Protestors gathered in downtown Manhattan on Saturday to denounce what they call the threat of sharia law
Israel just appointed its first female religious judge, but Jewish women are still not allowed to serve on religious courts in the country.
Liberals who refuse to confront Islamism and support reformers can only empower Trump—while Trump’s ill-considered actions such as last week’s travel ban can only empower Islamists.
Saudi Arabia’s ban on women driving is not mandated by any text in Sharia, the Islamic legal code which forms the basis for most Saudi law, the head of its morality police told Reuters on Thursday.
Her April 14 appearance at Great Neck Synagogue was canceled amid liberal protests, but anti-Islam blogger Pamela Geller got the last laugh: The next morning, two other area synagogues invited her to speak the same day as the canceled speech.
The latest in a series of anti-Muslim protests staged by the nationalist party Pro Deutschland have taken place outside several mosques in the German capital of Berlin. Shouting and brandishing placards with the slogan “Hasta la vista Salafista”, around 50 members of the far-right group gathered in areas thought to be the main meeting points of the radical Salafist movement, Millatu Ibrahim Salafist, which has been banned in Germany since June of this year. Pro NRW members also brandished a caricature of the prophet Mohammed whose original appearance in Denmark sparked violent reactions across the Arab World. In Islam it is considered blasphemy to try to depict the prophet, but a Danish court ruled that suppressing the images constituted a violation of artistic freedom. Manfred Rouhs, head of Pro Deutschland “We are not trying to ridicule, we will bring forward arguments. But we are facing a situation, where we have to start the debate, which wouldn’t have happened if we didn’t come up with a series of demonstrations in west Germany in April and May. The political institutions only react when there is some attention.” The radical Islamic organisation has been accused of plotting against the state, with German Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich calling them a threat to constitutional order as they allegedly reject national legislation in favour of Sharia law. There are around 4000 Salafists in Germany who espouse an ultra-conservative form of Sunni Islam. Police were …
With most of the north of the West Africa state of Mali now in the hands of an Islamist rebel group linked to al-Qaeda, a group of civilians in the country’s capital Bamako say they are in training to take it back. They are part of a three hundred strong volunteer militia group who want to do what the government army seems unable to. Head of BBH volunteer brigade Mamadou Douawa: “We were all shocked and blindsided that our army failed in 72 hours and abandoned two thirds of the nation’s territory. We consider that it’s a problem of manpower so the youth have to come fill this gap in the army so that we can fight. But the volunteer groups appear to be no match for the Islamist militants who have taken control of most of the north and imposed Sharia law. Music has been banned, women risk being beaten if they are uncovered and people are being whipped in public for various misdemeanours. Timbuktu which was a centre of Islamic learning from the 13th to the 17th centuries has been overrun by Islamist militants Ansar Dine and al-Qaeda affiliated Islamic Maghreb, which have also destroyed half of the World Heritage tombs and mausoleums in the name of Islam. The loss of these shrines has sparked worldwide outrage but it has also caused great sadness and disapproval among Malians who have traditionally practiced a tolerant form of Islam; often described as an open and intellectual interpretation of the religion. Analysts believe it is not only Mali’s unique culture, including its …
A Florida bill that would have barred applying Muslim sharia law has died in the state Senate.
A Florida law seeks to bar ‘foreign’ law from family or divorce courts. Although aimed at Islamic law, some experts say it would bar Jewish couples from using a beth din.
Jewish and Muslim experts on traditional religious law met to compare the two codes. They discovered their faiths leave more room for cooperation than many thought.