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...
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...
UK Study: Muslim Students More Tolerant Than Non-Muslims...
“The Burnley Project: Evaluating the Contribution of Interfaith Dialogue to Community Cohesion” is a Home Office-funded study (August 2005 – July 2007) conducted by Lancaster University’s Department of Religious Studies, with a research team headed by Dr. Alan Billings and Dr. Andrew Holden. The study is funded in the wake of the Burnley riots. In contradiction to reports of Muslim youth being vulnerable to terrorist recruitment tactics, the Burnley Project, whose findings are to be published in April 2007 suggests that Muslim pupils in Lancashire are more moderate, forbearing, and tolerant than their white counterparts. In contradiction to reports of Muslim youth being vulnerable to terrorist recruitment tactics, the Burnley Project, whose findings are to be published this year, suggests that...
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