Young Video Makers Try to Alter Islam’s Face: When Ali Ardekani started fishing around on the Internet a couple of years ago for video blogs about Muslims, he did not like what he found: either the world’s 1.3 billion Muslims were depicted as bloodthirsty zealots, or they were offering defensive explanations as to why they were not. [NYT]

Loving and Leaving the Head Scarf: What hijab’s revolving door says about the religious mobility of American Muslims. [Slate]

Turning towards Mecca, Islamic banks join in the race for Africa: CHINA is not the only financial powerhouse with its hungry eye on Africa. Flush with oil wealth, the Gulf states, too, are spying profitable opportunities among the hundreds of millions of Muslims who live just a hop across the Red Sea. [Economist]

May 13th, 2008 at 10:12 am

This article is filed under Blog, Integrating Islam.

Avoiding caricature in an American sitcom about Islam: Two summers ago, when Moses Port and David Guarascio, both television writers, pitched their unorthodox and potentially controversial premise for “Aliens in America” - a comedy built around a Pakistani Muslim exchange student who moves in with a somewhat reluctant family in small-town Wisconsin - they were pleased to discover that studio and network executives at CW were enthusiastic about the idea. [IHT]

In the library with a leading Islamic liberal: Egyptian Gamal Banna backs women’s right to lead prayers and thinks clerics should adapt to modern times. [LA Times]

Al-Jazeera chief ‘fired for being white Christian’: A television executive has demanded more than £1 million in compensation from the Arabic station al-Jazeera claiming that she was fired because she was not a Muslim. [Telegraph]

May 6th, 2008 at 9:36 am

This article is filed under Blog, Integrating Islam.

French Muslims Fight for Recognition and Respect: After generations of living in France, Europe’s largest Muslim community is still struggling for recognition amid widespread stereotypes and suspicions. Despite the presence of some Muslim ministers in the French cabinet, most Muslims in France have to fight discrimination daily. [Speigel]

In France, Prisons Filled With Muslims: This prison is majority Muslim — as is virtually every house of incarceration in France. About 60 to 70 percent of all inmates in the country’s prison system are Muslim, according to Muslim leaders, sociologists and researchers, though Muslims make up only about 12 percent of the country’s population. [Washington Post]

May 1st, 2008 at 10:01 am

This article is filed under Blog, Integrating Islam.

Critics Cost Muslim Educator Her Dream School: Ms. Almontaser, a teacher by training and an activist who had carefully built ties with Christians and Jews, said she was forced to resign by the mayor’s office following a campaign that pitted her against a chorus of critics who claimed she had a militant Islamic agenda. In newspaper articles and Internet postings, on television and talk radio, Ms. Almontaser was branded a “radical,” a “jihadist” and a “9/11 denier.” She stood accused of harboring unpatriotic leanings and of secretly planning to proselytize her students. Despite Ms. Almontaser’s longstanding reputation as a Muslim moderate, her critics quickly succeeded in recasting her image. The conflict tapped into a well of post-9/11 anxieties. But Ms. Almontaser’s downfall was not merely the result of a spontaneous outcry by concerned parents and neighborhood activists. It was also the work of a growing and organized movement to stop Muslim citizens who are seeking an expanded role in American public life. [NYT]

An Anatomy of Surrender: Motivated variously, and doubtless sometimes simultaneously, by fear, misguided sympathy, and multicultural ideology—which teaches us to belittle our freedoms and to genuflect to non-Western cultures, however repressive—people at every level of Western society, but especially elites, have allowed concerns about what fundamentalist Muslims will feel, think, or do to influence their actions and expressions. [City Journal]

Quilliam Foundation: a thoughtful think-tank?: A group of former Islamic radicals has launched a new think tank, the Quilliam Foundation, to ‘revive Western Islam and unite against extremism’. Below, Henry Williams welcomes the new initiative, while Dolan Cummings argues that it will inflame ‘the Islamic itch’ in British society. [Spiked]

