Church leaders in Wakefield have secured Foreign Office funding to bring a Pakistan delegation of lawyers, police, imams and priests on a peace mission to Britain to share good practice and help heal rifts between Muslims and Christians.

Three imams, three priests, three police officers and three lawyers from Pakistan – close to the village where Christians were burned to death in 2009 – arrived in London on Sunday for a five day fact-finding tour there and in Yorkshire to learn more about how crimes are investigated, our judicial system, share good practice of interfaith work and how to build bridges between faiths.

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Hard reality is steering…[a] transformation. Confronted with a badly sinking economy, the Brotherhood doesn’t have the luxury of harping endlessly about Zionist conspiracies, American hypocrisy, or bikini-clad tourists””not if it wants to put Egypt back together again.

Tourism revenue dropped by at least one-third since the uprising, according to government statistics. And billions of dollars of annual foreign investment””which peaked at $13.7 billion in 2007””were almost entirely choked off.

“Egypt is running smack into an economic wall,” said Karim Sadek, a managing director at Citadel Capital, a Cairo-based private-equity firm.

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“As business capital is assumed to be both outside the intent of the prohibition and an indispensable element of the modern economy, it was considered appropriate to find a method to allow it,” says Rabbi Daniel Feldman of Yeshiva University. While some authorities historically opposed the heter iska, which is only to be used for business purposes, it is widely accepted as meeting both the letter and the spirit of the law, says Rabbi Feldman.

In our difficult economic times, interest-free loans may be more important than ever. In Dallas, the local Hebrew Free Loan Association offers a variety of them, including for life-cycle events, adoptions, home health care and education. And Hebrew free-loan societies boast inordinately low default rates of less than 1%. “There is a sense of religious obligation on both sides,” says Mr. Sarna.

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The West looks with great concern towards North Africa, with the changes in the countries marked by the so-called “Arab Spring”. This has led to the downfall of totalitarian regimes which once seemed untouchable! All this is about very complex movements, not only in the societies where it happens, but also involves struggles regarding international interests. Will the populations be able to “control the situation” and direct the changes to their common good? The situation is very complex. These very young democracies have entrusted the power to parties of Islamic matrix, and have come out with new realities causing alarm, especially among the youth, and in the Christians locally. One only needs to look at the results of the last elections in Tunisia, Egypt and Morocco (a country not rocked by the Arab Spring but advancing seriously on the paths of reform through the will of King Mohammed VI).

These scenarios lead us to look at Islam and its spread in North Africa, taking into account the fact that the Christian presence goes back to six centuries before the birth of Islam, and that the Christian communities (Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant) are part and parcel of the local social fabric, a significant part of the cultural richness of the Countries and of the Region, and cannot be considered as a “foreign” body, or a “presence” affiliated to “something” western, as often seen by fundamentalist Islamic movements, motivated by ignorance or political interests!

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The growth of Islamic radicalism in Maldives can be traced to the beginning of the last decade. Like in Bangladesh, Pakistani jihadi groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba have been making inroads to indoctrinate young men in a conservative Sunni society, that has been bogged down with slow growth, political authoritarianism (until 2008, certainly) and mushrooming madrassas with Arab funds.

None of this is good news for India. Intelligence circles believe this is part of Pakistan’s strategic outreach, to penetrate Islamic jihadism in India’s periphery, which could be a constraining factor on India’s own development.

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It all hinges on a basic misconception:

That somehow to create equality and space for minority faiths and cultures we need to erase our majority religious heritage.

But it is my belief that the societies we are, the cultures we’ve created, the values we hold and the things we fight for…

…stem from something we’ve argued over, dissented from, discussed and built up:

Centuries of Christianity.

It’s what the Holy Father called the “unrenounceable Christian roots of [our] culture and civilisation”.

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Andrew West: Are there any parties in the parliament that we in the west would recognise as being vaguely liberal, or social democratic?

Jess Hill: Yes, the Al-Wafd party, which is one of the oldest parties in Egypt, that was probably the third most popular party. And then there’s a conglomerate of smaller liberal parties. Really, the people calling the shots are the Brotherhood. And then in second priority is the Salafi party Al-Nour.

Andrew West: What implications do these results hold for the impending presidential elections in June?

Jess Hill: It certainly feels like every person you speak to has a different opinion. But essentially most people agree that a presidential candidate will need the backing of the Brotherhood in order to succeed. So, I think, you know, there’s a few favourites, there’s one candidate who is a former Muslim Brotherhood member, who has got a lot of respect from both people within the Brotherhood and from the secularists. That’s looking like a possibility, but you wouldn’t see somebody of the ilk of al-Barad’i, for example, who’s dropped out of the candidacy, winning the elections. They are definitely going to have to be able to step in line at least somewhat with the Brotherhood.

