Turkey, a Conduit for Fighters Joining ISIS, Begins to Feel Its Wrath

By Rukmini Callimachi June 29, 2016 When the bodies of Islamic State fighters are recovered on the Syrian battlefield, the passports found on them have often been stamped in Turkey, which thousands of recruits pass through on their way to join the terror group. Fighters who call relatives abroad often do so using Turkish cellphone numbers, and when they need cash, they head to Western Union offices in southern Turkey, according to court and intelligence documents. From the start of the Islamic State’s rise through the chaos of the Syrian war, Turkey has played a central, if complicated, role in the group’s story. For years, it served as a rear base, transit hub and shopping bazaar for the Islamic State, and at first, that may have...

South Asians Everywhere Mourn Slaying Of Religious Singer

By Irfan Al-Alawi June 29, 2016 Amjad Farid Sabri. Fatiha. Amjad Farid Sabri was a beloved Qawwal or Sufi singer known throughout Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh, as well as the South Asian Muslim diaspora. Drive-by motorcyclists murdered him in his car with a companion in Karachi on 22 June. Just 45, Amjad Sabri was driving to a television studio for a celebration of Iftar, the end of the daily Ramadan fast, when the attack occurred. Both the targeted men died. Sabri leaves a wife and five children. He was the son of the most famous Qawwal, Ghulam Farid Sabri who, with his brother Maqbool Sabri, revived the sacred Qawwali genre, performing at Britain's WOMAD Festival and New York's Carnegie Hall in the 1970s. Qawwali...

Muslims, Catholics Break Bread, Build Bridges

By Donna Vickroy June 29, 2016 Living in Lebanon as a child, Nuha Dabbouseh remembers how she and a Christian friend would help each other through their respective religious fasts. Her friend would observe the Muslim month of Ramadan with her and, in turn, she would observe the 40 days of Christian Lent with her friend. It was a gesture shared by children a long time ago, Dabbouseh said, but on an evening when Muslims and Catholics were coming together over dinner and a mutual desire for respect, it was a fitting and relevant anecdote to share with tablemates. The 19th-annual Catholic-Muslim Iftar, sponsored by the Council of Islamic Organizations of Greater Chicago, was held Monday night at the Zakat Foundation of America in Bridgeview. Nearly 200 people gathered to, first, hear...

Swiss Court Fines Muslim Man For Blocking Daughters’ Swimming Lessons

Photo: Representative images Muslim Women Do Not Feel Secure In Britain: Report Muslim Women Also Ask For 'Birthing Pants' During Check-Ups Record Number of Women Terror Suspects Arrested In Britain Life on the Frontlines with the Peshmerga's Female Fighters Compiled by New Age Islam News Bureau URL: http://newageislam.com/islam,-women-and-feminism/new-age-islam-news-bureau/swiss-court-fines-muslim-man-for-blocking-daughters-swimming-lessons/d/107812 --- Swiss court fines Muslim man for blocking daughters’ swimming lessons JUNE 30, 2016 GENEVA (Switzerland) — A Muslim father was fined in Switzerland on Wednesday (June 29) for refusing to allow his daughters to take swimming lessons at school,...

Murdering Amjad Sabri of the Sabri Brothers: These murderers and only these murderers of divinity are the true enemies of Islam

By Khaled Abou El Fadl 27 Jun 2016 One of the truly sublime Muslim voices that for decades had been chanting endless mystical devotionals communing with God has been silenced by the bullet of an assassin. Amjad Sabri of the Sabri Brothers has been killed, and his unfortunate companion injured, by radicals in Karachi, Pakistan. A year earlier, a frivolous blasphemy case was filed against Sabri because radical Muslims did not like some of his Sufi lyrics about the Prophet and his family. As has become the pattern and practice among extremists, they kill and destroy what they do not like - that is, everything that has as much as a scintilla of beauty, intellect, or mercy. Every time such criminal elements that associate themselves...

Claims Evangelical Christian Churches Preach Gay Hate in Public Schools

By Robert Burton-Bradley 28 June 2016 Evangelical Christian churches are using some New South Wales schools to preach homophobic messages, SBS can reveal. Recordings of sermons obtained by SBS include teachings that the punishment for gay sex is death, marriage and sex is between a man and a woman only, and that the gay "lifestyle" is "unhappy". The sermons are being delivered by members of the Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches. Many of the churches are housed on public school grounds in NSW, where they conduct weekly services by arrangement with the individual schools. One recording of a sermon on homosexuality and the Bible's book of Leviticus from the Lakes Christian Church, based inside the Berkeley Vale Public school on the NSW Central Coast, includes references...

Reckoning With the Lone Wolf

By R.K. Raghavan 28 June 2016 It is important to bring about greater coordination among countries and chalk out a strategy to exploit the fault lines between terrorist groups such as the Islamic State and al-Qaeda. One question uppermost in many minds since last week is whether Brexit will have an impact on the fight against terror. There is nothing to suggest that when Brexit becomes a reality, the British resolve to counter jihad and all that goes with it will be greatly diluted. But then, the country will have to contend with a possible disruption of international law enforcement networks and its effect on counterterrorism. There is one view that in isolation from the rest of the present European Union (EU), Britain may actually...

Those in Pakistan Who Accused Amjad Sabri of Blasphemy Are Now Mourning His Death

By Fatima Tassadiq 26/06/2016 Amjad Sabri, a master of Qawwali, the devotional music popular across South Asia, was murdered in Karachi last week. A spokesperson of the Tehrik-e-Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack and declared Sabri a blasphemer. The militant outfit is not alone in considering the qawwali, which has long been part of the Sufi tradition in the subcontinent, as heretical. Many Sufi practices are frowned upon as deviant within the more puritan religious movements that have become increasingly popular in Pakistan during the last few decades. Qawwali singer Amjad Sabri who was shot in Karachi last week. Credit: Youtube grab Nevertheless, Sabri’s brutal murder came as a shock to many. His funeral...

Making Art from Pakistan’s Chaos

By Aatish Taseer June 27, 2016 A drain, clogged with pink plastic bags and filled with black water, separates Bahar Colony, a Christian neighbourhood, from the rest of this city. On one side is the Arfa Software Technology Park, a soaring modern complex of steel and green glass. On the other, the broken facades of low-lying brick houses are hung with rags. A sign reads: “Faith Gospel Assemblies, Lahore.” This is the landscape of Julius John Alam’s reality — and his imagination. Mr. Alam, the 26-year-old son of a tailor, is part of Pakistan’s Christian community, some two million in a country of more than 180 million. But he is also part of something bigger: He represents the tremendous artistic energy that has come to Pakistan,...

Two Women Appointed As Shariah High Court Judges in Malaysia

Photo: Gov't plans to allow only female doctors to assist in childbirth Malaysian Gov't Plans To Allow Only Female Doctors to Assist In Childbirth Yazidi Victim Demands Genocide Trial for Islamic State Leaders Volleyball In Iran: A Litmus Test for Women’s Rights Muslim Brotherhood Statement on Release of Seven Damietta Girls Monday Compiled by New Age Islam News Bureau URL: http://newageislam.com/islam,-women-and-feminism/new-age-islam-news-bureau/two-women-appointed-as-shariah-high-court-judges-in-malaysia/d/107790 --------- Two Women Appointed As Shariah High Court Judges in Malaysia June 28, 2016 Two women have been appointed as judges of Malaysia’s Islamic Shariah High Court for the first...