In 2017, Arif Naqvi and The Abraaj Group were on the brink of changing the world of private equity. Abraaj was a pioneer of a new model of impact investing built on the idea that making money and doing good are not mutually exclusive. It had helped transform communities and companies across the Middle East, Asia, Africa and Latin America by investing in healthcare, education and clean energy, and in 2017 it was on the threshold of closing a new fund that would provide S6 billion worth of investment to these emerging markets. But then it all came crashing down.

On 10 April 2019, after landing at London Heathrow, Naqvi was arrested on fraud charges. He is facing extradition to the United States and a potential prison sentence of up to 291 years if he is found guilty.

The dominant media narrative has painted Naqvi as a thief and fraudster, the so-called key man in an organised criminal conspiracy. But in this explosive new book, which is based on extensive research and interviews with key players, Brian Brivati discovers that things are not quite what they seem and finds that in this case of alleged fraud there is actually no money missing. Icarus explores how Abraaj found itself caught in the middle of a geopolitical war between the United States and China and when it would not bow to the whims of these global behemoths, economic hitmen tried to wipe it out.

This work explains the history, formation and orientation of the defunct Pakistan National Awami Party (NAP) from 1957 to 1975. NAP espoused a socialist and progressive approach in politics and gained considerable grass-roots support in both the wings of Pakistan. This book provides clues of the colonial legacy and post-1947 developments which restructured the trends of progressive politics in Pakistan. It analyzes the dynamics of progressive politics within the NAP framework as it had absorbed communist, progressive and ethno-nationalist elements in its fold. Most of its leaders had been blamed for their extra-territorial loyalties and links with Soviet Union, China, India and Afghanistan. This book candidly investigates such connections to better understand various standpoints.

Another remarkable feature of this study is a detailed account of the role NAB (Bhashani) played in mobilizing the masses to join hands with the Bangladesh Liberation Struggle in 1971. In addition, the book explores NAP’s role in the 1964-65 presidential election, division of the party in 1969, NAP (Wali)’s role in the 1971 crisis, ministry formation in NWFP & Balochistan, Pakhtunistan issue, and differences with Z. A. Bhutto which led to the banning of the party in 1975.

Sufism has always been a contested space in Pakistan. Successive governments, political parties, and religious organizations have attempted to co-opt it or reject it to suit their own political agendas. Since the turn of the millennium, however, the Pakistani government has made a conscious effort to recast Pakistan as a ‘Sufi country’—a whitewashing endeavor.

In the past few decades, Pakistan’s image has taken a severe beating, ravaged as the country is by the rise of religious extremism. A focus on the syncretic culture of Sufism was seen as a way to reverse this damage without the need to explore more secular narratives and alternatives as almost every attempt at genuine reform has triggered extreme reactions from the politicoreligious segments of the society that were empowered through various controversial constitutional amendments and laws between 1974 and the late 1980s.

Soul Rivals discusses the many strands of Sufism (State, Pop, and Militant) that have emerged in the course of the country’s attempts to reimagine Sufism. In this close look at the religio-political space in Pakistan, Nadeem Farooq Paracha is as insightful as he is entertaining.

Praise for Points of Entry Paracha’s essays are constructed around closely felt personal encounters; and in being so, they nudge the reader (wherever she may be) to look around with keener eye and ear to find the imprints of history and diverse influences in everyday conversations, in the music and food around, in the life stories of stray acquaintances. It is, in sum, a riveting introduction to Pakistan. – Mini Kapoor, The Hindu

Layered and powerful, Paracha’s writing takes you beyond … the usual cliches, to present, a nuanced picture of a complex nation caught…. between the modernist impulse and the theocratic one – Manjula Narayan, Hindustan Times.

