Tagged with Muslims …

Interview: Harvey E. Goldberg

We recently caught up with Emeritus Professor Harvey E. Goldberg, who is the Sarah Allen Shaine Chair in Sociology and Anthropology at the Hebrew University, Mt. Scopus. In this interview, Prof Goldberg talks about his research interests and history, and reflects on his recent article for Intertwined Worlds and why it is important to reflect … Continue reading →

NEWS: One man’s mission against Christian soldiers

Stephen Glain of Foreign Policy magazine recently brought attention to the work of Michael L. “Mikey” Weinstein, an activist who seeks to remove evangelical Christians’ influence from the military. As a former Air Force judge advocate general and target of anti-Semitic violence as a cadet, Weinstein views the overwhelming presence of evangelical Christianity in the … Continue reading →

NEWS: Religion in Review

As 2009 comes to an end media outlets review the highlights of the past year and decade. USA Today concluded that “God, politics, and pop culture intertwined in ’09.” Contributor Cathy Lynn Grossman included the renewed vigor of Catholic lobbyists, the death of Oral Roberts, the increasing popularity of Rick Warren and President Barack Obama’s … Continue reading →

NEWS: Fictional Muslim Punk Scene Gains Real Momentum

Recently, an underground Muslim punk rock scene has gained widespread attention as NPR Music shed light on this intriguing movement. Known as “Taqwacore,” this music scene began in 2003 as an imagined community in a novel, The Taqwacores, by Michael Muhammad Knight, an American Muslim convert. Combining the word Arabic word “tawqa,” meaning “God-consciousness,” with … Continue reading →

NEWS: Christian-Muslim Tension Continues

Nine Christian students in Malaysia were arrested after a security guard at a university reported that the students were proselytizing by handing out pamphlets to Muslim students. Police are ready to release the students, after it was revealed that they were handing out surveys to other Christian students and not trying to convert Muslims, which … Continue reading →

NEWS: Barack Obama Addresses ‘the Muslim World’

U.S. President Barack Obama will address Muslims worldwide today, at a university in Cairo. The speech is seen by many to be a necessary and long-awaited exercise in reconciliation, and also a daunting challenge. The policies and wars of Obama’s predecessor, George Bush, are still a source of much resentment to many in Muslim communities … Continue reading →

NEWS: More Americans Leaving Religion, Survey Concludes

According to the new American Religious Identification Survey which was published earlier this week, most religious groups have suffered membership losses since the first ARIS in 1990. The 2008 ARIS has found an 11% decrease in Christian membership within a generation. While mainline Protestant denominations, Baptists, and Catholics have suffered most, Pentecostal/Charismatic groups have had … Continue reading →

NEWS: Yoga Celebrated, Despite Fatwa

The Indonesian island of Bali recently held a week-long yoga festival to promote “spiritual tourism” on the island, bringing people of various ethnic and religious groups together to practice this traditionally Hindu form of meditation, chanting, and exercise. Indonesia’s Islamic Ulema Council issued a fatwa ordering all Muslims to stop participating in yoga, stating that … Continue reading →

NEWS: Indonesian Ulemas Council Bans Yoga

Just a few months after Malaysia formally banned yoga, the conservative Indonesian Ulemas Council has issued a fatwa prohibiting the practice of yoga by Indonesian Muslims. The religious edict is the latest in a series of controversial decrees, including the one banning non-Islamic banking, which resonates with Islamic revivalism in the largest Muslim country. Although … Continue reading →

NEWS: Does Ahmadinejad Have a Jewish Background?

Anti-Semitism is not the prerogative of the not-quite-popular Iranian President. Earlier this week on the very same day that Ahmadinejad reiterated his Holocaust-denying statements, Mahdi Khazali, the son of a hard-line Shi’a Ayatollah, accused him of being a Crypto-Jew. Writing on his oft-visited blog, Khazali blamed ‘Crypto-Jews’ for Iran’s growing politico-economic plight. Arguing that the … Continue reading →

NEWS: Christian Zionists Watching Gaza Events Rapturously

Christian Zionism, an offshoot of Evangelical Christianity, is one of the fastest-growing religious groups in Britain today. Christian Zionists, who for the past three decades have influenced the US government policy toward the Middle East, are no longer an exclusively American phenomenon, with many British converts embracing their cause. Last week amid the bloody war … Continue reading →

NEWS: An Interview with Muhammad

Ehsan Jami’s An Interview with Muhammad is the latest in a series of controversial works about Islam made in Netherlands. A co-founder of the Central Committee for Ex-Muslims, the Iranian-Dutch politician has already sparked controversy by showing the film to journalists in the parliamentary press centre in Hague. While many Muslims and Dutch politicians have … Continue reading →

NEWS: Who is the Koran’s Author?

As the famous French saying goes “revolutions devour their own children”. Abdulkarim Soroush is a case in point: the most prominent Iranian public intellectual, who was once appointed by Ayatollah Khomeini to bring Cultural Revolution and to Islamicize the Iranian universities, is now facing death threats for his “heretical” statements about the origin of the … Continue reading →

NEWS: Did Prophet Muhammad Ever Exist?

Germany’s first ever professor of Islamic theology has sparked a new controversy about Islam. Muhammad Sven Kalisch, himself a Muslim convert for 27 years, has recently angered Muslims by claiming that his life-long research shows that the prophet is probably a fictional character. Denounced by his fellow-believers as apostate, the 42-year-old German scholar has also … Continue reading →