In Egypt, there are more mosques and fewer imams than in previous years. Meet the freelance imams filling the gaps, and navigating the challenges to being part-time religious leaders.
Tag: quran
The Nordic country, which abolished its blasphemy statute half a decade ago, is being put to the test as it tries to make freedom of expression and of religion coexist.
Hijab is merely a custom that, by force of tradition, has turned into a religious symbol — nothing more. The early Quranic interpreters, who favored transmission over reason due to their limited knowledge and weak analytical abilities at the time, interpreted the so-called “verses of hijab” without considering their historical context or the reasons behind their revelation.
It appears that Syria’s new rulers, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, are refusing to respond to the social and political demands of former President Bashar al-Assad’s Alawite minority, risking a sectarian conflict in the war-torn country.
In Syria the provisional government led by Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham has removed the term “gods” and images of statues from the school curriculum. Men destroy statues so that the statues do not destroy them. Removing these images and their rightful place in history is a dangerous call to war against truth and equality.
The positions of ultra-conservative Christian and Islamic Salafism supporters are almost identical on cultural, social and legal issues, such as their position on private and public freedoms. That often starts with women’s freedoms.
Sunnis were historically resistant to have this sacred text translated from Arabic — but especially into Persian, the language of a nation sometimes viewed as reluctantly Muslim. What does that mean today under the Sharia law of the Islamic Republic.
A scandal of the secret gay life of a senior Tehran official set off ricocheting accusations in the regime. Now compromising photos have emerged of a top state broadcasting manager with a female employee, who nonetheless kept her hair covered. The piousness of the Islamic Republic is ever more called into question.