Andrew West: If the Islamists, broadly speaking, control almost three-quarters of the parliament, how monolithic or diverse is that Muslim block?

Jess Hill: It’s very diverse.

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Europe must hold back a wave of “intolerant secularisation” and stop denying its Christian heritage, Britain’s only Muslim Cabinet member will urge today, as part of an important ministerial visit to the Vatican.
In a robust address that will be seen as an attack on the High Court ruling last week forcing councils across Britain to stop holding prayers during formal meetings, Baroness Warsi will say that politicians “need to give faith a seat at the table in public life”.
In a landmark ruling, a judge backed a complaint from the National Secular Society and an atheist councillor that Bideford council in Devon had no formal powers to hold the prayers.

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In a time when disdain for other faiths is commonplace, even blessed in some religious circles, how does a Bible study instructor contrast the teachings and doctrines of another tradition and his own without seeming intolerant? And conversely, can the increased sensitivity to multiculturalism and religious diversity in early 21st-century America gradually diminish the celebration of one faith tradition’s distinctive place in the theological spectrum?

“If you’re going to take your religion seriously, you should feel it’s superior to others. Why else believe in it?” said Alan Wolfe, director of the Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life at Boston College. “On the other hand, society does require a hands-off attitude toward other faiths in order for us to all live together. It’s a dilemma.”

Thomas, who was on staff at Concordia Seminary in Clayton for 18 years, said he believes the Bible studies at St. Paul’s have stayed on the respectful side of the line. His goal with the classes, he said, is to explain the teachings of another religion and to ask why Lutherans don’t believe the same thing.

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What is the Anglican position on the issue?

The Anglican position is very clear. We stand on upholding the sanctity of human life. We condemn in totality the terror called Boko Haram. And that we denounce it because it denounces human worth by what it is doing. We are in a democracy where people are free to practice their religion anywhere they are. So we stand on that. That Christians or people of other faith anywhere should be allowed to practice their own faith, provided they do not infringe on other people’s faith, which I know the Christians would not.

Are you satisfied with efforts the Islamic leaders and governors of the north have made to curb the menace of Boko Haram?

well! I don’t know of the efforts they have made so far. But what I do know is that it is there. This people live with them. They know them. They can fish them out, but they are not doing it. By so doing, they are obstructing the course of justice. As such they are not contributing to the well being of Nigeria. This is because people are doing certain things that are evil, and you know them. Like in Ekpoma here, if people are doing certain things we know them. And so, you see arrest being made. But when you shield them, like the man who escaped, is that not a case of protection? That is a case of protection. This thing is happening in the north. There is governance in the north. All of the governments are represented in the north. They cannot say they don’t know them. If they say they don’t know them, it means they are not doing their work.

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The Muslim Brotherhood on Thursday demanded that Egypt’s military rulers cede control of the government, stepping closer to a long-anticipated confrontation between the ruling generals and the Islamist-dominated parliament.

In a statement on its Web site and a television interview with one of its senior leaders, the Brotherhood called for the military to allow the replacement of the current prime minister and cabinet with a new coalition government formed by the parliament. That would amount to an immediate handover of power to civilians ”” the signature demand of street protesters but one the Brotherhood had previously rejected.

The Brotherhood, the formerly outlawed Islamist group that dominates the new parliament, had previously said it was content to wait for the generals who seized power with the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak to turn over power by a June deadline. And signs were accumulating of a general accord between the group and the military over the outlines of a new constitution expected to be ratified before the handover.

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We hear so often about Muslims as victims of abuse in the West and combatants in the Arab Spring’s fight against tyranny. But, in fact, a wholly different kind of war is underway””an unrecognized battle costing thousands of lives. Christians are being killed in the Islamic world because of their religion. It is a rising genocide that ought to provoke global alarm.

The portrayal of Muslims as victims or heroes is at best partially accurate. In recent years the violent oppression of Christian minorities has become the norm in Muslim-majority nations stretching from West Africa and the Middle East to South Asia and Oceania. In some countries it is governments and their agents that have burned churches and imprisoned parishioners. In others, rebel groups and vigilantes have taken matters into their own hands, murdering Christians and driving them from regions where their roots go back centuries….

