Free Press, Foreign Journalists: Conversation about free speech outside the U.S.

Panelists, from right: Raza Ahmad Rumi, director of Park Center for Independent Media at Ithaca College and an editor of the Daily Times English-language…

Story of a brutal, cold-blooded murder

Jamal Khashoggi entered Saudi Consulate in Turkey and never returned! Khashoggi entered the Saudi Consulate on October 2, while his fiancè waited outside. The…

A modern Ottoman – the Turk Gulen wins the intellectuals’ poll

The Turkish cleric Fethullah Gülen, winner of the intellectuals poll undertaken by Prospect, has been hailed as “the modern face of the Sufi Ottoman…

Turkey in Radical Revision of Islamist Texts

Turkey is working on a revolutionary new interpretation of the Prophet Mohammed’s reputed sayings, known as the Hadith. The project is aimed at allowing…

A paranoid, abhorrent obsession

It was a pleasure to have read Pankaj Mishra in the Guardian: Last week Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Somali-Dutch polemicist, spoke to a gathering…

My interview at the Pak Spectator

Raza Rumi was interviewed at the Pak Spectator blog. My interview is nothing but rambling galore; but I did relish answering the various questions.…

Longing for Istanbul

Discovered some fabulous photos of Istanbul here taken by Nuri Bilge Ceylan. Looking at these images, my longing for Istanbul has come back. I…

Orhan Pamuk’s recognition and the complex world we live in..

The characters in my novel are groaning under the burden of universal ideas. Overtaxing yourself with powerful ideas is practically a Turkish passion Orhan…

I found Roses in Konya…

I have been wanting to write about my recent trip to Konya. Words have failed me. This was my second trip to Konya –…