control. For some young people, migration—sometimes including irregular migration—may appear to be the only realistic path toward a different future. In other contexts, the same environment may make extremist or violent narratives more attractive to a minority of individuals. These outcomes are not inevitable, but the weakening of trust in the possibility of meaningful action can make them more imaginable.

This is why simply telling young people to “be optimistic” is not enough. If a young person is exposed every day to narratives telling them that the world is controlled by conspiracies, that institutions cannot be trusted, that experts are lying, and that the future is already determined, a moral appeal to optimism will accomplish very little. Hope requires an epistemic foundation. People can hope for a better future only when they retain some confidence that the world is understandable, that reality is not completely predetermined, and that human action can make a difference.

This is where education becomes crucial. The challenge is no longer simply to provide young people with more information. They already have access to more information than any previous generation. What they need are the intellectual tools to navigate an environment of information abundance. They need to learn how information is produced, selected, distributed, amplified, and consumed. They need to understand how algorithms compete for their attention and how emotions such as fear, anger, and outrage can influence what they click on and share. They need to learn to ask: Who produced this information? What is the source? What evidence supports the claim? Can it be independently verified? What do we know, and what do we not know? Why does this narrative appear convincing? Why has it become so visible? And are there alternative explanations?

Such education should not be merely technical. It should be analytical, critical, and ethical. Young people are no longer only consumers of information; they are also producers and distributors of it. Sharing misleading content is therefore not a neutral act. Every user participates, to some extent, in shaping the informational environment of others. The goal should not be to create a generation that believes everything, nor one that distrusts everything. It should be to cultivate what I call critical trust: the ability to trust knowledge while remaining capable of questioning it, to recognize expertise without treating experts as infallible, and to distinguish healthy skepticism from destructive cynicism.

But education alone cannot solve the problem. If digital platforms have become central spaces in which knowledge is produced and circulated, societies also need institutions capable of monitoring and explaining this environment. One possible response would be the creation of an Observatory for Information Disorder, capable of monitoring widely circulating claims, verifying information, and explaining to the public why certain misleading narratives become persuasive and spread so rapidly. Such an observatory could pay particular attention to areas in which misinformation can have significant social and cultural consequences, including religious information, science, health, history, and major public issues.

Its role, however, should not simply be to declare that a particular claim is “false.” Its deeper task should be to explain how misinformation works: why a claim spread, why people found it convincing, what emotions it activated, and how the attention economy amplified it. The objective should not be to create another institution that tells citizens what they must believe. It should be to build a social capacity for verification, interpretation, and critical judgment.

Yet even this will not be enough if institutions themselves fail to create the conditions for trust. Governments and religious institutions cannot reasonably ask citizens to resist misinformation and conspiracy theories while refusing transparency, meaningful dialogue, or accountability. If we want citizens to develop critical trust, institutions must also become worthy of that trust. A government that is accountable has a stronger basis for trust than a government that simply demands it. A religious institution that can listen to difficult questions and engage seriously with disagreement is more likely to retain legitimate authority than one that treats every question as a threat.

The response to the crisis of trust, therefore, should not be blind confidence in institutions, but neither should it be the rejection of institutions altogether. What is needed is a new social contract around knowledge and authority—one based on transparency, competence, accountability, openness to criticism, and the capacity to admit and correct mistakes.

Ultimately, the challenge posed by what I call the “algorithms of despair” is not simply technological. Algorithms do not operate in a social vacuum. They operate within institutions, cultures, communities, and relationships of trust and distrust. The same technology can have very different consequences depending on the social environment in which it operates.

This is why confronting the algorithms of despair cannot simply mean blocking information, censoring unpopular opinions, or replacing one official narrative with another. It requires building citizens who can question without falling into nihilism, trust without becoming uncritical, and engage with uncertainty without seeking refuge in conspiracy theories. It also requires institutions that understand that trust cannot be demanded; it must be earned.

Hope, in this sense, is not the belief that the future will necessarily be better. It is the belief that the future is not completely closed, that knowledge can help us understand the world, that institutions can change, and that citizens can influence the societies in which they live. Hope is therefore not the opposite of critical thinking. Critical thinking is one of its foundations. And trust is not the opposite of accountability.

The cultivation of hope in an age of misinformation is therefore not simply a matter of encouraging optimism. It is a project of education, institutional reform, and democratic responsibility. It means giving young people the intellectual tools to distinguish knowledge from manipulation, the critical trust necessary to participate in public life, and the confidence that their actions can still make a difference.

Perhaps this is the most meaningful response to the algorithms of despair: not simply giving people more information, but giving them the capacity to understand information, question it, verify it, and use it responsibly. The purpose is not to protect people from doubt, but to teach them how to doubt without losing their belief in the possibility of truth; not to eliminate uncertainty, but to help them live with it without surrendering to conspiracy; and not to promise that the future will be easy, but to preserve the conviction that the future remains open to human action.

About the Author:

References

Bronner, G. (2013). La démocratie des crédules. Presses Universitaires de France.

Bronner, G. (2019). Déchéance de rationalité. Grasset.

Bronner, G. (2020). Apocalypse cognitive. Presses Universitaires de France.

Bronner, G. (2025). À l’assaut du réel. Paris: Grasset

Freire, P. (1992). Pedagogy of hope: Reliving pedagogy of the oppressed. Continuum.

Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, fast and slow. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

McIntyre, L. (2018). Post-truth. MIT Press.

