Author: Staff Writer

Source: Google News

Wire Service: AP

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jCNTvqBoyqoaOU9icb-b9ci6G9zgD9FO39S84

Muslims who attended a conference in Austria's capital criticized European countries Sunday for considering the possibility of banning face-covering veils, saying it is counterproductive and regressive.

Veil bans are being...

Author: Staff Writer

Source: The Irish Times

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2010/0517/1224270548949.html

Lars Vilks, a Swedish cartoonist whose sketch of the Prophet Muhammad enraged many Muslims, has gone into hiding following an attempted arson attack on his home.

The attack came days after Vilks, who depicted the Prophet Muhammad with the body of a dog in 2007, was head-butted while giving a lecture about...

Author: Edward Cody

Source: The Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/14/AR2010051405282.html

Since she started wearing a full Islamic veil six weeks ago, Selma said, she has been stared at, frowned at, muttered to, mocked as a "ghost" and forced by a policeman to lift her veil to show her face.

"In Belgium, it is forbidden to carry your religious convictions to their...

Author: Scott Mobley

Source: The Record Searchlight

http://www.redding.com/news/2010/may/15/mayor-pushes-prayer-diversity/

Redding Mayor Patrick Jones wants to diversify City Council invocations.

Police chaplains currently deliver these prayers, which essentially are entreaties to some higher power for guidance at the beginning of a council meeting.

The council on Tuesday will consider Jones’ proposal to open...

Author: Souad Mekhennet

Source: The New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/16/world/europe/16imam.html?emc=tnt&tntemail0=y

Hesham Shashaa looked twice at the display on his cellphone, staring at the number. “It’s either a person who needs help or someone who wants to kill me,” he said.

Mr. Shashaa, an imam at the Darul Quran mosque in Munich, follows the strictest form of Islam, Salafi. But...

Author: Nomi Morris

Source: Los Angeles Times

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-beliefs-kneel-20100515,0,4133336.story

When Akasha Lonsdale was a child in London, her agnostic family prohibited her from participating in religious services at the Church of England school she attended. Required to sit at the back of a Hebrew class for the school's Jewish students, she befriended a girl whose family invited her to the...

Author: Fredrick Nzwili

Source: Ecumenical News International

http://www.eni.ch/featured/article.php?id=4066

A number of Christian and Muslim leaders in Kenya have called on the International Criminal Court to punish those behind the 2007 to 2008 post-election violence that tore apart the country, regardless of the positions of the perpetrators. 

The religious leaders say that the beginning of the ICC's investigations in...

Author: Talat Hamdani and Adele Welty

Source: New York Daily News

http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2010/05/13/2010-05-13_the_case_for_a_mosque_near_ground_zero_two_mothers_of_911_heroes_argue_for_a_mus.html

People of all faiths died on Sept. 11, 2001, a reflection of the fact that the United States is a nation of diverse cultures and religions....

Author: Karl Ritter

Source: Google News

Wire Service: AP

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gfyTngzJoXI5VLnRYFKryLwRumugD9FLAVIO2

A Swedish artist whose drawing of the Prophet Muhammad offended Muslims said Wednesday he hopes to get another chance to deliver a lecture on free-speech that was interrupted by violent protests.

But officials at Uppsala University...

Author: Staff Writer

Source: First Coast News

http://www.firstcoastnews.com/news/local/news-article.aspx?storyid=155902

A local Muslim leader believes the attack on the Islamic Center of Northeast Florida was meant to intimidate thousands of area Muslims after tensions boiled over in the city.

Akif Aydin, director of the Amity Turkish Cultural Center, said tensions over Parvez Ahmed's recent nomination to the...

Author: Peter Smith

Source: The Courier-Journal

http://www.courier-journal.com/article/20100512/FEATURES10/5120393/

The Dalai Lama's entourage stood ready to whisk him across the Indiana University campus on Wednesday afternoon to a waiting audience of thousands at its main auditorium, where he was overdue to resume a daylong series of teachings.

But he wasn't rushing. He lingered patiently with several prominent American...

Author: Staff Writer

Source: UPI

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2010/05/12/Mosque-in-Jacksonville-Fla-firebombed/UPI-85931273693653/

A firebomb that exploded during evening prayer at a Jacksonville, Fla., mosque did little physical damage to the building, officials say.

Ashrad Shaikh, vice chairman of the Islamic Center of Northeast Florida, said the minor explosion and fire Monday...

Author: Roger Hardy

Source: BBC News

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8673213.stm

In the second part of a series on the conflicts facing Muslims in Europe, the BBC's Islamic affairs analyst, Roger Hardy, discovers strains between younger and older Muslims in Glasgow.

They are young, Muslim and Scottish - and will not take no for an answer.

I met Nazia Iqbal and two of her friends at the student union of Glasgow's Strathclyde University....

Author: Staff Writer

Source: BBC News

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8676238.stm

The French parliament has voted to condemn the full Islamic face veil, calling it "an affront to the nation's values of dignity and equality".

The non-binding resolution was passed unanimously, although 30 communist deputies walked out in protest.

Legislation to ban the full-face veil in public is expected later this year.

The proposal has provoked...

Author: Bianca Vazquez Toness

Source: WBUR

http://www.wbur.org/2010/05/11/invisible-communities-ii

Muktar Idhow runs a new kids program at a city-owned multicultural center here in Manchester. Visiting on a Sunday afternoon, one might see about 30 Somali Bantu kids sitting around long tables. Girls and boys are separated, sitting youngest to oldest. Idhow holds a yard stick and passes out worksheets with multiplication problems to the fifth-...