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Residents here on Friday will mark the second week under curfew and caution since Boko Haram terrorists stormed the city’s center, setting off multiple bombings and gun assaults that residents say killed at least 200 people.

The attacks have been followed by sporadic episodes of explosions, gunfire, and kidnappings attributed to Boko Haram, the al-Qaeda-linked terrorist group that has since last year launched an increasing number of attacks in northern Nigeria. These continued threats have forced police to extend a curfew put in place after attacks on Jan. 20 and to lengthen it by one hour. Offices, stores, and restaurants now must close and all residents must be off the streets from 6 p.m. until 7 a.m.””in a city of about 9 million that is Nigeria’s second largest….

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Arch-Bishop Peter Akinola, a retired Primate of the Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion), has urged Christians to remain peaceful and shun retaliatory attacks against their Muslims brothers.

Akinola made the plea at a thanksgiving service to mark the 80th birthday of Justice Adolphus Karibi-Whyte at St Cyprian Anglican Church in Port Harcourt.

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Thousands of mourners in Nigeria have attended the burial service for people killed at a church on Christmas Day.

The BBC’s Chris Ewokor at St Theresa Catholic Church in Madalla near the capital, Abuja, said the service sheets listed the names of 43 victims.

The militant Islamist group Boko Haram said it carried out a series of attacks on 25 December 2011.

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“Just as the mind can be poisoned, we can also de-toxiate the mind, by reaching out to them and telling them they are making a big mistake and that what they are doing is not even in their own interest.

“That is what you might call counter propaganda. This is one reason why we are challenging our Islamic community in Nigeria.

“They have said it clearly again and again that they are not in support of what they are doing. Alhaji Lattef Adegbite, the Secretary General of the Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs had spoken voiceferously condemning what the Boko Haram people are doing and that what they do is not Islam. Good! They can do much more than that because whether you call them Muslims or not, they said they are one.

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A year ago arrivals on the outskirts to Kano had to pass a sign forbidding alcohol consumption and banning women from riding on motorbikes. Now it is gone.

Kano may be the sixth-biggest Muslim city in the world””after Karachi, Jakarta, Dhaka, Cairo and Istanbul””but it is far from the most conservative. Women lift their hemlines to get on the back of achabas, motorbikes that are the main source of transport. Mini vans carry both sexes to their destination. It is possible to get a cold beer to wash away sand inhaled during a day on the edge of the Sahara.

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Desecrating enemy dead is not always a vengeful impulse, and in some cultures even has a religious component. At the same time, disgust at the desecration of the dead is not always a simple case of demanding respect for a fallen human being, but also carries religious implications, even on one’s journey in the afterlife.

“Virtually all religions have reverence for the dead. Different religions, especially the monotheistic faiths, don’t accept any desecration of their own dead, or the enemy’s dead,” said Carl Raschke, a religious studies professor at the University of Denver.

For example, Muslims believe that after death their bodies will slowly disintegrate, except the tailbone, which on the Day of Resurrection will regenerate into the complete human being. For that reason, most Muslims reject cremation because it destroys the tailbone, making resurrection impossible.

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According to the Primate [Nicholas Okoh], this rising wave of hostility is a dimension that is unheard of because it is the highest manifestation of intolerance.

Primate Okoh stated that all hands are on deck, the National assembly is concerned, the president is having sleepless nights and the Church is already facing serious temptation even though the Church does not initiate hostility. The head of the Anglican Church said the intense attack of Boko Haram is really tempting the Christians whether to continue to maintain peace, always turning the other cheek ,or fight back to find their safety.
He therefore made a passionate appeal to leaders in the country who can reach out to Boko Haram to dissuade them from dastardly acts of killing innocent Christian’s souls, asking them to dialogue with government if they have any axe to grind with her and leave the Church alone.

He said the attempt to drag Nigerians into militancy is something Nigerians must resist.

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Both Muslim and Christian residents of Kano, the northern Nigerian city where at least 160 people were killed in a series of attacks on Friday, have been urged to heed a day of prayer.

A special prayer session has been held near the palace of the Emir of Kano, asking Allah to help end the violence.

Islamist militant group Boko Haram says it carried out the attacks.

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[We are speaking about]…the growing Muslim spinster crisis, which has been brewing for some time and is rooted in cultural, rather than religious, trends.

First, there has always been a tradition for British men originating from the Indian subcontinent to marry women from their country of origin. Families encourage their sons to do so for a host of reasons, including the cultural expectation that girls from “back home” will stay with and look after their in-laws.