Sunstein, C. R. (2018). Republic: Divided democracy in the age of social media. Princeton University Press.

The cultural identity of Syria has developed very long before the state itself. The country was situated on the crossroads of the Middle East, having been influenced by the Arab, Mediterranean, and other regional civilizations over thousands of years. Damascus and Aleppo, two of its best-known cities, are among the world’s oldest continuously inhabited cities. This long history can be seen in Syrian literature, crafts, food, architecture, and especially music. For centuries, music has played an important role in the cultural life of Syria. The country is home to traditions of Arabic classical music, muwashahat and Sufi devotional singing. It has a musical history of over 3,000 years. The ancient city of Ugarit is connected with the Hurrian Hymn, one of the earliest written pieces of music.

A more recent and prominent role is played by Syrian musicians, who carried this heritage outside the country. The Al-Kindi Ensemble was one of the most famous. The group performed with singers from Damascus, such as Sheikh Hamza Shakkur from the Umayyad Mosque and the Mawlawi whirling dervishes of Damascus, bringing Syrian Sufi music to audiences in Europe, North America, and the Middle East. Music became not just an art form, but an art of sharing Syria’s history and cultural heritage with the rest of the world. This cultural life was seriously affected by the 2011 war. Musicians were sent into exile and cultural institutions closed their doors. Despite this, artists in Syria kept recording music and both within the country and internationally.

The end of the former regime has since opened a new chapter for Syria’s cultural life. Cultural institutions are returning to public spaces, while literary events, exhibitions and artistic performances are reappearing. These spaces are also creating opportunities for Syrians to discuss questions of memory, identity, war and the future of their society. One example is the Syria Summer Family Festival 2026, organized by Syria’s Ministry of Culture. It started on July 30 in Idlib, then moved to the Damascus Citadel on August 7, and then to Latakia on August 4. The festival continued till August 21. It is travelling across different governorates, allowing people in different areas to experience cultural activities. The festival is a celebration of entertainment and heritage. Its programme includes theatre, storytelling, competitions, traditional performances, muwashahat and religious chanting. The festival featured a puppet theatre performance by “Taraji,” with musical scenes inspired by Damascene heritage, performed by children from the Modern Skills School. Interactive storytelling sessions were also used to make learning fun.

Muhammad Yassin al-Saleh, the culture minister, called culture “one of the bridges uniting Syrian society.” The festival embodies this concept with participation from children, parents, and older adults in historic and cultural venues. The role of music was particularly visible on August 14, when Syrian singer Wasfi Massarani performed patriotic and traditional songs at the Damascus Citadel. He celebrated Syrian heritage and revolution at the Summer Syrian Festival. He also dedicated a song “Yammo Ya Umm al-Shuhada Yammo” for the mothers of martyrs. The audience was singing and chanting. Mohammad Ouda said the event created “a real opportunity for joy after tough years” for him, and Mahmoud Anjiri emphasized the youth’s participation in the event was “a meeting of the different generations”.

For Syria, a land of centuries of cultural mixing and years of conflict. The revival of music, festivals and public cultural events is more than a celebration. It belongs to the great project of re-integrating society with its heritage and re-imagining its future.

The case of the landmark Islamabad Declaration in July 2026 is a case in point. On July 13, 2026, representatives from the OIC’s 57 member states that were attending the Ninth Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) Ministerial Conference on Women in Pakistan adopted the Islamabad Declaration. The declaration reiterated the commitment of the OIC member states to advance social, economic, and political empowerment in their countries. Notably, the declaration launched a new initiative to promote women’s digital inclusion across the Muslim world.

The declaration comes in the backdrop of women’s rights issues in the Muslim World. Across the global Muslim community, 43% of women have no formal education. Accordingly, female labour force participation in the Middle Eastern and North African region, on average, is also only 24% to 31%. Further, violence against women is also a pressing concern in Muslim- majority countries. Research on Arab and Islamic countries indicates that approximately one in three women may experience violence from an intimate partner. Consequently, to address these issues, the OIC initiated the Ministerial Conference on Women in 2006, which is held every 3 to 4 years. The most recent conference, titled “The Social, Economic and Political Empowerment of Women in OIC Member States: Challenges and the Way Forward,” was held in July 2026 in Islamabad. This conference culminated in the signing of the Islamabad Declaration.

Once implemented, the declaration would have significant implications for women in the Muslim World. As pledged in the declaration, leaders of OIC member states will proactively work to introduce policies and institutional mechanisms to ensure women’s meaningful participation in social, economic, and political life, removing legal barriers to empowerment. Notably, the declaration placed substantial emphasis on Muslim-majority countries enhancing women’s digital inclusion by expanding affordable digital infrastructure, access to devices, and digital literacy programmes, particularly in rural areas—which could help narrow the digital gender divide in the Muslim World. The launch of the Islamabad Initiative on Women’s Digital Inclusion—a voluntary platform aimed at women’s digital empowerment—was a practical manifestation of this commitment. Further, the declaration also stressed that states should adopt policies to eliminate all forms of violence against women, which would remove one of the biggest barriers to women’s empowerment in the Muslim World.

Ultimately, women in the Muslim World constitute approximately 24% of the world’s female population. The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW)’s goal of women’s empowerment can only be meaningfully realized through the empowerment of Muslim women. This empowerment requires a context-specific framework and commitment—one that the Islamabad Declaration meaningfully provides.