British Muslim ‘bullied’ for converting to Christianity: Nissar Hussein, 43, from Bradford, West Yorkshire, who was born and raised in Britain, converted from Islam to Christianity with his wife, Qubra, in 1996. The report says that he was subjected to a number of attacks and, after being told that his house would be burnt down if he did not repent and return to Islam, reported the threat to the police. It says he was told that such threats were rarely carried out and the police officer told him to “stop being a crusader and move to another place”. [Times]

Muslim leader warns of need to act: A SENIOR Muslim leader has warned of the dangers of the radicalisation of Muslim university students, saying these students should be critical of everything they are told by secretive Islamic groups. [Australian]

April 28th, 2008 at 10:32 am

This article is filed under Blog, Integrating Islam.

MUSLIM MARTIN LUTHERS, The Theologians Working Towards a Euro-Islam: Leading Muslim scholars are laying the theological foundations for a “Euro-Islam” which would reconcile their religion with the challenges of modernity. But just how compatible is Islam with secular Western values? [Spiegel]

University ‘an agent of extreme Islam’: A JUDGE has likened Griffith University to hardline Islamic “madrassas” in Pakistan - notorious for breeding radicals - and accused the Queensland institution of promoting a Muslim ideology espoused by Osama bin Laden. Queensland District Court judge Clive Wall also accused Griffith of becoming an “agent” through which the Saudi Arabian embassy was propagating extreme Islam. [Australian]

April 24th, 2008 at 9:53 am

This article is filed under Blog, Integrating Islam.

Life in a Parallel Society: In Germany, Islam is often equated with fundamentalism and fanaticism, a perception that imposes a heavy burden on the country’s 3 million Muslims. Their relationship to Western society is divided between integration and sometimes self-imposed exclusion. [Spiegel]

Intolerance in Indonesia: In the global debate about the compatibility between Islam and democracy, Indonesia is often held up as an example of the possible. Ten years after General Suharto’s downfall, the world’s most populous Muslim country has institutionalized free elections and the peaceful transfer of power, nurtured a lively press, and rolled back a panoply of racist laws that once targeted the country’s ethnic Chinese minority. But the ongoing persecution of the Ahmadiyya, a small Muslim sect founded in late 19th century India, underscores Indonesia’s – and the Muslim world’s – trouble guaranteeing a bedrock democratic value: freedom of conscience. Without it, the country’s proud claim to be the world’s third-largest democracy will remain lacking. [WSJ]

Boy called Islam ‘banned from game show over name’: The parents of a nine-year old French boy called Islam are to sue a television company for discrimination after it allegedly refused to let him participate in a game show unless he changed his name. [Telegraph]

April 22nd, 2008 at 9:21 am

This article is filed under Blog, Integrating Islam.

Teacher accuses Islamic school of racism: A former teacher at an Islamic school, who alleged that it taught an offensive and racist view of non-Muslims, has been awarded £70,000 by an employment tribunal after winning his case for unfair dismissal. Colin Cook told the tribunal in Watford that pupils were taught from Arabic books that likened Jews and Christians to “monkeys” and “pigs” at The King Fahad Academy, which is funded and run by the Saudi Arabian Government. [Times]

Islamist group won’t admit magazine role: A RADICAL Islamist magazine pushing anti-Israeli sentiments is being sold on university campuses in Sydney, but the organisation believed to be behind the booklet, Hizb ut-Tahrir, is refusing to acknowledge its role in the publication. The idialogue, a 42-page glossy magazine, was yesterday being sold to students as they left Friday prayers at the University of Technology Sydney, the University of NSW and the University of Sydney. [Australian]

April 15th, 2008 at 9:03 am

This article is filed under Blog, Integrating Islam.

