RECENT FROM Attitudes
Study: Radicalized Muslims Have Little Actual Knowledge Of Islam...
Extremists and Islamophobes alike have attempted to paint violent factions within Islam as the true expression of the faith. But a new study gives credence to what countless Muslim leaders, activists and scholars have argued: that groups like the self-proclaimed Islamic State are Muslim in name alone. A group of German scholars at the Universities of Bielefeld and Osnabrück analyzed 5,757 WhatsApp messages found on a phone seized by police following a terrorist attack in the spring of 2016. The messages were exchanged among 12 young men involved in the attack. The attack itself was not identified in the report. Deutsche Welle noted that the timeframe suggested it may...
RECENT FROM Sports
Boxing Champ Launches Sports Hijab...
A boxing champion from the East End has created a sports hijab to help more Muslim women get into combat sports. Ruqsana Begum (below) – who is the current British female Atomweight Muay Thai boxing champion – runs personal training sessions and women-only sessions in the sport at the Osmani Centre in Whitechapel. She said: “I came up with the idea during the Olympics. I was interested in the story of an American athlete who was told she couldn’t compete wearing her hijab due to health and safety reasons, so her father created one that was approved for her to fight in. “I thought if they can create one...
RECENT FROM Service
Is Islamic Law an Answer for Humanitarians?...
DUBAI, 24 April 2014 (IRIN) – Humanitarian action today is largely taking place in Muslim-majority countries where some combatants turn to Islamic law, among other sources, to guide their military behaviour. As a result, in the last decade, aid and advocacy agencies have increasingly tried to understand Islamic law in order to use its humanitarian provisions as tools of negotiation with armed groups in the Muslim world. This is particularly helpful in engaging Islamist armed groups, some of whom reject international humanitarian law (IHL). Some aid agencies try to situate their arguments for access or protection of civilians within a religious context, sometimes using scholars, mullahs or other religious...
Why So Many Latinos Are Becoming Muslims
Most Latinos know the country is celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month right now. What far fewer Latinos know is that next week marks Eid al-Adha, one of Islam’s most sacred holidays. And yet the two observances are more related now than most Latinos realize. Just as the U.S. Latino population is on the rise – Hispanics are now the nation’s largest minority – so is the number of Latino Muslims. And it’s not just a result of Arab Latin Americans emigrating to the United States. According to organizations like WhyIslam.org, Latinos are one of the fastest growing segments of the Muslim community. About six percent of U.S. Muslims are now Latino – and as many as a fifth of...
The Mercy Behind Halal Slaughter Methods
Like many religions, Islam is often misunderstood not only by non-Muslims but even by many Muslims as well. This is partly to do with how Islamophobic media sources portray Islam, and partly to do with how Muslims misrepresent their own religion. On the other hand, misconceptions of Islam, particularly in the west, by simply be down to a miscommunication between the two civilizations. However, when the two sides discusses these perceived differences through respectful and informed dialogue, they often find that they have more in common than they might have thought. One of many areas where this breakdown in understanding exists is the rituals surrounding Eid ul-Adha. On this day, millions of Muslims all over the world sacrifice...
Why Turkey Lifted Its Ban on the Islamic Headscarf
Turkish women who want to wear the hijab – the traditional Islamic headscarf covering the head and hair, but not the face – to civil service jobs and government offices will be able to do so now that the Turkish government has relaxed its decades-long restriction on wearing the headscarf in state institutions. The new rules, which don’t apply to workers in the military or judiciary, come into effect immediately and were put into place to address concerns that the restrictions on hijab were discouraging women from conservative backgrounds from seeking government jobs or higher education. “A dark time eventually comes to an end,” Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in a speech to the parliament. “Headscarf-wearing...
Pakistani Man Walks 6387 km to Reach Mecca for Hajj
JEDDAH: Pakistani Muslim, hoping to deliver the message of peace, has walked 6,387 kilometres to reach the holy city of Mecca to perform Hajj. Kharlzada Kasrat Rai, 37, began his trip from Karachi on June 7, travelling through Iran, Iraq and Jordan on foot. He arrived in Mecca on October 1 to a hero’s welcome. Kasrat Rai was received by Saudi government officials and a representative of the holy Kaaba’s imam in addition to members of Mecca’s Pakistani community and supporters from various Muslim countries. The two-time holder of the World Record for Peace Walks told Al Arabiya News that the aim behind his almost three-month journey was to deliver a “message of peace” to the world and...
