Three men were arrested when police entered Palma’s main mosque. Police arrested the mosque’s caretaker and the president of the Muslim Defence League when they attempted to prevent the police entry, saying that the sanctuary of a mosque should be respected in the same was as that of Christian churches and Jewish synagogues. Local Muslims…
The City Council overwhelmingly passed a resolution calling on the Department of Education to incorporate two major Muslim holidays into the city school calendar. The resolution, which passed 50 to 1, bears no legal weight; it is simply a formal request that the DOE schedule school holidays for Eid al-Fitr, which celebrates the end of…
Imams graduating from Dutch government training programs are unable to find work in mosques, Trouw reports. Three educational institutions offer courses for qualification, an initiative of the cabinet to train imams familiar with Dutch language and culture. However mosques do not have the funds to hire graduates of the program and locally trained imams are…
A Swiss National Science Foundation program has found that most Muslims living in Switzerland—the second largest religious community here—advocate bringing Imam training here, as do Swiss authorities, universities and legal experts. It’s a question that points to larger issues regarding social integration for an immigrant community. Christoph Uehlinger is a professor of religious studies at…
Hanif Kureishi has turned his own vibrant 1995 novel into a play. The result is a busy, hectic affair that raises all kinds of issues about religious and political faith, fatwas and censorship and the purpose of art. But, as so often with adaptations, you get the bones without the thickness of texture that was…
