Many adults in the Netherlands hold strong views on the way Muslims adapt to the European continent, according to a poll by Motivaction released by GPD. 63 per cent of respondents believe think Islam is incompatible with modern European life. In September 2004, Dutch lawmaker Geert Wilders quit the liberal People’s Party for Freedom and…
PARIS – MRAP, the Movement Against Racism, Anti-Semitism and for Peace, takes on Islamophobia. Its leaders regard Islamophobia as a violation of fundamental principles, including human and civic rights and liberties, on which modern, tolerant and free democracies are constructed. M. Aounit, president of MRAP, raised controversy with his primarily cultural (as opposed to religious)…
Religious beliefs and symbols must be better protected in the future, according to Edmund Stoiber, the minister-president of Bavaria. He invited Christian, Jewish and Muslim representatives, constitutional experts and journalists to the Chancellery to discuss the subject. “We need a balance between the freedom of opinion and the effective protection of religious sentiments from injury”,…
By Daniel Strieff PARIS – Mustapha Tougui says he has the Quran in his blood. The Moroccan-born, Saudi-educated lecturer at the Muslim theological institute at the Paris Grand Mosque uses earthy language as he tries to preserve what he calls his students’ spiritual hygiene. His enthusiasm is infectious. “If you eat always your mother’s cooking,…
MANCHESTER – Two years after its launch, the country’s first fully Islamic retail bank cannot yet offer traditional products like mortgages, but Muslim clients say they feel more at home there. “You feel you’re putting your money in the right place,” said Kuwaiti-born Mona Aabbassi as she walked into the Islamic Bank of Britain (…
