BOOKS


Educating the Muslims of America

By Yvonne Y. Haddad, Farid Senzai, and Jane I. Smith
 


The Many Faces of Political Islam

By Mohammed Ayoob
ISPU Adjunct Scholar


Who Speaks for Islam? What a Billion Muslims Really Think

By John Esposito and Dalia Mogahed

 


How The American
Mainstream Media
Reports The
Israel-Palestine
Conflict

By Marda Dunsky
ISPU Fellow




Social challenges have become increasingly more complex and interwoven - requiring in-depth and comprehensive analysis. The Institute for Social Policy and Understanding (ISPU) is unique in its ability to bring an alternative approach to these human and social problems. ISPU provides cutting-edge analysis and policy solutions through publications, public events, media commentary, and community research. Our multidisciplinary approach, in partnership with universities and other research institutes, serves to build understanding and create programs that effect lasting social change.


 

IN FOCUS
New! Iran in the Middle East: Expanding Influence, Accelerating Arms Race: Myth or Reality?

Iran’s growing religious and political influence in the Middle East is alarming the United States, Israel and Arab states. As Israel considers launching a military attack, Arab leaders warn of a developing arms race in the region. What are Iran’s objectives and how will fear of Iran affect the future of the Middle East? On June 10th, 2009, The Century Foundation, The Heinrich Böll Stiftung, and The Institute for Social Policy and Understanding hosted a symposium to discuss these issues.


Watch the videos online...

New! Losing the Republic: The Threat of Executive Power
James E. Hanley, ISPU Fellow

 

Before martial law is declared to be the supreme law of the land, and your character of free citizens be changed to that of the subjects of a military king ...
let me admonish you in the name of sacred liberty, to make a solemn pause. Permit a freeman to address you, and to solicit your attention to a cause wherein yourselves and your posterity are concerned. The sun never shone upon a more important one. It is the cause of freedom of a whole continent of yourselves and of your fellow men.

 

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New! The Meaning of Obama's Speech in Cairo
Fawaz A. Gerges, ISPU Fellow

 

Although a statement of intentions, Obama's speech in Cairo covered critical challenges facing the United States in the Muslim world and offered a new paradigm, a new beginning, for managing relations between the two civilizations.

 

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Pakistan Can Defy the Odds: How to Rescue a Failing State
Hassan Abbas, ISPU Fellow

 

Is Pakistan collapsing? How far are the Taliban from Islamabad? Can al-Qaeda grab the country’s nuclear weapons? These are the types of questions raised every day by the American media, academia and policy circles. And these are critical issues, given the nature of the evolving crisis in Pakistan. The approximately two dozen suicide bombings in 2009 so far, 66 in 2008, and 61 in 2007, all of which have targeted armed forces personnel, police, politicians, and ordinary people not only in the country’s turbulent northwest but also in its major urban centers, indicate the seriousness of the threat. A major ammunition factory area located close to some very sensitive nuclear installations in Wah (Punjab) was targeted by two suicide bombers in August 2008, an act that sent shudders across the country’s security establishment.

 

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Police & Law Enforcement Reform in Pakistan: Crucial for Counterinsurgency and Counterterrorism Success
Hassan Abbas, ISPU Fellow

It is a globally recognized fact that a state’s police and law enforcement agencies play a critical role as the first line of defense against the threats of terrorism and insurgencies. An informative RAND study titled How Terrorist Groups End provides evidence that effective police and intelligence work, rather than the use of military force, deliver better counterterrorism results.2 Based on this conclusion, the report suggested to U.S. policymakers that they stop using the phrase "war on terrorism," because there is no battlefield solution to defeating terrorists. Another valuable study analyzing the police role in counterinsurgency campaigns in Malaya and Cyprus concluded that nearly all major twentieth-century counterinsurgency campaigns relied heavily on indigenous police as well as military forces.

 

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The American Muslim Physicians Study

 

Purpose
There are a significant number of Muslim physicians working, living and helping communities across the United States, but the demographic details and impact of these physicians has never been measured or quantified. This study is designed to fill this knowledge gap, and to examine the contributions of Muslim physicians to health care, civic and community life in the United States.

 

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RECENT ARTICLES

The Fight for Pakistan’s Soul

By Hassan Abbas, ISPU Fellow

 

As its army confronts, ever more bloodily, the Taliban in the Swat Valley, Pakistan is fighting for its very soul. The army appears to be winning this time around, in marked contrast to its recent half-hearted confrontations with Taliban forces in neighboring tribal areas.

 

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A Paradigm to Jump-Start U.S. - Muslim Relations

By John Esposito, ISPU Board of Advisors

 

In what has the potential to be a transformative historical moment, President Barack Obama called for "a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world; one based upon mutual interest and mutual respect." While acknowledging the ups and downs of Muslim-West relations, periods of co-existence and cooperation as well as conflict and religious wars, he challenged both America and Muslims globally not to fixate on differences but on building a new way forward based on our common humanity, shared values and interests.

 

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Obama’s Charisma Ignites Hope in Muslim Hearts

By Muqtedar Khan, ISPU Fellow

 

President Obama’s address to the Muslim World on June 4th from Cairo was truly transformative in intent and effect. It was not a policy speech and did not seek to outline policy initiatives. It was a philosophical attempt to diffuse the mutual distrust and animus that undergirds US relations with the Muslim World.

 

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CENTER FOR THE STUDY OF AMERICAN MUSLIMS

 

 

CENTER FOR GLOBAL HEALTH




More Reports



POLICY BRIEFS

 


Losing the Republic: The Threat of Executive Power

By James E. Hanley
ISPU Fellow

 


The Meaning of Obama's Speech in Cairo

By Fawaz A. Gerges
ISPU Fellow

 


Will Obama Go for the Game Changer: An Arab-Israeli Peace Settlement?

By Fawaz A. Gerges, ISPU Fellow

 


Through the Smoke:
Tobacco Use in the Middle East

Sana Malik, ISPU Fellow