pewforum.org Religion News on the Web

Religion News on the Web

Selected religion-related news from around the Web
Wash. Post: In foiled Jordanian terror plot, officials see hand of resurgent al-Qaeda in Iraq
The plan was to unleash mayhem across an entire city and “bring Amman to its knees,” in the words of one security official.
NYT: In Turkey, forging a new identity
“There are liquids that are not mixable — it’s like that.”
AP: Some wish Islam would inform climate debate
At Friday prayers in Qatar's most popular mosque, the imam discussed the civil war in Syria, the unrest in Egypt and the U.N. endorsement of an independent state of Palestine.
CS Monitor: In Egypt and Tunisia, Salafis move from prisons to parliaments
Mehdi Mezmi rediscovered Islam eight years ago via a website, then illegal to access in his native Tunisia, called Minbar at-Tawheed wal Jihad – “The Forum for God’s Oneness and Holy Struggle.”
Wash. Post: Afghan’s Shiite minority fears a return to old ostracism
For the past week, the Afghan capital has been draped with black cloth arches and festooned with huge colored banners. Mournful, pounding chants pour from loudspeakers across the city, filling the air with slow martial intensity.
Reuters: Saudi reforms detour through Vienna faith center
The road to reform in Saudi Arabia is long and winding. In the rigidly restricted field of religion, the path is so circuitous that part of it even runs through traditionally Catholic countries like Austria and Spain.
AP: Syrian Islamist groups reject Western-backed opposition, declare Islamic state in key city
Syria's increasingly powerful Islamist rebel factions rejected the country's new Western-backed opposition coalition and unilaterally declared an Islamic state in the key battleground of Aleppo, a sign of the seemingly intractable splits among those fighting to topple President Bashar Assad.
AP: New opposition head gives renewed hope to Syrians
Syria's political opposition has struggled to prove its relevance amid the civil war under a leadership largely made up of academics and exiled politicians.
LA Times: Growing ties between Egypt, Turkey may signal new regional order
Egypt and Turkey are forging an alliance that showcases two Islamist leaders maneuvering to reshape a Middle East gripped by political upheaval and passionate battles over how deeply the Koran should penetrate public life.
NYT: Angry Turkish secularists plant their flag at trial
The protesters converge each day on the village of little tents dotting the landscape here outside a sprawling prison and courthouse.
NYT: Tunisia battles over pulpits, and revolt’s legacy
On the Friday after Tunisia’s president fell, Mohamed al-Khelif mounted the pulpit of this city’s historic Grand Mosque to deliver a full-throttle attack on the country’s corrupt culture, to condemn its close ties with the West and to demand that a new constitution implement Shariah, or Islamic law.
NYT: A vague role for religion in Egyptian draft constitution
After months of fierce debate over the place of Islam in government, the assembly drafting a new constitution for Egypt has settled on a compromise that opens the door to more religion in governance but mainly guarantees that the issue will continue to roil politics, the Parliament and the courts for many years to come.
AP: Pakistan's minority Hindus feel under attack
They came after dusk and chanted into the night sky "Kill the Hindus, kill the children of the Hindus," as they smashed religious icons, ripped golden bangles off women's arms and flashed pistols.
NYT: Coptic church chooses pope who rejects political role
A blindfolded 6-year-old reached into a glass bowl on Sunday to pick the first new Coptic pope in more than 40 years, a patriarch who promises a new era of integration for Egypt's Christian minority as it grapples with a wave of sectarian violence, new Islamist domination of politics, and internal pressures for reform.
Economist: Contagion of discontent
IT IS more than a century since cartographers drew east Africa’s coastal strip as a single territory.
AP: Egypt's Brotherhood: Shariah must be charter base
Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood said Wednesday it is committed to enshrining Islamic Shariah law as the main source of a new constitution, seeking to mollify ultraconservative Islamists who accuse the group of not advocating strongly enough for Islamic rule.
AP: Egyptians in hajj divided over Islam in politics
Now that she has finished the hajj and is returning home to Egypt, Magda Bagnied says her family will no doubt try to convince her to put on the headscarf to demonstrate her religiosity after a pilgrimage meant to cleanse her of sin and bring her closer to God.
Reuters: Twenty two groups call for EU ban on Israeli settler products
Twenty two religious groups and charities have called on the European Union to ban products made by Israeli settlers in the occupied territories, saying a boycott would undercut their economic reason for staying there.
AP: Jerusalem's secular Israeli minority showing life
Hundreds of people packed a Jerusalem community center recently for what many in Jerusalem consider a subversive act: They attended a lecture on Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath.
AP: Persecuted Hazaras flee Pakistan; some die trying
As he knelt in prayer to mark one of Islam's holiest days, Ali Raza Qurban saw a childhood friend and dozens of others die in a suicide attack on their Shiite mosque.
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