Struggling Church to Reopen as a Mosque...
A CATHOLIC church that struggled to survive amid dwindling attendance numbers has been sold – to a muslim community group. St Peter’s, on Waterloo Road, Cobridge, dates back to the 1930s and there has been a Christian church on the site since the late eighteenth century. But the church was hit by a sharp decline in attendances, and finally closed in July last year. Now the Archdiocese of Birmingham, the body responsible for the church, has sold it to the Medina Mosque community group, who are currently operating out of two terraced houses on the same road. A spokesman for the archdiocese said: “The parish of Cobridge has a long history, but in recent times the number of...
Can Islamic Finance Feed a Sustainable Economic System?...
Is your mortgage halal? How about your pension? Islamic finance has been a significant global force for the past few decades, but in recent years sharia-compliant saving and investing have become more common in the United States. For example, in June, Goldman Sachs provided a loan to Arcapita Bank, an Islamic investment company, that in compliance with sharia law did not charge interest. In July, a US-based trade association, the World Council of Credit Unions, published a manual explaining to would-be community financiers in developing countries how to operate sharia-compliant credit unions. Western discussions of sharia law often focus on extremist groups imposing brutal interpretations of these legal codes on unwilling populations. But sharia law, which derives from the Qur’an and the religious teaching...
Bill Gates Applauds Khan Academy’s Ingenuity...
Weeks ago at the Aspen Ideas Festival, Bill Gates applauded the educational efforts of Salman Khan in front of a 2,000-man audience. Khan, the only teacher of the online Khan Academy, produces videos and tutorials that have made his website one of the most popular educational sites on the internet. Khan’s ten to fifteen minute free tutorials, on subjects including math and science, are now viewed almost 70,000 times a day. Commenting on the tutorials, which both Gates and his 11-year old son Rory consume, the second richest man in the world says, “I’d say we moved about 160 IQ points from the hedge fund category to the teaching-many-people-in-a-leveraged way category. It was a good day his wife...
Muslim Students Help Stock Food Pantry at Episcopal Church...
Nameera Perwez picked up on her lesson fast, and she was eager to put it in action. This is the season for sacrifice in the Muslim community, and the fifth-grader from the Iqra Academy of Virginia had something in mind she wanted to share: food. For more than an hour Friday, she and 10 classmates from the small Muslim primary school in South Richmond were at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church helping sort canned goods and other nonperishable items they’d just donated to the community food pantry. “Other people need your help, and you need to help them,” Nameera said as she and classmate Fatin Salman prepared paper grocery bags. “You can’t be greedy. You need to help them.”...
Arnoud van Doorn to Produce Pro-Islam Film...
Arnoud van Doorn, a former member of the Dutch right-wing Freedom Party and producer of anti-Islam and blasphemous movie ‘Fitna’, has performed Haj this year after converting to Islam. He also plans to produce a pro-Islam film on the teachings of holy Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), the Saudi Arabia daily Okaz reported. After arriving in the holy city of Makkah, he said now he was living as one of the most pleasant persons, and he will produce another film about the morals of the Holy Prophet. Van Doorn said he found in Islam what he was yearning for and what he had missed in his former life (before converting to Islam). He said he came to...
Jewish Filmmaker to Head Philadelphia Chapter of CAIR...
A national Muslim civil-rights organization has named a Jewish filmmaker as executive director of its Philadelphia chapter. In introducing himself online, Jacob Bender writes “Asalaam Alaykum!” (“peace be upon you” in Arabic), quotes the Quran, and states he brings “a decades-long commitment to promoting peace and justice between Abraham’s Children (Abna’ Ibrahim) and a long resume of professional accomplishments.” In announcing the appointment, the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) referred to Bender, its highest ranking non-Muslim, as “a bridge builder between the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim communities,” noting that, “in the wake of the attacks on September 11, 2001, Mr. Bender undertook a series of outreach initiatives to the Muslim community, both in the U.S. and abroad....
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