Germany’s Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière, member of Angela Merkel’s CDU party, has sparked controversy by asserting that local authorities might be allowed to introduce a public holiday to commemorate an Islamic religious occasion. A regional Muslim holiday? De Maizière did not suggest a day off work at the national level but rather a regional…
Murfreesboro is one of the fastest-growing cities in the country and an increasingly diverse one. Muslim and Christian students go to school and play sports together; their families patronize the same restaurants and stores. Residents variously describe the town as a proud example of Southern hospitality, a growing “melting pot,” a suburb of “little blue…
Hans Vos and Johan Goossen have translated the Qur’an in the Dutch dialect Zeeuws in ‘Zeeuwse knoppe, Arabiese blomme.’ De Vos already translated some Bibles into this dialect and now wanted to do the Qur’an. They hope it will motivate the speakers of this dialect to get interested in the Qur’an, although they are mainly…
August 13, 2014 (RNS) A coalition of more than 50 religious leaders, led by mostly conservative Catholic, evangelical and Jewish activists, is calling on President Obama to sharply escalate military action against Islamic extremists in Iraq. They say “nothing short of the destruction” of the Islamic State can protect Christians and religious minorities now being subjected…
August 1, 2014 A Sudanese woman who fled to Italy after being spared a death sentence for renouncing Islam has arrived in the US. Meriam Yahia Ibrahim Ishag arrived in New Hampshire on Thursday evening with her American husband and her children. Welcoming her on a brief stopover in Philadelphia, the city’s mayor, Michael Nutter,…
