This article is a criticism of atheists such as Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins and Bill Maher who say that Islam is the root of all the problems in the Middle East and the division between the West and the Middle East. However, this article also delves into the main conflicts in the Middle East and explains how some of the main problems in countries such as Iraq and Afghanistan today has happened in other parts of the Middle East in the early 1900s. CJ Werleman goes on to criticize atheists such as Bill Maher who are constantly bashing the Middle East and Islam in general, without much scholarly evidence. "If a “caliphate” has been established, it’s an American caliphate in the Middle East. With a total of 44 U.S. military bases in the Middle East and the Central Asia, some of which are the size of small cities, we have the Muslim world completely surrounded. From Turkey to Saudi Arabia, from Uzbekistan to Kyrgyzstan, our bases serve as a constant reminder to Muslims that we control their economic future and we are here to stay. And with an economic future that looks bleak for Muslims, the embers for Muslim rage are stoked." Another interesting idea that Werleman discusses is our reliance on the Middle East due to oil.
The War between ISIS and al-Qaeda for Supremacy of the Global Jihadist Movement. (Aaron Y. Zelin) - The Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
This article comes from a scholarly source and I picked it not because of how relevant it is to my main argument, but more so because it has a lot of important information about al-Qaeda and ISIS - to major terrorist organizations - that I will discuss in my essay. It is important to understand the differences between these two organizations as they have different goals, even though they approach these goals in a similar fashion. This article goes into depth regarding ISIS' main goal to create a caliphate in the Middle East governed by sharia law. Al-Qaeda on the other hand is more concerned with global jihad, however both have a similar hatred of the U.S. and Israel. ISIS is much more similar to a political entity because of the fact that it has taken over areas such as Syria and parts of Iraq and has enforced laws that people have to obey and follow.
Sharia Incorporated: A Comparative Overview of the Legal Systems of Twelve Muslim Countries in Past and Present - (Jan Michiel Otto)
This article is very interesting because it compares sharia law and how enforced it was in several different countries over the years. This paints a picture of what the Middle East is like when it comes to how it is is governed and how strong of an impact it has on the way people carry out their lives. However, the most interesting aspect of this article is how it discusses the political systems of countries and how they have changed over time. A strong example of this is Iran. Iran has changed significantly since the Iranian Revolution and because of it Iran went from a much more secular state to one that cut off its ties with the West.
Your articles seem very interesting and I'm curious about how you plan on connecting the three articles, but it seems like you might be going in a similar direction to me: writing about people like Bill Maher and the misconceptions about Islam? Not sure if that's what you were going for, but I like the approach that you're using by actually looking into how sharia law works and how where terrorist groups come from etc.
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