Libyan leader Col. Moammar Gadhafi, who holds increasing sway in the Italian economy, upset some Italians by urging conversion to Islam during a three-day visit to the predominantly Roman Catholic country.

A pastor has angered Christians in South Africa by preaching a sermon entitled "Jesus was HIV-positive" in an attempt to break what he regards as a conspiracy of silence by the South African church.

Two African nations are sending fresh troops to Somalia, in an effort to turn the tide against an insurgency that poses a growing threat to the region.

A suicide strike by two bombers suspected to have belonged to an Al Qaeda-linked group in Somalia killed at least 32 people Tuesday, including six legislators from the country's Western-funded parliament.

Men are forced to grow beards. Women can't leave home without a male relative.

After being denied entry at Kennedy Airport without explanation nearly four years ago, the South African Muslim scholar Adam Mahomed Habib was in Atlanta this weekend to give a talk at a sociology conference

The leader of Nigeria's ruling party said Thursday that he believed the West African nation's president should be allowed to run in next year's election, despite a power-sharing agreement that calls for a candidate from the Muslim north.

Kenyan church leaders have rejected calls for an apology after they campaigned against a new constitution that was overwhelmingly supported by voters in a referendum.

David Ngendo can't forget the day, after Kenya's disputed 2007 elections, when his neighbors stormed his village church with machetes and torched it. Nor can he forget the screams of the women and children who had sought refuge inside. His grandmother and 35 other members of his Kikuyu tribe died, most burned to ashes.

Kenya is back at the crossroads. That is the warning emanating from the pulpits of its church leaders, fretted over by academics, and fought over by its politicians and commentators.

The African Union (AU) agreed this week to strengthen its peacekeeping mission in Somalia.

It was another picture-perfect wedding at the foot of Table Mountain, recalled the Rev. Daniel Brits. Inside the chapel, a female vocalist sang “Wind Beneath My Wings” before he led the nervous couple through their vows surrounded by family and friends a few weeks ago.

An insurgent commander based in the semiautonomous region of Puntland in northern Somalia has pledged his allegiance to the Shabab militant group, a move that threatens to destabilize a part of Somalia that had been relatively peaceful.

Somali officials acknowledged on Thursday that members of Somalia’s presidential guard had defected to the Shabab, the radical Islamist insurgent group that claimed responsibility for the recent bombings in Uganda that killed more than 70 people watching the final game of the World Cup.

For many in Ireland the Catholic Church’s recent scandals symbolise the demise of a mighty institution.

An African Union peacekeeping force, funded by hundreds of millions of dollars from the United States and its allies, has killed, wounded and displaced hundreds of Somali civilians in a stepped-up campaign against Islamist militants, according to medical officials, human rights activists and victims.

As befits a man who fears he has a U.S. missile with his name on it, Ahmed Abdi Godane knows the importance of keeping a low profile.

A hard-line Islamist group in Somalia claimed responsibility on Monday for bombings in Uganda that killed 74 people, adding new evidence that an influx of foreign fighters linked to al-Qaeda have made them a major international threat in the Horn of Africa.

The bombings orchestrated by Somalia's al-Shabab militia that killed at least 74 people watching the World Cup finals on television Sunday night are the latest sign of the growing ambitions of al-Qaeda's regional affiliates outside the traditional theaters of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq.

For 13 years, Judge Mudhar Ahmed has worked in relative obscurity, issuing Muslim marriage certificates, divorcing Muslim couples and weighing in on Muslim inheritance disputes.