Yusuf Islam (Cat Stevens) to Open Sanremo 2014

February 15, 2014   Yusuf Islam was announced as the international guest for Sanremo (the large music competition held in Italy every year). In a press conference, held last Monday Fabio Fazio announced that Yusuf Islam, who for all connoisseurs of his music will always be Cat Stevens, will be the international guest on the…

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Allah vs atheism: ‘Leaving Islam was the hardest thing I’ve done’

January 19, 2014   Amal Farah, a 32-year-old banking executive, is laughing about a contestant singing off-key in the last series of The X Factor. For a woman who was not allowed to listen to music when she was growing up, this is a delight. After years of turmoil, she is in control of her…

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Prince Charles visits shrine to Sufi saint

November 11, 2013   The Prince of Wales laid flowers on the tomb of one of India’s most revered Sufi saints today as its imam prayed for the health and happiness of Britain’s royal family. The visit to the shrine or ‘dargah’ of Haji Ali Shah Bukhari, one of Mumbai’s most celebrated landmarks, was to…

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Bible College Helps Some at Louisiana Prison Find Peace

ANGOLA, La. — Like most of his fellow inmates, Daryl Walters, 45, can expect to spend the rest of his days in the infamous prison on a former slave plantation here. Yet there he was on a recent evening, preaching the Gospel to 200 men in a spired church in the heart of the Louisiana…

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Lady Gaga’s burqa is good for Muslim women

This article approaches the question as to whether Lady Gaga’s recent choice to wear various “Islamic” items of clothing, is a shameless exploitation of orientalist fetishes to promote herself as a pseudo-edgy ‘artiste’? Which she argues it is yet at the same time feeling strangely satisfied at the uproar caused by her neon pink burqa,…

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