Religions are vague, of course. This means that they are easy to follow -you can interpret their prescriptions as you like. but it also means that it is easy to slip up -there is always some injunction you are violating. But Islam has no religious establishment - no popes, no bishops - that can declare by fiat which is the correct interpretation. As a result, the decision to oppose the state on the grounds that is insufficiently Islamic belongs to anyone who wishes to exercise it.

I'd be kidding if I said that I predicted the financial collapse.

It is likely that human beings will find fulfillment and will be rewarded for the same qualities that they have been rewarded for for 5,000 years. And that is intelligence, hard work, honesty, a sense of character, loyalty to family and friends, and above all, love and faith. If you are trying to decide what you should do, those are the things you should do. And you know it.

The markets are much more interested in America's long-term trajectory than they are in feeling that there is an acute short-term crisis.

...foreign policy is a matter of costs and benefits, not theology.

Thanks to the Communist Party of China, we now know the path to poverty alleviation is Capitalism.

I enjoy writing but I much prefer the experience of having written.