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...
Jewish and Muslim, Bonding Over Dieting
BROOKLINE, Mass. — Your mother-in-law fixes you a plate of food. Does she determine what you eat, and how much? So went the question, part of a nutrition-themed game inspired by “Family Feud,” during a meeting of a women’s weight-loss group here the other night. Charlotte Badler, 23, lunged forward to answer. “What if you asked if you could wrap up the rest of it for tomorrow?” she offered, and then addressed an imaginary mother-in-law: “Because I would love to take it to lunch at work tomorrow.” “I love it,” cheered her teammate, Adebola Yakubu-Owolewa, 29. The two leaned in for a high-five. Ms. Badler is Jewish; Ms. Yakubu-Owolewa is Muslim. They and eight other women — five Muslims and...
Jewish, Muslim Teens Work Together to Clean San Jose River
A river clean-up project this weekend in San Jose had a message of peace and tolerance as well. Dozens of Jewish teenagers worked side by side with Muslim teenagers, picking up trash along the Guadalupe River. They were part of a youth inter-faith group organized by the Jewish Federation of Silicon Valley and the Muslim Association of America. Organizers said these events teach kids and adults valuable lessons. “Everyone’s introduced themselves to each other and got to meet people they didn’t know and learned more about working together in our community,” volunteer Diane Fisher said. Among the things picked up this weekend along the river were a hockey mask, a full set of golf clubs, and even a...
Muslims, Jews, Christians Together Create Peaceful Societies Says Documentary
People working toward peace among Muslims, Jews and Christians in the 21st century can look to the past for a prime example of a society that thrived when the energies of those three great faiths were harnessed in the cooperative work of peace and prosperity, says Jacob Bender, producer of the award-winning documentary “Out of Cordoba.” Bender will lecture in Huntsville and attend at screening of his film on Thursday, Sept. 26, 2013, from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m., in Oakwood University’s McKee Business & Technology Building The McKee Building is on Adventist Boulevard N.W. at Wynn Drive N. W. The lecture and screening are free and open to the public. Bender, who is Jewish, uses the documentary to trace the...
So, What Did the Muslims Do for the Jews?
By David J Wasserstein, May 24, 2012 Islam saved Jewry. This is an unpopular, discomforting claim in the modern world. But it is a historical truth. The argument for it is double. First, in 570 CE, when the Prophet Mohammad was born, the Jews and Judaism were on the way to oblivion. And second, the coming of Islam saved them, providing a new context in which they not only survived, but flourished, laying foundations for subsequent Jewish cultural prosperity – also in Christendom – through the medieval period into the modern world. By the fourth century, Christianity had become the dominant religion in the Roman empire. One aspect of this success was opposition to rival faiths, including Judaism, along...
American Jews and Muslims Work Together
WASHINGTON — When American Muslim religious leaders looked for Christian and Jewish counterparts to stand with them against Islamophobia at a high-profile gathering tied to the 10th anniversary of 9/11, several major Jewish spiritual leaders readily answered their call. “Ten years after 9/11 it has somehow become respectable to verbally attack Muslims and Islam in America,” said Rabbi Eric Yoffie, president of the Union for Reform Judaism, as he and Orthodox Rabbi Marc Schneier stood with other clergy in a Washington church September 8. “The good people in this room are fighting back.” There was a time when a Jewish presence with these Muslim leaders would have been controversial. But today the sight of Jewish, Christian and Muslim religious...
Quebec’s Muslims, Jews Oppose Bid to Ban Religious Symbols in Public Jobs
MONTREAL, Canada – Quebec’s Muslims and Jews are on the same side of a heated debate over whether the regional government can ban employees in public service from wearing overt religious symbols, such as Muslim women wearing headscarves. Last week, the Quebec government lit a political firestorm by unveiling its “Charter of Values,” under which employees in public sectors or connected with it would be banned from wearing symbols that advertise any religion. Among other things it would mean that Muslim women observing the hijab, Sikh men wearing the turban, Jews sporting the kippah or Christians with larger-than-average crucifixes could no longer do so at government jobs. The Islamic Cultural Centre of Quebec has denounced the bill, which...
Boston Muslims and Jews Come Together in the Shadow of the Marathon Bombings
BOSTON – In a country and a city where Muslims and Jews do not tend to overlap socially, the party at the American Islamic Congress Cultural Center on Boston’s tony Newbury Street, just a few blocks from the finish line of the Boston Marathon, was a rare moment for the two groups to talk and connect. The event, where guests nibbled on baklava and listened to student musicians from Brandeis University play Middle Eastern tunes on ouds and violins, had been planned months before the marathon bombings and subsequent manhunt that engulfed Boston and left behind a city forever changed. “I don’t think there is enough dialogue between the communities,” said Ron Levy, a retired Baghdad-born Jewish management...
Jewish and Muslim Students Can Work Together Against Prejudice
There are more than 110,000 Jewish and Muslim students in Britain, but it’s not often their shared experiences are considered. Globally, Muslim-Jewish relations are a touchy topic, with the focus on political divisions (such as Palestine-Israel), and an assumption of historical enmity. I have felt this cold, polarising air from both communities, whose leaders seem unwilling to address it. But born and raised in Alwoodley, Leeds, I grew up with more Jewish than Muslim friends, and realised our startling similarities. The National Jewish Student Survey in 2011 showed the day-to-day issues facing Jewish students. In the main these concerned passing exams and finding a job, but Judaism also played a strong role in encouraging them to support and give to...
Kenyan Muslims, Christians Vow Unity
NAIROBI, Kenya — Kenyan clerics across the religious divide vowed Tuesday to not allow sectarian violence to erupt following attacks on churches over the weekend that killed at least 15 people. The Inter-Religious Council of Kenya said Muslims will form vigilante groups alongside Christians to guard churches in Kenya’s North Eastern Province, where the latest attacks occurred. Adan Wachu, secretary general of the Supreme Council of Kenya Muslims and the chairman of Inter-Religious Council, said the weekend attacks, which are being blamed on an al-Qaida-linked militant group from Somalia, are meant to trigger sectarian violence between Christians and Muslims. Wachu said clerics will actively preach against retaliation to prevent violence from spreading in Kenya like it has in...
Muslims, Catholics Vow to Fight Terror
VATICAN CITY – Catholic and Muslim leaders at unprecedented Vatican meetings vowed on Thursday to jointly combat violence committed in God’s name, to defend religious freedom and to foster equal rights for minority faith groups. After three days of meetings, the 58 scholars and leaders – 29 from each faith – issued a joint declaration that also appealed for respect for religious figures and symbols. The joint manifesto, A Common Word, called for dialogue based on shared principles of love of God and neighbor. “We profess that Catholics and Muslims are called to be instruments of love and harmony among believers, and for humanity as a whole, renouncing any oppression, aggressive violence and terrorism, especially that committed in...
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