In the News: Wicca, Climate Change, Gaza and Much More
A round-up of recent religion and media stories in the news. Continue Reading →
Tag: Muslim
HelalSexShop.com
Elizabeth Hewitt writes about a new halal sex shop in Turkey. Continue Reading →
Poison in the Sangha
As violence spreads amongst Burma’s Buddhist majority and Muslim minority, Francis Wade meets U Wirathu, who calls himself the “Burmese Bin Laden,” and a former monk who rejects Wirathu’s message of intolerance. Continue Reading →
Ahbash Rising: Religious Freedom in Ethiopia, Part 2
Protests in Ethiopia could have profound ramifications for Muslim-state relations in Ethiopia and beyond, writes Alex Thurston in the second of two posts on Ethiopia’s Muslims. Continue Reading →
Ahbash Rising: Religious Freedom in Ethiopia, Part 1
In the first of two posts on the deterioration of religious freedom for Ethiopia’s Muslims, Alex Thurston looks at Ethiopia’s relationship with the U.S. and the “Global War on Terror” Continue Reading →
Arakan, Displaced
Conflict in western Burma’s Arakan state has displaced thousands of Muslim Rohingyas and Buddhist Arakanese. From the Burmese border, Francis Wade examines the complex origins and motives behind the violence. Continue Reading →
In The World
By Natasja Sheriff From Tibet, Burma and India, the first of a weekly round-up of religion-related news from around the world. Continue Reading →
Apostasy in Any Other Country
Abby Ohlheiser: Something we’re keeping an eye on: Christian Iranian pastor Youcef Nadarkhani, who faces death for the crime of apostasy, could face execution any time after Wednesday should he refuse to renounce his faith a fourth time.
It’s an interesting case with a bit more to say than the familiar narrative of persecuted Christianity, partially because pastor Nadarkhani’s apostasy might not even be that, according to Iranian law. Continue Reading →
Fashion Faux Pas as Resistant Force in France
Kathryn Montalbano: NiqaBitch, a YouTube video released shortly after France’s September 2010 April 2011 official ban of face-covering head apparel, provides interesting if not deceptively complex social commentary expressed via the most fundamental medium for communication possible: the body itself. Although the video is set to what commenters call “vulgar” rap music (in English) and is plastered with French subtitles detailing the sometimes humorous dialogue (see below the photograph), undoubtedly observers—both within and of the video—are drawn to the remarkably stark, eye-catching juxtaposition of bare, toned female legs with shrouds that are, in Western minds, meant to hide sexuality.
Bangladesh (Further) Surrenders Secularism
Kathryn Montalbano: This week, the Bangladeshi government has pushed to retain the state’s Islamic status, a move that requires an amendment to the constitution that originally declared Bangladesh secular and independent from Pakistan in 1971. Bangladesh’s path to independence could almost be credited to Indian Muslims, who sought reprieve from social and political marginalization in 1947 for their new state, Pakistan.
Newly independent Bangladesh was intended to serve as an egalitarian nation in which Muslims, Buddhists, Christians, and Hindus could peacefully coexist. Continue Reading →