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In his address Lord Phillips praised the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, who famously said last February that it was “inevitable” that Sharia would come to Britain. “An approach to law which simply said – there’s one law for everybody – I think that’s a bit of a danger,” said the Archbishop. He had apparently forgotten, if he ever knew, that the idea of “one law for everybody” was one of the great achievements of Judeo-Christian civilization, and was rooted in the idea of the dignity of all human beings as created in the image of God.

So this is how it ends: not with a bang, but a whimper. The most senior judge in England has declared that Islamic legal principles in Sharia law may be used within Muslim communities in Britain to settle marital arguments and regulate finance. Lord Chief Justice Lord Phillips said, "Those entering into a contractual agreement can agree that the agreement shall be governed by a law other than English law." In his speech at an East London mosque, Lord Phillips said Muslims in Britain could use Islamic legal principles as long as punishments - and divorce rulings - comply with...

Sharia law could play a role in some parts of the legal system, the most senior judge in England and Wales has said. The Lord Chief Justice, Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers, emphatically ruled out the possibility of sharia courts sitting in this country or deciding penalties. But in a speech at the East London Muslim Centre in Whitechapel he said there was no reason why sharia principles could not be used in "mediation or other forms of alternative dispute resolution". Sharia - a set of principles governing the way that many Muslims believe one should live one's life -...

Police in Toronto, Canada concluded that the 16-year-old-Pakistani girl Aqsa Parvez, was murdered by her father... and her brother, for refusing to wear the hijab or veil as is the custom for women in traditional Muslim households. "Instead of getting angry at the father and brother who are accused of planning the murder by luring the runaway teenager back to her home, leaders of the conservative and orthodox Muslim community made excuses." we found few other Muslim leaders willing to slam the father, mother, sister and brother, who either joined hands in killing the young girl, or sat passively as...

A lower Shari’ah Court in Shira Local Govern-ment Area of Bauchi State has sentenced a 34-year-old female singer, Talatu Mai-Gurmi, to two months imprisonment or N5,000 fine for staging a traditional musical concert. The convict was arrested by the Shari’ah enforcement agents, Hisba, with two other singers, Dan-Kawu Mai-Garaya and Odoji Mai-Kotso, for allegedly contravening the shariah law. The incident occurred at Yana, headquarters of Shira local government area of the state. While Mai-Gurmi pleaded guilty to the one-count charge, Mai-Garaya and Mai-Kotso pleaded not guilty to the offence which contravened sections 95 and 365 of the sharia penal code....

The Hunt for American al Qaeda The United States is turning up the heat in the hunt for the California boy turned al Qaeda operative, Adam Gadahn, who has been charged with treason and is believed to be hiding in Afghanistan. If caught and convicted, Gadahn could face the death penalty. The State Department along with the Department of Diplomatic Security announced the beginning of a publicity campaign in Afghanistan urging locals to provide any information on Gadahn's whereabouts, with a reward if the information leads to his capture. Radio advertisements with information concerning the $1 million reward have...

A Pakistani man was sentenced to death for blasphemy on Wednesday after he defiled the Muslim holy book and used derogatory language to refer to the Prophet Mohammad, a police official said. Convictions for blasphemy are fairly common in predominantly Muslim Pakistan, with most cases involving members of religious minorities, but death sentences have never been carried out usually because convictions are thrown out on a lack of evidence. The convicted man, Mohammad Shafeeq, a Muslim in his early 20s, was arrested in 2006 in a village near the eastern city of Sialkot where the trial was held in the...

A new report issued by the American Textbook Council says books approved for use in local school districts for teaching middle and high school students about Islam caved in to political correctness and dumbed down the topic at a critical moment in its history. "Textbook editors try to avoid any subject that could turn into a political grenade," wrote Gilbert Sewall, director of the council, who railed against five popular history texts for "adjust[ing] the definition of jihad or sharia or remov[ing] these words from lessons to avoid inconvenient truths." Sewall complains the word jihad has gone through an "amazing...

A textbook monitoring group said that Maryland middle and high school students will be required to read about Islamic teachings that have been dumbed down and are products of political correctness. According to the New York Examiner, a new report issued by the American Textbook Council said that administrators who approved books for use in the Montgomery County school district caved into pressure by pro-Islamic groups seeking to present a less violent interpretation of Islam. Gilbert Sewall, director of the council, stated that, for example, the definition of jihad has gone through "amazing cultural reorchestration" in textbooks, losing any connotation...

