Pope Benedict held a surprise meeting with a Turkish Cypriot Islamic leader today, underscoring his view that inter-religious dialogue should be used as an inspiration for reunion.

Pope Benedict had a brief encounter with Sheikh Nazim, the 88-year-old head of the Islamic Sufi Naqshbandi sect based in northern Cyprus, the Vatican said.

A moderate Islamic leader, Nazim is the 41st sheikh in the line of the sect, which adheres to a mystical form of Islam. It claims hundreds of thousands of followers and is growing in popularity across Europe and the US.   »»» RTÉ News

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On June 4, 2009, Barack Obama brought the vast promise of his young presidency to a stage at Cairo’s Al-Azhar University for a much-heralded address to the Muslim world. In stirring language , Obama vowed “to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world.” But as some commentators noted — and I noticed myself, sitting in that grand auditorium — Obama’s Egyptian audience offered a surprisingly muted reaction to his speech, responding mostly with polite but quiet applause.

Perhaps it was a cultural thing. Or maybe it was an omen. One year later, Obama has made precious little progress toward his goal of improving America’s standing in the Muslim world. A new Gallup survey of several Muslim-majority nations finds that in Lebanon, Iraq, Algeria, Egypt and the Palestinian territories, America still has a dismally low standing, one that ranges from approval in the mid-teens (among Palestinians) to 30% (in Algeria). (The lone happy exception among those surveyed is strategically inconsequential Mauritania.) Worse, after rising in mid-2009, perhaps on the early excitement around Obama’s arrival and George W. Bush’s departure, all those numbers have dropped again to roughly Bush-era levels. And in other crucial Muslim-majority nations not polled by Gallup, such as Turkey and Pakistan, there’s scant evidence that America is held in much higher regard.    »»» TIME

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After a raucous hearing, a Manhattan community board backed a proposal on Tuesday evening to build a Muslim community center near the World Trade Center.

The 29-to-1 vote, with 10 abstentions, followed a four-hour back-and-forth between those who said the community center would be a monument to tolerance and those who believed it would be an affront to victims of the 2001 terrorist attacks.

The board’s vote was advisory — it did not have the power to scrap plans for a center — but it was seen as an important barometer of community sentiment.

The proposed center, called the Cordoba House, would rise as many as 15 stories two blocks north of where the twin towers stood. It would include a prayer space, as well as a 500-seat performing arts center, a culinary school, a swimming pool, a restaurant and other amenities.

City officials, including Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg; the City Council speaker, Christine C. Quinn; and the Manhattan borough president, Scott M. Stringer, have rallied behind the proposal.

The City Council has the power to overturn decisions on landmarks, but Ms. Quinn pledged on Tuesday to help shepherd the center to completion.

“I’m very confident we could find a way for both the landmark concept and the development of the mosque to move forward,” she said.   »»» NYTimes.com

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France, by contrast, is largely pursuing its own burqa and niqab debate within the context of the country’s commitment to the secular society. When the country imposed a ban on religious symbols, including the Islamic headscarf, in state schools in 2004, it was not because they weren’t French enough, but because they were not secular. A burqa and niqab ban can, according to this reasoning, be imposed outside any nationalistic debate.

That said, in June last year President Nicolas Sarkozy was widely criticised for targeting full-veil wearers as part of his Ukip-style national identity debate. He wanted to attract supporters of the increasingly discredited Front National party to his own cause, declaring both burqas and niqabs to be “an affront to Republican values”. Like Ukip, Sarkozy argued that the garments had no basis in Islam, were a threat to gender equality, marginalised women, and endangered public safety because terrorists could use them to hide their identity, or every kind of criminal, from bank robbers to shop lifters, could use them to steal. As Sarkozy told a recent cabinet meeting: “Citizenship should be experienced with an uncovered face. There can be no other solution but a ban in all public places.”   »»» guardian.co.uk

The truth of the matter is that France, since the time of its Republican revolution, has been fiercely anti-clerical, first attacking Roman Catholics and Protestants and now Muslims. France is determined to impose a state religion (that it calls “laïcité”–secularism). With its national motto of Freedom, Equality, Brotherhood, which declares its “Republican values” and looks down from above the doors city halls all over France, one would think that secularism or neutrality in matters of religion would be limited to the government and its actions. Instead, France has decided that the freedom it claims to guarantee for its citizens does not include the freedom to publicly manifest religious faith by the clothing one wears.

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A proposed ban in Quebec’s public service against the niqab, a veil worn by some Muslim women, stirred up a fierce debate this week in the mostly French-speaking Canadian province.

Widely supported in Canada, Bill 94 would require Quebec public servants and anyone accessing a provincial government service to show their face.

Lobbyists for and against the niqab already have submitted some 60 recommendations to Quebec politicians as they parse the bill in committee before members of Quebec’s legislative assembly vote on it.

It is unlikely the bill will be voted into law before the end of the current legislative session on June 11.

Even though the controversial act would only be applied in Quebec, the debate is being watched closely elsewhere in the country.

Ratifying the law would create a precedent, imposing limits on constitutionally protected religious freedoms in Canada, a multicultural nation that welcomes some 250,000 immigrants annually.   »»» Expatica France

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Pakistan’s government ordered Internet service providers to block Facebook on Wednesday amid anger over a page that encourages users to post images of Islam’s Prophet Muhammad.

The page on the social networking site has generated criticism in Pakistan and elsewhere because Islam prohibits any images of the prophet. The government took action after a group of Islamic lawyers won a court order Wednesday requiring officials to block Facebook until May 31.

By Wednesday evening, access to the site was sporadic, apparently because Internet providers were implementing the order.

The Facebook page at the center of the dispute — “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day!” — encourages users to post images of the prophet on May 20 to protest threats made by a radical Muslim group against the creators of “South Park” for depicting Muhammad in a bear suit during an episode earlier this year.

