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YINCHUAN, June 23 (Xinhua) -- At a tiny courtyard mosque in China's most populous Muslim region, Jin Meihua leads other women in prayer and chants. Every day, the 44-year-old dons a black robe and violet scarf and preaches to dozens of women at the Little White Mosque in northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous region, where most of the country's Islam-faith Hui ethnic minority live. Jin has a routine life. "Except attending funerals, I always stay in the mosque, teaching the female Muslims Islamic scriptures." She is a female imam or "ahong," pronounced ah-hung, from the Persian word "akhund" for "the...

Lawyers for six Muslim prayer leaders removed from a US Airways jet at Twin Cities International Airport in 2006 told a federal magistrate Monday that they want the airline to divulge 10 years' worth of discrimination complaints so they could compare the airline's behavior before and after the September 2001 terrorist attacks. Attorneys representing the airline argued they should have to turn over just three years' worth of such data. The reason, said one: 9/11 changed everything. "The bottom line is we're in a post-9/11 world," US Airways attorney Dane Jaques told U.S. Magistrate Arthur Boylan. "Procedures changed. The world...

The government is to sponsor a theological board of leading imams and Muslim women in an attempt to refute the ideology of violent extremists. The committee, to be announced this week, will issue pronouncements on areas such as wearing the hijab and the treatment of wives and is part of a government strategy to counter radicalism. It will rule on interpretation of the Koran and promote the moderate strain of Islam practised by most British Muslims. It will also comment on controversial issues affecting Muslims living in Britain, including whether or not they should serve in the armed forces. Its...

Summary: If the limits to growth analysis of our predicament is correct we have no choice but to undertake radical changes in lifestyles, values, the geography of our settlements and especially change to a different economy. We must move to The Simpler Way. The required alternative society must involve far lower rates of per capita resource consumption and environmental damage. This must mean materially simpler lifestyles, in highly self-sufficient and cooperative communities, within an economy that is not driven by market forces and profit and that does not grow over time. The Simpler Way would not involve hardship or giving...

One of two outspoken Muslim clerics scheduled to speak at St. Cloud State University this week is unable to attend, the school said today. The clerics were booked as part of St. Cloud's Islam Awareness Week, which started Monday. Siraj Wahhaj was supposed to speak Thursday on the topic "What is Jihad?" The school was unaware of a reason for his inability to participate. Wahhaj was also scheduled to speak to other college student groups in the state this week. His appearance at the University of Minnesota has also been canceled, said Lolla Mohammed Nur, a U student organizer. Wahhaj,...

The Swedish government is to set up an inquiry to look into the possibility of using state funds to provide training programmes for imams. Muslim religious representatives should be able to benefit from Swedish tax kronor in the same way as Christian priests and ministers, according to Minster for Higher Education and Research Lars Leijonborg. The former Liberal Party leader also believes that the move will help stem the development of radical Islam in Sweden. "It has been suggested that radical Muslims from Saudi Arabia are offering to provide imams for free, and a lack of money means that moderate...

Attempts to reform British mosques and win back a “lost generation” of young Muslims are being undermined by the poor quality of home-trained imams, a leading Islamic scholar says. Musharraf Hussain, a government adviser on mosques, said that most of the country’s Islamic seminaries were producing “unemployable” graduates who were incapable of challenging the sense of alienation that led some Muslims towards violent extremism. His concerns were voiced as it emerged that a rift is opening between the Government and four Muslim organisations over moves to introduce national guidelines for Britain’s 1,350 mosques. The initiative aims to make mosques more...

The secret war On the North-West Frontier, soldiers are trying to tighten the noose around bin Laden's forces. But in Europe and America, there is no clear enemy to fight - yet every expert knows that a terrorist atrocity is coming Mark Townsend in Tangier, John Hooper in Madrid, Greg Bearup in Peshawar, Paul Harris in Washington, Peter Beaumont in Baghdad, Antony Barnett, Martin Bright, Jason Burke and Nick Pelham in London Sunday March 21, 2004 The Observer There were shadows in the rocks. As the 12 US Special Forces soldiers arrived at a remote mountain region in eastern Afghanistan...

A federal judge has ruled that a lawsuit filed by a group of imams against US Airways and a Minneapolis airport can proceed. U.S. District Judge Ann Montgomery said in a 41-page opinion late yesterday that the imams, who say they were discriminated against when they were removed from a flight last year, have a plausible claim that their constitutional rights may have been violated. The imams "have adequately stated a claim" that airport police may have "seized plaintiffs in violation of their Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures," Judge Montgomery ruled.

The Netherlands, one reads, has come to accept that magistrates require a generous range of motion to prevent radical clerics from "exercising their profession." But empowering judges will clearly not suffice to promote the "integration" of imams, or to groom a crop of clerics attuned to Western values. So while lawmakers across the Continent consider means to douse inflammatory speech and detain troublemakers "constitutionally," it's time again to consider l'exception française.France, far from those "Cheese-eating surrender monkeys" depicted in "The Simpsons," has distinguished itself (since the Paris terror bombings of 1986, especially) as a nation uniquely disposed to trample toes...

