About the QeRN Archive

QeRN's site dates to the end of 2001, and the organisation behind it to 1998. The archive holds a quarter-century of commentary on Muslim identity, Islamophobia, geopolitics, theology, economics, and media — written across very different moments: the aftermath of September 2001, the Iraq war, the Arab Spring, the rise and collapse of ISIS.

What we are doing with it

QeRN's current work focuses on education, institutional capacity, innovation, self-reliance, and responsible adoption of artificial intelligence. As part of that repositioning, every item in the archive has been reviewed. Some material has been removed from the public site. Much of the rest is kept — deliberately — as a record of how these debates actually unfolded.

What an editor's note means

Where you see an editor's note at the top of an older article, it means: the article below is unchanged, it reflects the moment it was written, and the note explains why we still think it is worth reading — usually because the questions underpinning are still alive, even where the framing or the conclusions are not ones QeRN's editorial policy agrees with.

Articles by guest authors and reprinted material reflect the views of their authors, then and now. Keeping a paper in the archive is not an endorsement.

Why keep it at all

Because institutions need memory. A generation of Muslim public argument was conducted reactively — answering the news cycle, item by item. The archive documents both the insight and the history of that mode. It is an study in itself.

Where to go next

• About QeRN — who we are and what we are building
• Knowledge That Benefits
• Building Institutions That Last
• Innovation and Self-Reliance
• Theology for Builders