Jerusalem Post, July 25, www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=182538

Popular Saudi cleric, Sheik Aedh al-Garni, says women can reveal faces in countries where the Islamic veil is banned to avoid harassment, while deploring the effort to outlaw the garment in France.

His religious advice, delivered in response to a question from a Saudi woman in France, generated some opposition from those less compromising. One cleric said it was better for Muslim women to avoid travelling to such countries unless absolutely necessary.

Full story.

Big News Network, July 26, feeds.bignewsnetwork.com/?sid=664530

Hindus have sent early greetings to Muslim communities world over for the upcoming blessed ninth month of the Islamic year.

Acclaimed Hindu and Indo-American statesman Rajan Zed, in a release in Nevada (USA), expressed warmest greetings on holy month of Ramadan which ends with Id al-Fitr, wishing that it brought joy, happiness and cheer to all the Muslims.  Rajan Zed, who is the president of Universal Society of Hinduism, stressed that all religions should work together for a just and peaceful world. Dialogue would bring us mutual enrichment, he added.

Full story.

Valérie Hartwich, Open Democracy, July 19, www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/val%C3%A9rie-hartwich/dangers-of-burqa-ban

Since the end of 2009 a number of European countries have made moves towards a banning of the burqa, or hijab, the full Islamic headdress for women. Belgium has passed a law to be ratified by its Senate. France is pondering the constitutionality of such a legal decision, whilst Italy has seen its implementation at a local level. Various justifications have been put forward: national security, integration and women’s liberation.

As has been pointed out by Sara Silvestri in her piece “Europe’s Muslims: burqa laws, women’s lives” much unease is felt by the public, civil society and decision-makers in relation to the ban, yet the idea seems to appeal to a large portion of the electorates. She argues that it is because to debate about the burqa or niqab is to debate about much deeper and larger matters, many of which she exposes. However, the affair can be disentangled further, and we should also pragmatically consider whether a ban would be an efficient solution given the aims declared. So is this wave of burqa banning really about the burqa? And is banning it the best way to tackle these issues anyway?

Women’s liberation is a battle that has been fought for over a century, and will have to continue through sheer dedication, advocacy and dialogue. Equally, ensuring national security and cohesion is a tedious task, which requires enormous amounts of personnel, intelligence and dialogue. In neither cases will a law banning the burqa truly help. It might give the illusion of political action, and reassure some that ‘sacred Western values’ are being preserved. But in fact, it will go a long way towards entrenching positions further, rendering dialogue harder, and making tensions run higher. A law will not resolve the identity crisis many European countries are going through, nor will it help towards the integration of European citizens. The burqa is but a crystallisation, an expression of these tensions.

Full story.

Martin Hickman, The Independent, July 20, www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/news/faith-leaders-accuse-eu-of-discrimination-over-compulsory-labelling-of-halal-foods-2030348.html

Jewish and Muslim leaders have accused the European Union of “naked discrimination” by ordering the compulsory labelling of all kosher and halal meat.  An advisory group of imams and rabbis at the Office of the Chief Rabbi, Lord Sacks, said it was wrong to single out meat acceptable to some communities while not requiring the identification of conventional methods of slaughter.

Full story.

Devorah Lauter, Los Angeles Times, July 21, articles.latimes.com/2010/jul/21/world/la-fg-france-muslims-20100722

The relatively uncommon burka is just one of the issues making things tense. ‘It’s like the Jew before,’ one businessman says of the prejudice. ‘It’s dangerous.’

“Be patient. This is just a phase. It will all blow over eventually. “That’s what Abdel Basset Zitouni tells the young people who come seeking his advice on getting a job or starting a business.  But Zitouni’s counsel isn’t just in response to questions about finding work in a depressed economy.  Many of the people who knock on his office door are Muslims from the housing projects in this city west of Paris who have felt the sting of discrimination.  They tell of an unwelcoming professional world, with regular bank rejections for business loans, or months without a callback for an interview. Zitouni, who presides over the nonprofit National Assn. for Young Entrepreneurs here, says it is common to hear of employers asking new hires to change their names to something more “French-sounding” and less Muslim, apparently to appease touchy customers.

Issues causing “concern and misunderstanding” among Muslims, according to the French Council of the Muslim Faith, include the proposed outlawing of the burka.  “It doesn’t matter if most of us practice our religion in private or not,” said Faycal Douhane, a left-leaning activist and secular Muslim who promotes diversity in French politics. “People feel trapped because project this false identity onto Muslims, and we then have to apologize for that.”

