According to Angelo Bonelli of the Green Party, critics of Rome Mayor Veltroni’s decision to invite Tariq Ramadan to a recent conference in Rome on Islam have lost all sense of reason. Bonelli particularly condemned members of the center-right Casa delle Libert_ (CDL). “The CDL, he argued, is now blinded from a sort of Islamophobia…
Tariq Ramadan will speak opposite playwright and producer British-Pakistani secular Hanif Kureishi in the final day of the Festival of the Philosophy. Critics see Ramadan’s presence at the conference as support for what they consider a radical position. Daniela Santanch_ (An) accused the Mayor Veltroni of Rome of having invited “a declared fundamentalist, a bandit…
Islam does not require women to wear veils, Queen Rania al-Abdullah of Jordan has said in an interview, calling on Muslim moderates to “make their voices be heard.” “Islam neither requires one to be practising, nor to dress in one way or another,” the stylish 36-year-old queen told the Italian daily Corriere della Sera during…
ROME – When Zeinep Ozbek told her parents how she planned to pursue her education, they were shocked. Not only was the young Muslim woman about to leave her native Turkey, she was venturing into a strict traditional bastion of Christianity: Rome. Ozbek, 25, is now one of several Muslim students ensconced in the Vatican’s…
ROME – The leaders of Muslim communities in Italy endorsed on Monday statements by pope Benedict XVI who warned that Africa and Asia feel threatened by the West’s materialism and secularism. “We agree with the pope,” said Roberto Piccardo, the spokesman of Italy’s largest Muslim group UCOII. “It is true that Muslims are puzzled by…