Author, cultural critic and historian nadeem farooq paracha details the history of muslim modernism – a 19th century idea which further evolved in the the early 20th century and inspired the creation of a separate muslim-majority country, pakistan. Paracha explores how this idea became part of the narrative which first justified the creation of pakistan and then became part of this country’s nationalist outlook.

however, from the mid-19705, this idea began to erode and was replaced by a more myopic view of pakistani nationalism which permeated the state and society, retarding their evolution. It hurled them into an identity and existentialist crises ravaged by extremist violence, hate crimes and severe sectarian, sub-sectarian and religious polarisation.

after investigating the reasons behind the birth, rise and decline of muslim modernism in south asia and pakistan, paracha builds a case of its possible revival for a state and polity now trying to wriggle out of the many ideological and constitutional traps they created for themselves in their bid to divorce the country from its modernist muslim roots.

Most people have a vague idea that in the months leading to the 1971 breakup of Pakistan and during the savage military action in East Pakistan all the major world powers (except China, which couldn’t do anything) were severely critical of Pakistan’s policies and decisions. For the first time, this book chronicles and records this hostility precisely, punctiliously and extensively.

For this purpose Professor Aziz has consulted an incredibly enormous range of source material: 152 newspapers and magazines, 155 journal articles, 133 books, and several unpublished radio and TV broadcast transcripts.

The focus is on the United States, the United Kingdom and the USSR, with a brief look at the rest of the world. A detailed chapter de-scribes the making and implications of the lethal Indo-Soviet Treaty. The brief but explosive prologue is a novel and damaging expose of the unpardonable mistakes made by the All India Muslim League leadership between 1906 and 1947 which, irrevocably and inevitably, led to the creation of Bangladesh. This investigation is based on original and contemporary documents. To put the foreign comments in their context, the more relevant portions of the Hamood-ur-Rahman Commission Report are reproduced in an appendix.

This book is a register of events, a narrative of public opinion and an account of how the world powers saw and judged the developments of 1970-71. It is a collection of stark and brutal facts and comments upon them. It is not a work of analysis or judgment because Pakistani scholars are denied the freedom of expression essential for that exercise.

As most of the material used here is available in Pakistan but not all of it at one place anywhere, this volume is a valuable and indispensable source book for any study of the 1971 disaster.

1n the wake of the 9/11 attacks, the United states declared war on terrorism. More than ten years later, the results are decidedly mixed. Here world-renowned author, diplomat, and scholar Akbar Ahmed reveals an important yet largely ignored result of this war: in many nations it has exacerbated the already broken relationship between central governments and the largely rural Muslim tribal societies on the peripheries of both Muslim and non-Muslim nations. The center and the periphery are engaged in a mutually destructive civil war across the globe, a conflict that has been intensified by the war on terror. Conflicts between governments and tribal societies predate the war on terror in many regions, from South Asia to the Middle East to North Africa, pitting those in the centers of power against those who live in the outlying provinces. Akbar Ahmed’s unique study demonstrates that this conflict between the center and the periphery has entered a new and dangerous stage with U.S. involvement after 9/n and the deployment of drones, in the hunt for al Qaeda, threatening thevery existence of many tribal societies American f irepowerand its vast anti-terror network have turned the war on terror into a global war on tribal Islam. And too often the victims are innocent children at school, women in their homes, workers simply trying to earn a living, and worshipers in their mosques. Battered by military attacks or drone strikes one day and suicide bombers the next, the tribes bemoan, “Everyday is like 9/11 for us.”

In The Thistle and the Drone, the third volume in Ahmed’s groundbreaking trilogy examining relations between America and the Muslim world, the author draws on forty case studies representing the global spanof Islam to demonstrate how the U.S. has become involved directly or indirectly in each of these societies. The study provides the social and historical context necessary to understand how both central governments and tribal societies have become embroiled in America’s war. Beginning with Waziristan and expanding to societies in Central Asia, the Middle East, North Africa, and elsewhere, Ahmed offers a fresh approach to the conflicts studied and presents an unprecedented paradigm for understanding and winning the war on terror.