'Muslims in the Dock': A clarion call against Islamophobia

In this climate, Luqman Harees' new book becomes both resistance literature and a humanist manifesto. Titled Muslims in the Dock: A Bystander's Perspective on How Multi-pronged Islamophobia-Related Challenges Coupled with the Defeatist Mentality Are Sadly Pinning Down Post-9/11 Muslims, the work is an extension of his earlier publications, particularly The Mirage of Dignity on the Highway of Human Progress.

-  IFHAM NIZAM

At a time when Islamophobia is being weaponised into a global political tool, the launch of Muslims in the Dock, the latest book by human rights advocate and writer Luqman Harees, could not have come at a more urgent moment. Held at the Lakshman Kadirgamar Institute on Sunday, the book launch was not merely a literary event-it was a deeply political and moral engagement with the state of the world and the precarious position of Muslims within it.

Among the distinguished attendees Western Province Governor Haniff Yusuf, former Supreme Court Justice Dr. Salim Marsoof, ex-Human Rights Council of Sri Lanka Commissioner Razali Hussain, and former Gulf News Bureau Chief in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, Lateef Farook, highlighting the book's resonance across legal, political, military, and civil society spaces.

However, it was Ameen Izzadeen, International Editor of the Sunday Times, who perhaps most powerfully set the tone for the evening. Having penned the book's foreword, Izzadeen delivered a stirring, at times anguished, yet ultimately hopeful assessment of both the book and the broader global forces it seeks to challenge.

"Since I wrote the foreword to this book," Izzadeen began, "much blood has flowed beneath a bridge-a cockpit stand-an army of sociopaths driven by hatred." His words evoked not only the horrors unfolding in Gaza, but a sweeping indictment of a post9/11 world order in which Muslims, he argued, have become the prime targets of imperialism and Zionism.