The Paris Grand Mosque and the city's Catholic university are teaming up to offer university education for imams to promote moderate Islam and help integrate foreign-born Muslim prayer leaders in France. The privately-run Catholic Institute of Paris will launch a two-semester course on French politics, law and secularism in January for future imams studying Islamic theology at the Grand Mosque, officials of both institutions told Reuters. France has tried for several years to boost imam training. The Sorbonne and public university in Paris declined to take on the task because they said it violated the legal separation of church and...

The Pakistani authorities have confirmed the American findings that the imams of three mosques arrested on November 15 in Boston happen to be the close relatives of the founder of the deadly Lashkar-e-Toiba, Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, who now heads the Jamaatul Daawa. Pakistani interior ministry sources said that the three Boston-based imams — Hafiz Muhammad Hannan Hafiz Muhammad Masood and Hafiz Mohammad Hamid — are close relatives of Hafiz Muhammad Saeed. The sources said they have informed the American authorities that while Hafiz Muhammad Masood and Hafiz Hamid happen to be the real brother of Saeed, Hafiz Muhammad Hannan is...

Flying Lying Imams' conspiracy theories The Garbage "holiness", Muslim Mullahs' despicable industry of "conspiracy theories" on the Islamic attack of September 11, 2001 This is the story of 'flying Imams', no, not that one in which they've managed to put fears into ordinary passengers with "holy-Islamic" Pro bloodthirsty Bin-Laden statements, that the "moderate" terrorists organizations' front goup: CAIR tried to "defend" afterwards. This is about [though the same type of] imams that are in the line of how to commit the crime upon crime, after the Islamic murdering innocent people on 9/11/2001, how to add yet another Islamic crime,...

A group of Muslim imams today dropped all charges in a federal lawsuit levied against "John Doe" airline passengers for reporting the men's suspicious behavior that led to their removal from a U.S. Airways flight last year.

Should citizens -- acting in good faith to report suspicious activity -- be subjected to lawsuits by Islamic activists? Democrats think so. Last week, they attempted to strip away the “John Doe” provision from the new Homeland Security Department legislation. For now, they have failed. Reps. Peter King (R-NY) and Steven Pearce’s (R.-NM) “John Doe” amendment was crafted after a group of Muslim activists filed a lawsuit against U.S. Airways and the undisclosed passengers who complained about abnormal behavior that resulted in the now-infamous flying imams’ removal from the plane on November 20, 2006. The King-Pearce amendment, which creates a...

Preach in English, Muslim peer tells imams By Tom Harper, Sunday Telegraph Last Updated: 11:57pm BST 21/07/2007 Mosques should be banned from recruiting foreign preachers unless they speak excellent English, according to a senior Muslim politician. Inayat Bunglawala called the plan 'completely unworkable' In an attempt to tackle Islamic extremism, Lord Ahmed of Rotherham called for imams from overseas who apply to preach in Britain to undergo strict language and "Britishness" tests in their countries of origin. Those who refused would be denied entry to the UK. The peer also called for non-English speaking imams already in Britain to be...

Congress fails to adopt lawsuit guards WASHINGTON, July 20 (UPI) -- Protection from lawsuits for wrongly reporting suspicious behavior has failed to pass the U.S. Congress. The legislation was inspired by a suit brought by a group of Muslim imams who were removed from a U.S. Airways flight to Phoenix before it left Minneapolis last November, The Washington Times reported. Some passengers on the plane said they had seen the imams, behaving suspiciously by praying together before boarding. The imams, who were allowed to leave after several hours of FBI questioning, sued the airline, the Minneapolis-St. Paul Metropolitan Airports Commission...

A Muslim cleric has claimed to have been tortured with electric shocks, left in a cell where rats crawled on him and threatened with rape after he was allegedly kidnapped from a Milan street by CIA agents three years ago.The claims of Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr, also known as Abu Omar, appeared in an affidavit provided to Milan prosecutors investigating his alleged abduction in February 2003, the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera reported yesterday. Prosecutors say that the cleric, who was formerly suspected of links to terrorism, was driven to the Aviano military air base and flown via Germany to...

Religious organizations are raising an unholy ruckus over proposed changes in religious worker visa regulations that the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services says would reduce rampant fraud in the program, reports The Washington Post: [R]eligious organizations that increasingly serve immigrant populations cite a need to bring in workers with the spiritual, cultural and linguistic expertise to serve them.Religious worker visas are used to bring in Catholic nuns, Hebrew teachers, Muslim imams and Baptist church administrators, among other workers. In 2006, more than 11,000 of the visas were issued, most to natives of Korea, Israel and India.Religious organizations say no other...

US Airways is asking a court to dismiss a lawsuit filed by a group of Muslim imams, saying the airline followed government guidelines when it removed the men from a flight because of suspicious behavior. The response to the lawsuit, filed March 12 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota, says the airline "is required to adhere to the main points of the Transportation Security Administration's (TSA) Common Strategy regarding security threats in the aviation context."