Rudolf Gehring, president of the Christian Party of Austria, has stated that were he to be elected president he would not permit any further construction of minarets in the country. “There are already prayer spaces; there is no need for minarets,” he said in an interview with Der Standard, before making allusion to the militant…
In debates on integration the headscarf is of seen as a symbol of unwillingness to integrate. However, what about women who wear the headscarf of their own free will, who speak perfect German, and who pursue higher studies? In the case of Esma and Meryem, both born in Austria, students at the University of Vienna,…
Police forces in different parts of Canada claim charges will be laid against anyone who refuses to remove religious face-coverings such as Muslim niqabs when being booked after an arrest. The RCMP and the Montreal police forces, who outlined the policy in interviews, laid down one notable caveat: such a case has never actually come…
In an article for Qantara.de, Hilal Sezgin addresses the peculiar and questionable composition of the German Islam Conference. First, she criticizes the invention of “secular Muslim” that are so welcome at the Conference: either they are in favor of separating church and state, which applies to roughly all German Muslims, or they are not religious,…
A new interest-free credit card, the first of its kind in North America, aims to reconcile Islamic canonical law and Western consumer culture. Until now, observant Muslims have been precluded from owning credit cards on which they pay interest, a violation of shariah law. The iFreedom Plus Master-Card, set to be available in the coming…
