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 for the elite athletes, why not for regular women...
Islam, As Truly Found in the Qur’an...
Vice President Joe Biden spoke truth to power at last week’s White House conference on fighting violent extremism when he said that we have no military means with which to wage and win such a struggle of conflicting ideals. At the same time, President Obama has asked the Congress for war powers with which to fight the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant. He wants to use more U.S. military force against a religious movement of Sunni Muslims. This is not the right way to end this conflict. Military force is a very limited instrument that comes with inherent shortcomings, as we have learned after years of inconclusive fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. I learned this fighting...
Claiming ISIS is Islam Like Claiming the KKK Represents Christianity...
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar has likened comparisons of Isis representing Islam as no different to describing the Ku Klux Klan as “Christian knights”. The retired NBA star, who converted from Roman Catholicism to Islam at university, appeared on US V show Morning Joe on Monday. Asked by host Mika Brzezinski what he thought really drove the militant group, he said: “It’s a play for money and power, and these people try to impose their will on people so people will listen to them, and they can be in charge. That’s all it’s about. They’ve taken on a fascist attitude and a fascist approach to everything. You do what we say or you die.” “You can make parallels to things that...
Muslims Share Same Sentiments with Catholics on Assisted Suicide...
TORONTO – There’s about one million Canadians who know suicide is wrong, assisted suicide turns doctors into murderers, the state has an obligation to protect life until natural death and that not everything in medicine depends on the freely chosen wishes of the patient. These people are not Catholic. They’re Muslim. Striking similarities between Catholic and Muslim bioethics were on show at a Canadian Catholic Bioethics Institute lecture by Dr. Shabbir Alibhai at Toronto’s University of St. Michael’s College March 5. Alibhai practises geriatric and family medicine within Toronto’s University Health Network, but he’s also a cancer researcher and published bioethicist. There are differences with Catholic bioethics, often in approach or emphasis, but on end-of-life issues Islamic scholars...
Former Gitmo Guard Now Proselytizes for Islam...
(POCATELLO, ID) – A former Guantanamo Bay prison guard shared his experiences with a small group of Pocatello residents Sunday night. Terry Holdbrooks lectures against American foreign policy at various venues around the country. Holdbrooks, who converted to Islam after supervising detainees, says Guantanamo needs to be closed, citing concerns about due process and the possibility of innocent people being kept behind bars. About 160 detainees are still held at the prison. According to the U.S. State Department, an estimated one in four detainees released will eventually return to terrorist and insurgent...
China’s Female Imams Carrying on Ancient Islamic Tradition...
China isn’t the heartland of Islam, but it is the only country in the world to have a long history of female imams. A small group of women in central China’s Henan province have been imams in their community for centuries. This part of China is home to less than four per cent of China’s roughly 23 million Muslims. The believers are from an ethnic minority known as the Hui. A group of Muslim grandmothers wander into a mosque behind an ancient city wall shortly before noon prayers on a Friday. A crowd of 50 soon fill the prayer room. Ge Caixia is their religious leader, a female imam in the mosque that’s dedicated only to women. She...
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