Islamic adviser wants opt-out for Muslim sex offenders: Muslim sex offenders could be allowed to opt out of a treatment programme being run by the Prison Service because it is against their religion. The service’s Muslim adviser, Ahtsham Ali, said there is a “legitimate Islamic position” that criminals should not discuss their crimes with others, as required in the Sex Offender Treatment Programme. [Times]

Muslim Graves Desecrated in France: France assigned 100 police officers to investigate the desecration on Sunday of 148 Muslim graves in a war cemetery in northern France. President Nicolas Sarkozy called the attack “sordid” and expressed “profound outrage” after it was discovered that vandals had hung a pig’s head from one tombstone, desecrated others and wrote slogans insulting Justice Minister Rachida Dati, who was born in France to parents from Northern Africa. [NYT]

British jihad: Why our anti-terror strategy isn’t working: There is a deep and dangerous confusion at the heart of the government’s approach to the threat posed by violent Islam. [New Statesman]

April 9th, 2008 at 10:07 am

This article is filed under Blog, Integrating Islam.

Muslim true/false: How much do Americans know about the views and beliefs of Muslims around the world? According to polls, not much. Perhaps not surprising, the majority of Americans (66%) admit to having at least some prejudice against Muslims; one in five say they have “a great deal” of prejudice. Almost half do not believe American Muslims are “loyal” to this country, and one in four do not want a Muslim as a neighbor. [LA Times]

Was it like this for the Irish?: The history of thirty years of conflict in Northern Ireland, as it is being written today, might give the impression of a steady progression towards an inevitable and just conclusion. The new suspect community in this country, Muslims, want to know whether their experience today can be compared with that of the Irish in the last third of the 20th century. [LRB]

‘No more mosques’ says Synod member: A prominent evangelical member of the Church of England’s General Synod has called for a ban on the building of any more mosques in Britain. Alison Ruoff also claimed that Sharia law is inevitable in this country if mosques continue to be built here. [Times]

Convicted Islamist terrorists exploiting growing prison gang culture: Convicted Islamist terrorists are exploiting the growing gang culture in top security jails, fuelling fears that they are trying to radicalise other inmates and foment unrest. [Times]

Forced marriages disgrace Islam: The first step to dealing with honour killings in the UK is to criminalise forced marriage. According to official figures, up to 17,000 women in Britain are subjected to honour-related kidnapping, sexual assault, beatings and murder every year. [New Statesman]

BBC is too scared of Islam, says Ben Elton: Ben Elton has accused the BBC of unjust political correctness by allowing jokes about vicars but vetoing gags about imams. [Times]

April 2nd, 2008 at 1:12 pm

This article is filed under Blog, Integrating Islam.

Many Muslims Turn to Home Schooling: Across the United States, Muslims who find that a public school education clashes with their religious or cultural traditions have turned to home schooling. That choice is intended partly as a way to build a solid Muslim identity away from the prejudices that their children, boys and girls alike, can face in schoolyards. But in some cases, as in Ms. Bibi’s, the intent is also to isolate their adolescent and teenage daughters from the corrupting influences that they see in much of American life. [NYT]

Islam and Free Speech: Reasonable men in free societies regard Geert Wilders’s anti-Muslim rhetoric, and films like “Fitna,” as disrespectful of the religious sensitivities of members of the Islamic faith. But free societies also hold freedom of speech to be a fundamental human right. We don’t silence, jail or kill people with whom we disagree just because their ideas are offensive or disturbing. [WSJ]

Internet site banned over ‘anti-Islam film’: An American internet provider has moved to ban a website on which a Dutch MP was planning to host an anti-Islam film portraying the Koran as a “fascist” book. [Telegraph]

At Harvard, Students’ Muslim Traditions Are a Topic of Debate: Two issues of Muslim practice — whether the call to prayer should ring out across Harvard Yard and whether the university should grant women separate gym hours — have unleashed small waves of controversy over how Harvard practices tolerance. [NYT]

March 26th, 2008 at 11:19 am

This article is filed under Blog, Integrating Islam.