Search / 37 posts tagged Islamic teaching

It’s not easy being an all-girl rock band in Saudi Arabia. Not only are women oppressed but rock music is also forbidden. They cannot perform in public. They cannot pose for album cover photographs. Even their jam sessions are secret, for fear of offending the religious authorities in this ultraconservative kingdom.

A judge in Trinidad and Tobago has to decide whether a person wearing a burqa should be accepted as a juror.  According to a report in Caribbean Net News, Justice Joan Charles heard submissions from lawyers who argued that nothing in the Jury Act disqualifies potential jurors who wear such garb.

Muslims are harassing Christians again in Bauchi, one of twelve Muslim-majority states in Nigeria that have adopted sharia law. Christian Solidarity Worldwide reports that two churches have recently been destroyed. Tension is running so high that  state troops had to be placed on guard around a church construction site.

US President George W Bush spoke yesterday at the Saudi-sponsored UN gabfest on religion and peace. It was probably his last opportunity to address the United Nations, and he made the most of it. He risked the ire of America’s putative ally, Saudi Arabia, by emphasising the right to change one’s religion.

Father Metta’os Wahba, an Egyptian Coptic Christian priest, has been convicted of marrying a Muslim woman to a Christian man and sentenced to five years with hard labour. The woman was raised Muslim but converted to Christianity as an adult. Egypt does not recognise conversions from Islam to Christianity so, in the eyes of the law, she was still Muslim.

A female Muslim obstetrician-gynaecologist in Britain says many of her patients bear the marks of domestic violence.   She lays much of the blame on religious misconceptions held by their husbands. Dr [Fatima] Husain, who works at Heatherwood and Wexham Park Hospitals in Berkshire, told the Muslim

Tajikistan’s Council of Islamic Clerics are encouraging Tajik women not to wear hijabs; rather, women should wear traditional national clothing. The hijab, they say, is imported and “not compatible” with the norms of Islam. So much for the argument made by many Muslims in other countries that the hijab is a religious requirement of Islam.

Patients diagnosed with glaucoma need regularly to self-administer eye drops for months or years. Adherents of some of the world’s major religions refuse to use eye drops when fasting is required or expected. Medical researchers have undertaken a study to gain some insight into the extent to which religious scruples may compromise compliance among glaucoma patients.

A female Muslim obstetrician-gynaecologist in Britain says many of her patients bear the marks of domestic violence.   She lays much of the blames on religious misconceptions held by their husbands. Dr [Fatima] Husain, who works at Heatherwood and Wexham Park Hospitals in Berkshire, told the Muslim

Muslim converts to Christianity in Western Europe risk physical assault and vandalism from offended Muslims. A few weeks ago, an immigrant from Iraq was knifed in the Dutch town of Rolde by another immigrant from Iraq. The victim was a former Muslim who had converted to Christianity; the assailant was a Muslim who took offense.