MADRID – Nearly one hundred thousand students wish to receive classes on Islam, according to numbers issued by the Comision Islamica Espanola (CIE). According to a 1992 agreement with the Ministry of Education, instruction in the subject must be provided if at least a tenth of the students request it. To date, 28 teachers of…
By Emma Ross-Thomas MELILLA, Spain (Reuters) – It’s Ramadan in Spain’s North African enclave of Melilla and as tempers fray, a group of shopkeepers argue about how Spanish they are. “I am a Spanish Berber,” one fasting shopkeeper shouts in Spanish, repeating it in the Berber language Tamazight. Mimon Mohamed Amar shouts back: “Come on,…
Though Islam is woven into the fabric of the country’s history, Moroccans and other Arabs living there today are struggling to find their place in society as well as their role in the Muslim world. Mustafa Bougrine is a Moroccan who has lived in Spain for 19 years. He’s married to a Spanish woman and…