Full story.

Andrew Sarle

I returned from my trip to the US and Canada to discover over 20 items of news to summarize and publish.   Following this post, you’ll find them all!

If a summary interests you, follow the link below the source details to read the original article.

Your comments are, of course, always welcome.

Michael Ireland, ASSIST News Service, July 20, www.assistnews.net/Stories/2010/s10070112.htm

Since the 1960s large numbers of Muslims have been migrating to the West. Muslim migration is unusual because of radicals within the community who are deliberately seeking to create dramatic changes in their host societies; they want Islam to gain social, cultural, economic and political power.

This growth in the presence and power of Islam in the West provides Christians with unique opportunities.  “For Christians, the growing Islamization of the West can be seen as both a challenge and an opportunity to sharpen our thinking and renew our evangelism,” says Dr Patrick Sookhdeo, International Director of Barnabas Fund.

“As we Christians see Muslim zeal, commitment, and willingness to sacrifice, we should be driven to repent, to pray for revival and act boldly for God in this generation. We need to stand firm on our Biblical foundations, beware of compromises and reach out in love to Muslims, offering them the Gospel of salvation in Christ.”

He quotes Yusuf al-Qaradawi, a popular Sunni Muslim cleric, head of the European Council for Fatwa and Research, who said: “Islam entered Europe twice and left it… Perhaps the next conquest, Allah willing, will be by means of preaching and ideology. The conquest need not necessarily be by the sword… Perhaps we will conquer these lands without armies. We want an army of preachers and teachers who will present Islam in all languages and in all dialects.”

WCC News, July 19, www.oikoumene.org/news/news-management/eng/a/article/1634/justice-is-at-heart-of-hi.html

A multi-faith meeting on the eve of the 18th International AIDS Conference in Vienna has heard calls for faith communities to keep commitments they have made to promote universal access to HIV treatment, care, support and prevention.  The conference gathered more than 250 people, including leaders of religious groups, networks of people living with HIV and international organizations, under the theme, “Rights Here, Right Now: What’s faith got to do with it?”

Leadership by faith communities in the struggle against HIV and AIDS, “doesn’t come just like that”, said Hany El Banna, the Egyptian-born founder and former president of Islamic Relief. “It comes with responsibility.”  Faith communities, he said, are able to mobilize people at the “grass roots”, in mosques, churches, synagogues and temples. “We shouldn’t be afraid of religion,” El Banna stated. “We should be afraid of ignorance and a lack of knowledge.”

Pew Forum, July 19, pewforum.org/Religion-News/Ahmadi-Muslims-gather-to-preach-nonviolence-assimilation.aspx

Ahmadi Muslims have been preaching peace since the movement was founded 121 years ago in India. Now, they say they are just trying to get the rest of the world — including their fellow Americans — to listen.

“Many, many Americans do not trust Muslims,” Naseem Mahdi, the national president of the community, told thousands of listeners during his address here at the Ahmadi movement’s 62nd annual convention on July 17.  “Love of your homeland, your place of residence, is part of your faith,” Mahdi said, standing just steps away from a display that held the flags of the United States, Virginia and the Ahmadi movement.  The community’s message of nonviolence seemed particularly poignant in the wake of attacks on two Ahmadi mosques in Lahore, Pakistan, on May 28 that left at least 94 Ahmadis dead.

Faisal al Yafai, Guardian – Comment is free, July 19, www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2010/jul/19/syria-niqab-ban-islam

Quietly, away from the fanfare that accompanied the French vote on banning the niqab in public, and calls by Philip Hollobone to impose a ban in Britain, the Syrian government has instituted its own, more limited, ban, removing teachers who wear the full face veil from teaching in public schools.

At first glance, such a move might seem puzzling: Syria, with dozens of religious sects and a nominally secular government, has managed for decades to use a light touch, at least when it comes to personal faith.  But Syria’s struggle with Islamists and visible symbols of Islam is part of a wider clash, a clash within Islam itself. Political Islam is gaining ground across both the Arab world and Muslim-majority countries. What happens in this debate matters profoundly, because the same debate is taking place within Muslim communities in the west.

The debate, crudely put, is over the space between the personal and the political. Secular-minded governments have tried to keep faith out of state institutions; Islamists want their faith to guide those institutions. Personal space has also increasingly been politicised, with a rise in the wearing of the headscarf and the veil in Syria and in most Muslim-majority countries.