I think political questions which are about Islam's teachings and understanding Islam (and not just related to Islam or Muslims or Muslim countries) can be on-topic in principle. Definitely there are suitable political questions that are fundamentally related to understanding Islam.

However, as I have written before there are various issues that we need to be careful about. Political questions are likely to be controversial and lead to lengthy and extended debate and discussion. They need be stated very carefully to avoid such issues. They need considerable care to be stated reasonably. Can we manage that right now? I don't think so.

Keep in mind that we are still dealing with some users who are voting based on whether answers agree or disagree with their beliefs rather than their objective quality independent of their view. When the site reaches a state that users and the mainstream culture of the site is voting based on quality in place of opinions, and pay enough attention to the sensitivities required for such questions then it can be OK to allow such questions. But right now that is not the case. So I lean towards not allowing them.

A compromise might be also possible though: political questions will be subjected to a much higher standards and they will be acceptable only if they absolutely satisfy those standards (if go that way we have to discuss what standards to require from a political and more generally questions about similar controversial topics).

I think questions regarding recent and current political events and history should remain off-topic. Also we should pay attention to the intention behind the political questions. Is it a question genuinely asked to learn or is it asked to express the askers opinion. The later should be off-topic (the philosophy of this site is for learning and knowledge sharing not preaching political/religious activism, it is not an Islamic site, it is a secular site for learning about Islam from Islamic perspectives).

See also Robert's post:

http://meta.islam.stackexchange.com/q/189/42

I think political questions which are about Islam's teachings and understanding Islam (and not just related to Islam or Muslims or Muslim countries) can be on-topic in principle. Definitely there are suitable political questions that are fundamentally related to understanding Islam.

However, as I have written before there are various issues that we need to be careful about. Political questions are likely to be controversial and lead to lengthy and extended debate and discussion. They need be stated very carefully to avoid such issues. They need considerable care to be stated reasonably. Can we manage that right now? I don't think so.

Keep in mind that we are still dealing with some users who are voting based on whether answers agree or disagree with their beliefs rather than their objective quality independent of their view. When the site reaches a state that users and the mainstream culture of the site is voting based on quality in place of opinions, and pay enough attention to the sensitivities required for such questions then it can be OK to allow such questions. But right now that is not the case. So I lean towards not allowing them.

A compromise might be also possible though: political questions will be subjected to a much higher standards and they will be acceptable only if they absolutely satisfy those standards (if go that way we have to discuss what standards to require from a political and more generally questions about similar controversial topics).

I think questions regarding recent and current political events and history should remain off-topic. Also we should pay attention to the intention behind the political questions. Is it a question genuinely asked to learn or is it asked to express the askers opinion. The later should be off-topic (the philosophy of this site is for learning and knowledge sharing not preaching political/religious activism, it is not an Islamic site, it is a secular site for learning about Islam from Islamic perspectives).

See also Robert's post:

Islam SE: Not a Muslim Peer Support Group

I think political questions which are about Islam's teachings and understanding Islam (and not just related to Islam or Muslims or Muslim countries) can be on-topic in principle. Definitely there are suitable political questions that are fundamentally related to understanding Islam.

However, as I have written before there are various issues that we need to be careful about. Political questions are likely to be controversial and lead to lengthy and extended debate and discussion. They need be stated very carefully to avoid such issues. They need considerable care to be stated reasonably. Can we manage that right now? I don't think so.

Keep in mind that we are still dealing with some users who are voting based on whether answers agree or disagree with their beliefs rather than their objective quality independent of their view. When the site reaches a state that users and the mainstream culture of the site is voting based on quality in place of opinions, and pay enough attention to the sensitivities required for such questions then it can be OK to allow such questions. But right now that is not the case. So I lean towards not allowing them.

A compromise might be also possible though: political questions will be subjected to a much higher standards and they will be acceptable only if they absolutely satisfy those standards (if go that way we have to discuss what standards to require from a political and more generally questions about similar controversial topics).

I think questions regarding recent and current political events and history should remain off-topic. Also we should pay attention to the intention behind the political questions. Is it a question genuinely asked to learn or is it asked to express the askers opinion. The later should be off-topic (the philosophy of this site is for learning and knowledge sharing not preaching political/religious activism, it is not an Islamic site, it is a secular site for learning about Islam from Islamic perspectives).

See also Robert's post: http://meta.islam.stackexchange.com/q/189/42

I think political questions which are about Islam's teachings and understanding Islam (and not just related to Islam or Muslims or Muslim countries) can be on-topic in principle. Definitely there are suitable political questions that are fundamentally related to understanding Islam.

However, as I have written before there are various issues that we need to be careful about. Political questions are likely to be controversial and lead to lengthy and extended debate and discussion. They need be stated very carefully to avoid such issues. They need considerable care to be stated reasonably. Can we manage that right now? I don't think so.

Keep in mind that we are still dealing with some users who are voting based on whether answers agree or disagree with their beliefs rather than their objective quality independent of their view. When the site reaches a state that users and the mainstream culture of the site is voting based on quality in place of opinions, and pay enough attention to the sensitivities required for such questions then it can be OK to allow such questions. But right now that is not the case. So I lean towards not allowing them.

A compromise might be also possible though: political questions will be subjected to a much higher standards and they will be acceptable only if they absolutely satisfy those standards (if go that way we have to discuss what standards to require from a political and more generally questions about similar controversial topics).

I think questions regarding recent and current political events and history should remain off-topic. Also we should pay attention to the intention behind the political questions. Is it a question genuinely asked to learn or is it asked to express the askers opinion. The later should be off-topic (the philosophy of this site is for learning and knowledge sharing not preaching political/religious activism, it is not an Islamic site, it is a secular site for learning about Islam from Islamic perspectives).

See also Robert's post:

http://meta.islam.stackexchange.com/q/189/42