Former Gitmo Guard Now Proselytizes for Islam...
(POCATELLO, ID) – A former Guantanamo Bay prison guard shared his experiences with a small group of Pocatello residents Sunday night. Terry Holdbrooks lectures against American foreign policy at various venues around the country. Holdbrooks, who converted to Islam after supervising detainees, says Guantanamo needs to be closed, citing concerns about due process and the possibility of innocent people being kept behind bars. About 160 detainees are still held at the prison. According to the U.S. State Department, an estimated one in four detainees released will eventually return to terrorist and insurgent...
China’s Female Imams Carrying on Ancient Islamic Tradition...
China isn’t the heartland of Islam, but it is the only country in the world to have a long history of female imams. A small group of women in central China’s Henan province have been imams in their community for centuries. This part of China is home to less than four per cent of China’s roughly 23 million Muslims. The believers are from an ethnic minority known as the Hui. A group of Muslim grandmothers wander into a mosque behind an ancient city wall shortly before noon prayers on a Friday. A crowd of 50 soon fill the prayer room. Ge Caixia is their religious leader, a female imam in the mosque that’s dedicated only to women. She...
Iraqi Cleric: Suicide Operations Tarnish Islam...
A prominent Iraqi cleric on Thursday (March 20th) slammed those who promote suicide operations and claim they are “jihad” and self-sacrifice, saying they tarnish Islam and are not in any way connected to religion. A picture of a boy who “blew himself up in western Ramadi” in a group of people was posted to the Twitter account “Rashidun Caliphate”, which bears the black flag of al-Qaeda, on Sunday. “Al-Qaeda’s posting of a picture of a child younger than 12 years old who was wearing an explosives vest is a criminal, heinous act unacceptable according to any belief, monotheistic religion or any ideology,” said Anbar Iftaa Council member Sheikh Nasser Khalil al-Dulaimi. “Suicide operations carried out by al-Qaeda or...
Women in Early Islam
The fact that the marginalisation of women in many Arab societies has no religious background can come as a surprise to many, discovers Farah El-Akkad Judge, minister, scholar and scientist were just some of the professions engaged in by women during the early age of Islam. Yet, today some women are still not aware of the freedom Islam has given them, and for some it comes as a surprise to learn that the contemporary marginalisation of women has no background in religion. 29-year-old pharmacist Hoda Gamal believes Islam has developed through the years and that today’s world is very different from the early days of Islam. It is for this reason that today women should focus on their...
Pope Encourages Dialogue and Mutual Respect with our Muslim Brothers...
Muslims are “our brothers” and Christians must cultivate “mutual respect” with them. These were the words of Pope Francis yesterday during the Angelus, a message which could signal a turnaround in the relationship between the Catholic Church and Islam. This changing tide can even be seen in the words used in addressing Muslims. This is the first Pope to have referred to Muslims in such direct and explicit terms as “our brothers”. This would have been practically unthinkable even up until the recent past. During the Angelus, the pontiff made reference to the message sent to Muslims to mark the end of Ramadan and the Eid al-Fitr feast, which was published on 2 August, which he asked to...
Dallas Mosque Feeds the Hungry at a ‘Day of Dignity’...
Not even the recent furlough of federal workers was enough to snuff out the latest community outreach effort of Masjid al Islam mosque in Dallas. On a weekend in early October, the mosque was participating in a national initiative known as the Day of Dignity, an annual event during which mosques feed, clothe, and equip people living in poverty. But federal workers who had been scheduled to attend to speak about the details of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) healthcare legislation had been forced to cancel because of a partial federal government shutdown. It was a blow to the mosque’s boosters, says Muhammad Abdul-Jami, treasurer of Masjid al Islam and coordinator of the Day of Dignity event. But...
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