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By RICK GLADSTONE JANUARY 14, 2016 Even by today’s standards, the Middle East in the 1970s was chaotic. Bombings, hijackings and assassinations were daily headlines. In the midst of the mayhem, one of the most revered clerics in the Shiite branch of Islam vanished while visiting Libya . Criminal inquiries, books and speculation have abounded over the fate of the cleric, Imam Moussa al-Sadr, the charismatic Iranian-born scion of a powerful religious family who had made his home in  Lebanon  for nearly two decades and had become an ardent advocate of its impoverished Shiites. He and two colleagues have not been seen since Aug. 31, 1978, when they were reportedly spotted at the airport in Tripoli, the Libyan capital. Many have blamed agents of Libya’s former leader, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi , though a motive remains unclear. Yet a coming book about the fall of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi of Iran in 1979 has helped cast the disappearance in a...

RIYADH/DOHA   |  BY ANGUS MCDOWALL AND  AMENA BAKR Saudi Arabia's King Salman is seen during U.S. President Barack Obama's visit to Erga Palace in Riyadh January 27, 2015. REUTERS/JIM BOURG (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia is pushing for Sunni Muslim Middle East countries to set aside differences over political Islam and focus on what it sees as more urgent threats from Iran and Islamic State. Its new monarch, King Salman, has used summits with leaders of all five Gulf Arab states, Jordan, Egypt and Turkey over the past 10 days to reinforce the need for unity and find a way to work Why Pakistan may be a reluctant ally in Saudis' Yemen campaign Analysis: Domestic and regional political concerns raise the risks of being seen to ally on sectarian lines against Iran March 27, 2015   9:22AM ET by  Omar Waraich Saudi Arabia’s new policy of uniting Sunni Muslim powers against Iran’s Shia regime has resulte...

5th March 2015 at 3:26 am   Dilly's Desk Posted by  5 Pillarz “We must put an end to anything which brings about any Islamic unity between the sons of the Muslims. The situation now is that Turkey is dead and will never rise again, because we have destroyed its moral strength, the Caliphate and Islām.” This bold statement, or rather stark warning, was allegedly made by the former British Foreign Secretary, Lord Curzon, at the House of Commons after the Lausanne Treaty of 1923, when the Ottomans were defeated in World  War One. The reason why Lord Curzon’s statement should be taken with so much weight (if it is true) is because it correlates with the following ḥadīth of Prophet Muḥammad (sall Allāhu ʿalayhi wa sallam): “The knots of Islām will be undone one by one, each time a knot is undone the next one will be grasped, the first to be undone will be the ruling and the last will be the prayer.”  [1] Tuesday marked 91 years since...