“We are not trying to slander the average Muslim,” said the information section of the Facebook page, which was still accessible Wednesday morning. “We simply want to show the extremists that threaten to harm people because of their Mohammad depictions that we’re not afraid of them.   »»» Arab News

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The French cabinet has approved a draft law that if passed would ban the wearing of full-face veils in public spaces, opening the way for the text to go before parliament in July.

The bill calls for $185 fines and, in some cases, citizenship classes for women do not comply with the ban.

Addressing the cabinet meeting on Wednesday, Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, said: “Citizenship should be experienced with an uncovered face.

“There can be no other solution but a ban in all public places.”

The bill includes a new offence – inciting to hide the face – with anyone convicted of forcing a woman to wear such a veil risking a year in prison and a $18,555 fine.

The interior ministry estimates that only 1,900 women cover their faces with veils in France out of an estimated five million Muslims, the largest such population in western Europe.   »»» Al Jazeera English

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When a Saudi religious policeman questioned a young couple walking together in an amusement park he got a painful surprise – when the woman suddenly attacked him.

The officer, from the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, asked the pair to confirm their identities and relationship to one another.

Unmarried men and women are barred from mixing under Saudi Arabia’s strict Islamic rules.

The young man immediately collapsed for reasons that have not been made clear, the Jerusalem Post reported.

But before the policeman could do anything else, the woman – believed to be in her mid-twenties – laid into him.

He was punched repeatedly about the head and upper torso during the attack in the eastern city of Hofuf Mubarraz.   »»» Mail Online (U.K.)

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The word hijab comes from the Arabic for veil and is used to describe the headscarves worn by Muslim women. These scarves come in a myriad of styles and colours. The type most commonly worn in the West is a square scarf that covers the head and neck but leaves the face clear.

The niqab is a veil for the face that leaves the area around the eyes clear. However, it may be worn with a separate eye veil. It is worn with an accompanying headscarf. The burka is the most concealing of all Islamic veils. It covers the entire face and body, leaving just a mesh screen to see through.

The al-amira is a two-piece veil. It consists of a close fitting cap, usually made from cotton or polyester, and an accompanying tube-like scarf. The shayla is a long, rectangular scarf popular in the Gulf region. It is wrapped around the head and tucked or pinned in place at the shoulders.

The khimar is a long, cape-like veil that hangs down to just above the waist. It covers the hair, neck and shoulders completely, but leaves the face clear. The chador, worn by many Iranian women when outside the house, is a full-body cloak. It is often accompanied by a smaller headscarf underneath.

Whenever religious freedom is discussed in Egypt, the topic inevitably turns to the status of the Christian Copts. Thousands of articles have been written about Egypt’s Copts and how they are denied their religious freedoms, but it almost never occurs to anyone that even Sunni Muslims are being deprived of their basic rights to religious freedom and worship.

That is exactly what happened at the end of last month when the ministry of awqaf (religious endowments) decided to ban Egypt’s Sufi orders from holding gatherings for the performance of dhikr – rituals devoted to the remembrance of God. Sufis have been performing these rituals for centuries, so a ban at this particular time is absurd.

The ministry’s excuse is that the ban is intended to pre-empt undesirable behaviour at Sufi gatherings, such as the shouting of invocations and late-night loitering in mosques. In a city such as Cairo where the noise of traffic is a constant background, it just doesn’t make sense. Clashes took place at Cairo’s al-Husayn and al-Sayyida Zeinab mosques between members of Sufi orders and security forces who forced them to evacuate the two shrines.

The Sufis are moderate, tolerant, peace-loving and highly spiritual Muslims, light years away from the violent image of Islam projected to western audiences. They believe God must be at the forefront of one’s thoughts at all times. The dhikr rituals, which include dancing and religious songs, are aimed at nothing more than the remembrance of God. Why the government would want to ban a practice so peaceful and harmless is incomprehensible.

In Egypt, Sufism is more institutionalised than anywhere else. There are 74 Sufi orders in Egypt, each headed by its own Sufi sheikh. At the top there is a Supreme Council for Sufi Orders and the president is directly in charge of Sufi affairs. Some Sufi orders were founded over 700 years ago. Their founders’ shrines are present in mosques, and millions of Muslims travel to them every year to celebrate the birthdays (moulids) of the Sufi sheikhs and gain their blessings. Perhaps the spirituality of Sufism has been neglected by some in recent times, but the dhikr ceremonies and moulids have been cultural practices for centuries and are a part of Egypt’s heritage. The moulids last for several days and are occasions for happiness, festivities, remembrance of God, income for the poor and fun for children.

The recent ban is another victory for extreme Salafi thinking at the expense of Egypt’s moderate Sufism. Salafism, imported into Egypt from Saudi Arabia and publicised around the world thanks to petrodollars, is the enemy of anything moderate and tolerant. The Salafis believe that the only true path is to follow the practices of the early generations of Muslims – literally.

Salafi thinking, which has gradually occupied Egyptian thought over the past three decades, puts enormous emphasis on external appearance rather than the inner spirit. They grow their beards just as the first Muslims did and trim their trousers so that the hems hang well above the ankles (or just wear a short jilbab) and their women usually wear the niqab. They believe that anything that deviates from their strictly literal interpretations of Islam is bida’a (innovation) and thus a gateway to hell.   »»» guardian.co.uk

The Salafis tend to emphasize the external to the detriment of the internal. Some Sufis do the contrary. Imam Malik, the founder of one of the 4 major schools of orthodox Islamic jurisprudence said: “Whoever has the outer law without inner Reality (Sufism) has left the right way; Whoever has the inner Reality without outer Law (Shariah) is a heretic; Whoever joins the two of them has realization.”

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