The second trend is for Muslim men to marry “women of the book” (Christian or Jewish women), which is permissible in Islam. Men are more likely to work and socialise with British Christian women than their female Muslim counterparts, which leads to a higher chance of such marriages occurring….

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A key suspect in the Christmas Day bombing which killed at least 38 people in Nigeria has escaped from custody, police have admitted.

Kabiru Sokoto – believed to be a member of the Islamist sect Boko Haram – was arrested on Saturday in the capital Abuja after police trailed him.

But the very next day he escaped as police attempted to search his house outside the capital.

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[Rowan] Williams said he has been discussing with the UK government on how to support those living in fear because of the sect’s activities.

In a letter to the Archbishop and Primate of the Anglican Communion in Nigeria, Most Rev. Nicholas Okoh, which was read by his representative, the Bishop of Durham Rt. Revd Justin Welby, in Abuja, Williams said: “I write to assure you of my continuing prayers for you and for the work and ministry of the Anglican Church in Nigeria as unrest continues in many parts of Nigeria, both as a consequence of the national strikes and the continuing campaign by Boko Haram.

“The Rt Revd Justin Welby, newly enthroned as Bishop of Durham, comes to you, my brother in Christ, as my trusted emissary, and brings assurances of my prayers and concern for you and for your people. In addition to his time in Abuja he hopes to travel to Jos and to Kano. I have asked Bishop Welby to deliver my greetings to you in person when he meets with you as part of our continuing dialogue and mutual support.

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[Nine months after the rising protests against Mubarak]…the Brotherhood had reclaimed its status as Egypt’s most powerful political force following decades of suppression. In the country’s first free parliamentary elections, its newly created Freedom and Justice party won more than 35 per cent of the vote in the first round, and slightly more in December’s second round.

Even more worrying for those hoping the Arab world’s largest nation would adopt a liberal, pro-western face, fellow Islamists from the puritanical Salafi movement emerged with more than 25 per cent, a score likely to be confirmed in the third and final round of voting in January.

“This is the real Egyptian revolution,” says Jon Alterman of the US-based Center for Strategic and International Studies and one of the international observers at the Egyptian elections. “In February, the military removed Hosni Mubarak. This is the revolution that reorients power in Egypt.”

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The Coptic Orthodox Church will send out invitations to presidential hopefuls and all political parties, including Salafi ones, to attend the Christmas holy mass on 7 January, a papal source told Al-Masry Al-Youm.

The source said that Pope Shenouda III insisted on inviting both Muslim and Coptic Egyptians to the celebration.

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Bomb blasts targeting Christmas Day church services in two Nigerian cities have left at least 28 people dead, with three more attacks on other towns.

The Islamist group Boko Haram said it had attacked St Theresa’s Church in Madalla, near the capital Abuja, killing 27 people.

A second explosion shortly after hit a church in the central city of Jos. A policeman died during gunfire.

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Update: There are some photos there, please be warned they are difficult to see.

Another update: An AP story is here also–read it all.

More than 50 people have died in days of fighting between Nigerian forces and suspected Islamist gunmen in the country’s north-east, officials say.

Boko Haram militants had suffered heavy casualties in a lengthy gun-battle in the town of Damaturu, said army chief of staff Lt Gen Azubuike Ihejirika.

“We killed over 50 of them,” said Lt Gen Ihejirika.

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The cast and producers of “All-American Muslim,” a reality-TV show that has been a lightning rod for controversy, said Wednesday (Dec. 14) they are helping change negative perceptions of Muslims, and rejected criticisms that the show is propaganda that sugarcoats Islam.

“These are our lives. This is what we’ve been doing for years,” said Mike Jaafar, a sheriff’s deputy in the Wayne County Sheriff’s Department, who appears on the show that follows the everyday lives of Muslims in and around Dearborn, Mich.

“The charge of propaganda is based on the fact that the reality of the Muslim American experience does not jibe with their preconceptions of what Islam is,” said Reza Aslan, co-founder of BoomGen Studios, which is helping promote the show.

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The imam of the Ottawa Mosque has condemned so-called honour killing, saying the practice speaks to a perverse sense of honour that is alien to Islam, and has no place in society.

Samy Metwally said Friday that it doesn’t make sense to think or believe that any religion will condone killing people to preserve family honour.

“What’s called honour killing is not part of Islamic teaching or tradition, and in fact there is no honour in this killing at all,” Metwally told the Citizen.

“It has nothing to do with religion and it has no backup either from the texts of the Koran or from the behaviour, sayings or deeds of the Prophet Muhammad, who is the model for Muslims.”

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