Andalusian fusion: Christianity and Islam...
BY GIOVANNA DELL’ORTO ASSOCIATED PRESS For the third time in a week, I’m touring the Alhambra, one of the most popular sites in the world’s fourth most-visited country, and finally I have it all for myself. Not a pushy guide but a bullfrog in one of the fountains is the loudest sound on a late May night in this hilltop Islamic palace complex in southern Spain. I linger to stick my nose into the cabbage-size roses lining the pathways and to gaze over the floodlit red-tinged ramparts. Their massive simplicity belies the infinite intricacy of the palaces inside, and I can easily believe the legend that the last Muslim ruler wept as he left Granada. Centuries later, we...
Swedish women don headscarves after assault on Muslim...
Swedish women have been posting photos of themselves in traditional Muslim headscarves in solidarity with a woman attacked apparently for wearing a veil. Among the protesters from various faiths were politicians and TV hosts. The “hijab outcry” campaigners urged the government to “ensure that Swedish Muslim women are guaranteed the right to… religious freedom”. The victim was taken to hospital after the attacker tore off her hijab and hit her head against a car on Saturday. The assailant also shouted racist insults at the woman – who was pregnant – during the attack on Saturday in a Stockholm suburb, the victim’s friends told Sweden’s media. Police are now investigating the incident. ‘March of...
Islam is the last concern for extremists...
Last Update: Monday, 22 July 2013 KSA 10:58 – GMT 07:58 Several days ago in New York, an American journalist, who is also a friend, asked me about extremism in Islam and about some extremist fighters who became famed as terrorists. He specifically wanted to know what makes a group of people in the Muslim world raise arms against another Muslim group. We were talking about Afghanistan, Pakistan and the unsettled Iraq, where around 2,500 people lost their lives during the past four months in a wave of sectarian and religious violence and the struggle over power. We were talking about the young girls who were brutally killed in Pakistan on their way to school and about the...
Janet Jackson converted to Islam?
Michael Jackson’s singer sister Janet Jackson had a widely celebrated lavish wedding to billionaire Wissam Al Mana just a few months ago, and since that time Janet hasn’t done any acting or released any music. It has since been reported that Janet has moved to the Middle East and converted to Islam and changed her name to Jannat. Surprisingly, she also has disavowed music and left the industry entirely. Janet says that part of the reason she wants to leave music is so that she and her husband can live a private life away from the media. Al Mana made his fortune through the Al Mana Retail group, which is owned and controlled by his family. This is...
I Am a Muslim Woman Who Finds Freedom Behind My Veil...
What does a ‘real’ woman look like? Is it in the curve of her hips or the price of her Manolo’s? Is it the way she styles her hair or the allure of her eyes peeking behind Chanel sunglasses? Because the Western world’s expression of feminine beauty lends itself to the promotion of less clothing equating to more freedom, Muslim women and their fully covered frocks are often viewed as oppressive and diminishing. There is a distinct difference between being pretty and beautiful yet, for two women who are devoted Muslims, their beauty has everything to do with their choice to cover themselves. Afshan Rehman, a 25-year-old psychology student in Illinois daydreams about helping women to heal their...
Why Do Westerners Convert to Islam?
This is a transcript of part of an interview conducted by Dr. Tariq Ramadan with sister Batool al-Toma, director of the New Muslims project at the Islamic Foundation, UK, in the weekly TV program ‘Islam and Life.’ In the interview, sister Batool, herself a convert to Islam, explains the different reasons that encourage westerners to decide to become Muslim. Tariq Ramadan: This week we are going to discuss the challenges facing people who convert to Islam. What do Westerners see in Islam that makes them decide to become Muslims? Did the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq or Western support for Israel encourage westerners to convert? In 2009, approximately 40,000 Brits, 70,000 French nationals and 100,000 Americans became Muslims. What...
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