Police were involved in a meeting between two Mosque factions on Tuesday. The meeting was between board members of an Auckland Islamic centre and supporters of a Salafist imam whom they have banned from the mosque.
The NZ Muslim Association, which runs the Avondale Islamic Centre, has accused Sheikh Abu Abdullah and his supporters of trying to take over the mosque.
Read the article...The New York Times is being accused of having a double standard when it comes to questioning religion, after it ran an ad calling on Catholics to leave their church, but nixed an ad making the same plea to Muslims.
The newspaper published an ad from Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion Foundation on March 9 which asked Catholics, “why send your children to parochial schools to be indoctrinated into the next generation of obedient donors and voters?” The ad went on to call loyalty to the faith misplaced “after two decades of sex scandals involving preying priests, church complicity, collusion and cover-up going all the way to the top.”
But in a story first reported by The Daily Caller, when Pamela Geller, a blogger and executive director of Stop Islamization of America, offered the same $39,000 for the Old Gray Lady to run an ad making a similar appeal to Muslims, the newspaper passed.
“This shows the hypocrisy of The New York Times, the “gold standard” in journalism, and its willingness to kowtow to violent Islamic supremacist intimidation,” Geller told FoxNews.com.
Read the article...
Sonny Bill Williams has so far not responded to a comment made by broadcaster Murray Deaker about his religion. Williams is a Muslim. In February, Deaker declared on Sky TV that he did not like Williams: “He is a Muslim, in a so-called Christian country, and that makes me uncomfortable.” Sky will not release the Deaker on Read more
Matihullah, 24, had always dreamed of becoming a lawyer. Then news spread that Western soldiers had burned many copies of the Muslim holy book at a NATO base in Afghanistan. He gave up his studies and embarked on a new mission in life — to become a suicide bomber.
“Since the desecration and burnings of holy books of the Koran, I have been burning with the desire of revenge. It is running in my blood,” said Matihullah, wearing the traditional white skull cap worn by many Afghans. “I have two other brothers to take care of our family and I feel very proud to get my revenge.”
Read the article...
A Muslim cabinet minister has defended the place of Christianity in Britain saying it is a vital part of British life and she warns of the dangers of eroding its importance. “You cannot extract Christian foundations from the evolution of our nations any more than you can erase the spires from our landscape,” she said. “I see Read more
The Federation of Islamic Associations wants to discuss religious holidays as part of the Government’s constitutional review. They are planning to petition the Government to make Christmas and Easter holidays transferable so that they can be taken on Muslim religious festivals Association president Anwar Ghani says at present, Muslims have to take up to four Read more
Catholics are the largest single Christian group, Christianity is the largest global belief system and there is no centre for global Christianity, are three of the major findings of a Pew Research Centre study on Religion and Public Life. The study, released on Tuesday showed that unlike last century, the Christian population has moved from Europe to Read more
A jealous husband is facing life in prison after chopping off his wife’s fingers because she began studying for a degree without his permission.
Rafiqul Islam, 30, blindfolded his wife Hawa Akhter, 21, and taped her mouth, telling her he was going to give her a surprise present.
Instead he made her hold out her hand and cut off all five fingers. One of his relatives then threw Ms Akhter’s fingers in the dustbin to ensure doctors could not reattach them.
Read the article...Violence against women has no place in a religion that proclaims equal rights for males and females, Canada’s Muslim leaders say. Ongoing publicity surrounding an Ontario murder trial featuring prominent discussions of honour killings motivated imams throughout the country to tackle the topic of domestic violence in their Friday prayer sessions. Their sermons reinforced one Read more
In Scotland, the government’s plans to change the law to allow same-sex marriages has created an unlikely partnership. The local Muslim and Catholic communities have united to fight the proposed legislation.
Muslim and Catholic leaders in Glasgow have been meeting to challenge what they see as a major threat to the institution of marriage. Despite the differences between the two faiths, they see this issue as one they can unite behind.
“We are working with the Catholic community because our opinions are the same on this issue,” said Bashir Maan, the spokesman for the Glasgow Central Mosque, the largest mosque in Scotland.
“The main point we want to make when it comes to defending marriage in Scotland is we’ll work with anyone. If individuals of other faith groups, organisations of any kind are willing to stand up and defend the long understood definition of marriage – one man and one woman – we’re happy to collaborate with them,” said John Deighan, the parliamentary officer for the Catholic Church.
“And the Muslim community here in Scotland have been quite clear that they too want to defend marriage,” he added.
Read the article...