Thousands Kosovo Albanians staged a protest rally Friday in Pristina after girls were banned from school for refusing to take off their Muslim headscarves.

The protesters, who carried signs saying “Stop Discrimination” and chanted “Allahu Akbar” (God is great), demanded that the Kosovo government allow the wearing of religious symbols in schools.

They also urged the authorities to reverse the recent suspension of several girls from school because they were wearing the headscarf.

Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008, adopting a secular constitution which stipulates the separation of religious and state authority.

With an overwhelming Muslim majority (over 90%) but a tradition of moderate Islam at ease with Western values, the government prohibits girls from attending public schools wearing the headscarf.   »»» Vancouver Sun (Canada)

How strange the world is! In most parts of Canada and the U.S., whose Muslim populations are less than 10%, Muslim girls are able to wear a headscarf and the State routinely supports that right. Yet in Turkey and now Kosovo, which are overwhelmingly Muslim, the State denies that right while claiming separation of religion and the State and the religious faith of the people. A State that imposes a headscarf ban while claiming to be a secular State is hyprocrisy or even worse it is in fact the imposition of a a State approved anti0-religion on the people.

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A Coventry farmer has insisted he is reacting to demand from traders in trying to give Muslims a taste of pork by producing bacon-style rashers from halal-slaughtered turkeys.

Rod Adlington’s attempts to imitate the meat, which Muslims cannot eat because of their religion, has seen a Muslim scholar voice concerns that it could lead to people eating real bacon from pork.

The turkey farmer told BBC Asian Network he was reacting to requests from convenience stores he supplies to and said they wanted a “really good turkey bacon”.    »»» BBC News

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A question troubles Europe: Is Islam essentially expansioniste and conquering? Yes, claim the Swiss iniators of the referendum against the construction of minarets. This expansionism is seen to be supported by a desire for political hegemony that is attributed sometimes to the very nature of the “Islamic ideology” (large families, conversions and conquest) and sometimes by the strategies of some of the actors (the “Islamists” and their “plans”). Youssef al-Qaradawi, the most popular among moderate Sunni sheikhs, seems to make them right when, on an Aljazeera TV program (Shari’a and Life) devoted to discussing the Swiss vote, he said the conquest will come about and all human beings will find themselves united by God’s word.

It is legitimate to question Islam. After all, like Christianity, it proclaims salvation for humanity and a final prophetic message. But concretely, what is “religious expansionism”? From the sociological point of view, it many be based on militancy (politics, propaganda, militarism) or on the development of religious faith and piety (a return to faith or the conversion of others) or on demography (a baby-boom bombe).   »»» Le Monde diplomatique)

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Naturally, if one is interested in finding out anything about Islam, the first source should be the Koran and Hadith – the teachings of Prophet Muhammad.

No verse in the Koran says that Muhammad started Islam. The Koran clearly states that Muhammad only followed in the footsteps of previous prophets but didn’t bring any new religion. According to Islam, all prophets taught the same message of Islamic monotheism.

They were human beings who taught the people around them about faith in One Almighty God, and how to walk on the path of righteousness. Some prophets also revealed God’s word through books of revelation. It is this message that Prophet Muhammad came to fulfill.

Koran 42: 13: “The same religion has He established for you as that which He enjoined on Noah, that which we have sent by inspiration to thee and that which we enjoined on Abraham, Moses and Jesus namely, that ye should remain steadfast in religion, and make no divisions therein.”   »»» Daily Monitor (Uganda)

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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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