Coalition Crosses Religious Lines to Aid the Community
As she sat on her deck with her walker in front of her, surveying the crowd of people working to repair her home, Geraldine Dorsey was pleased about the volunteers who came together — from different faiths — to help her. “They were one,” Dorsey said of the members of three synagogues and one mosque who gathered April 25 to make repairs to the home of the 75-year-old Mount Airy resident, who suffers from multiple sclerosis and has limited mobility. The interfaith group, which has dubbed its collaborative efforts CIRCLE, or the Columbia-Rockville Interfaith Rebuilding Coalition for Living Enhancement, was there to repair the home suggested by Rebuilding Together Howard County, a nonprofit that uses volunteers and donated...
Muslims, Jews Work Together to Help Less Privileged
April 25, 2010|By Robert Little, The Baltimore Sun Gary Metz and Ayman Nassar have this in common: They are both men of faith, both active in their Howard County congregations, and they’re fully willing to take on the dirty work of helping the less privileged. Nassar is a Muslim, and Metz is a Jew, but it was the similarities that brought them together at a home renovation project in Mount Airy on Sunday. Both reject stereotypes; both view education and cooperation as the path toward shattering them. As Metz oversaw a crew of volunteer painters from local synagogues, Nassar corralled a group of teenagers from his mosque to dismantle an old shed out back. By the time the...
Peace Prize for Jewish and Muslim Leaders of United Hatzalah
When Jerusalem resident Eli Beer implemented a neighborhood-based volunteer emergency response system to Israel in 2006, he wasn’t dreaming of prizes, only of saving lives. But in recognition of the fact that United Hatzalah of Israel has brought together some 2,100 trained volunteers from every sector of Israeli society to respond to medical emergencies in Arab and Jewish neighborhoods without discrimination, Beer and Arab-Israeli United Hatzalah-East Jerusalem leader Murad Alyan were chosen to receive the 2013 Victor J. Goldberg IIE Prize for Peace in the Middle East from the New York-based Institute of International Education. The award, which includes a $10,000 prize that the men intend to donate to their organization, was presented at a June 24 ceremony at the US Embassy’s...
‘Twinning’ Project Brings Muslims and Jews Together
NEW YORK (JTA) — Daisy Khan seemed right at home in the ornately decorated main sanctuary of B’nai Jeshurun, a large and vibrant synagogue on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. “I want to thank you for inviting us into this sanctuary, which is very much like a mosque,” said Khan, executive director of the American Society for Muslim Advancement. She added, “It feels strange to wear shoes in here!” Several dozen women — approximately equal numbers of Muslims and Jews — had come together at the Nov. 14 event to discuss gender issues in their respective faith traditions. From the food on the table — hummus and flatbread — to the integrated small-group dialogues, the evening focused on how...
Jews Help Guard UK Mosques After Attacks
London, UK – Muslim leaders in an area of north-east London have recruited the help of a police-trained ultra-orthodox Jewish neighbourhood patrol to bolster security following attacks on mosques and threats against Muslim communities in the UK. The initiative, in the Stamford Hill neighbourhood of Hackney, has seen mosques added to a list of local sites watched over by Shomrim, a volunteer organisation that responds to reports of crime, anti-social behaviour and other incidents in the area and calls itself “the eyes and ears of the police”. “We keep an eye on all the mosques. If we see anything suspicious, we’ll take down a car registration number, report it to the police, keep it for intelligence, log the call and...
Muslims and Jews Band to Fight Hunger
On the day after Yom Kippur, an intergenerational group of about 25 people from the Or HaLev havura gathered at the Chester home of David Glassberg and Beth Pletcher. Teens Jason Cohen and Tyler and Jason Volk, all from Randolph, were in the kitchen tossing salad. Nearby, Bernice Billig of Hackettstown, some years their senior, was chopping fruits and vegetables, while in the garage, Roz Steinberg of Byram Township and a group of middle-aged women were preparing sandwiches from whole grain bread, honey, peanut butter, and cinnamon. All worked under the direction of Zamir Hassan, founder of Muslims Against Hunger and the Hunger Van, a kind of mobile soup kitchen. Hassan and his Hunger Van had arrived with all the...
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