The Cedar Revolution in Lebanon (2005), the Lawyers’ and Judges’ Mutiny in Pakistan (2007), The Green Revolution in Iran (2009) and the current Tunisian uprising are all answers to the question: why won’t Muslims do something about the democracy deficit in their world?

Perhaps lost in the embarrassment felt by the US government over leaked cables by the website WikiLeaks are revelations that Muslim nations – from Yemen to Afghanistan, Pakistan to Egypt – have been deceiving their own people about the their own policies.

A haj speech by the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia calling for moderation and condemning violence and terrorism may not seem groundbreaking, but gains tremendous significance when considering his traditionalist background.

Critics of Shariah in Oklahoma argue that they oppose it because it is against freedom of religion. In this age, when ignorance and bigotry are being celebrated in America, I am sure that most observers missed the irony in the situation.

The fatwa against terrorism and terrorists by Dr. Muhammed Tahir ul-Qadri, a very prominent religious scholar from Pakistan, is neither the first, and may not be the last Fatwa of this kind. But it certainly might be the longest and most comprehensive one.

Consumers of Islamic religious knowledge and opinions are so illiterate in these matters that they lack the ability to distinguish between genuine scholarship and demagoguery – with tragic and even comic results.

In the 2008 US Presidential election, American Muslims have no alternative but to vote for Barack Obama. They should do so with an understanding of what has been achieved in the political sphere – and what has not.

General Pervez Musharraf’s 1999 military coup was celebrated on the streets in Pakistan and was seen as a coup against Washington, backed on latent anti-Americanism. Not surprisingly, his resignation as President is being seen the same way.