The practice of political correctness may soon be tallying another casualty: the pig. Increasingly, as America and the rest of the Western world continue accommodating Muslim religious demands, pork food products are being singled out for removal from dining tables and pig-related trinkets banished from the desks of office workers. If this continues, good ol’ American food, such as barbeque replete with hot dogs and ribs and the typical American breakfast of eggs, bacon and sausage, might be seen as the equivalent of political poison. Could outright censorship of pig depictions in drawings, pig references in literary works and pig...

Gallup says only 7 percent of the world's Muslims are political radicals. Yet 36 percent think the 9/11 attacks were in some way justified.On the inside back cover of books published by Gallup Press there is the following breathtaking statement: Gallup Press exists to educate and inform the people who govern, manage, teach and lead the world's six billion citizens. Each book meets Gallup's requirements of integrity, trust and independence and is based on a Gallup-approved science and research. Don't be distracted by the bad grammar. Focus instead on Gallup's "requirements of integrity, trust and independence." Thanks to a remarkable...

Rome mayoral candidate, Gianni Alemanno, will on Thursday visit the Italian Islamic Cultural Centre in the capital, known as the city's Grand Mosque ... "The mosque in Rome is a unique Islamic institution of the Italian republic and it is the first time that a candidate for mayor is coming on a visit,"... "During his visit, Alemanno will meet some Muslim representatives and in particular the secretary general of the Islamic centre, Abdellah Redouane."

Afghanistan to Ask NATO for Bigger Army Afghan officials will go to the NATO summit in Romania Thursday with a request: pay to increase our national Army by 40 percent. A bigger Army, Afghan officials argue, will allow the US and other coalition members to scale back in the coming years. This appeal comes amid pleas from the US and Canada for other NATO members to commit more to the Afghanistan mission, which many analysts say has floundered over the past year for lack of resources and a coherent strategy. France is expected to contribute another 1,000 forces and...

"It is necessary for us to participate in political life, in the life of political parties. The political forces, on their part, must then give ample space to issues such as immigration and integration." Among those running for the elections this weekend to choose representatives for Rome's city council is Khalid Chaouki, the founder of a group known as the Young Muslims... He could not hide his envy for the situation of second generation immigrants in neighbouring countries such as France where they have managed to occupy important positions in various departments such as the department of Justice. "I want...

My journey through Egypt A glimpse into the life of non-Muslims under Islamic oppressionBy Jesse Petrilla | Thursday, April 10, 2008 I have recently returned to the United States from Egypt where I was on a fact-finding mission to see what life is like for non-Muslims who live under Islam. What I saw was a dire situation of oppression and discrimination that many in America and the West have all but ignored. A place with rampant police brutality and corruption, where non-Muslims are second-class citizens at best, who are brutally victimized on a daily basis. All this in a nation...

A New York City cabbie who operates an extremist Islamic anti-American Web site that features violent images — including mocking the deaths of GIs in Iraq — says he’s doing the country a service by “exposing the truth.” Yousef al-Khattab, who runs RevolutionMuslim.com from his home in Queens, told FOX News that he also wants the U.S. to embrace Islam and Sharia Law, which prohibits alcohol and can include stoning to death or severe flogging for pre-marital sex and adultery. On any given day, log on to al-Khattab's site and a host of startling images appear: — The Statue of...

Cambridge University has been given £8 million by a Saudi Arabian prince to establish an Islamic studies centre. Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal, ranked in the top 20 richest men in the world, with a fortune of about £10 billion, has donated the cash to the university to fund a centre in his name for the study of the role of Islam in the Middle East and globally. The gift has been recommended by the university's general board and is expected to be announced in June. advertisement The grandson of King Ibn Saud and nephew of King Abudllah, the prince counts...

Harvard Law School professor Noah Feldman touched off a fierce debate when he recently wrote in The New York Times Magazine that Islamic Sharia law represents the highest state of "the rule of law." But what many of Feldman's critics did not recognize is that his argument has been building over several years. Just as an old photographic print slowly becomes visible when immersed in developing solution, Noah's claims about the alleged virtues of Sharia first surfaced in his 2005 book, Divided by God written when he was still a professor at NYU. Three years later, Feldman, who helped draft...

After the attacks of 9/11, many people in the West, including Christians, were asking, “Where are the moderate Muslims?” They may have showed up last fall. A group of what appeared to be moderate Muslim leaders sent a conciliatory message to representatives of the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and Protestant faiths, offering to work toward a more peaceful coexistence between the world’s two largest religions. How should Christians in the West respond to this offer? A basis for peace? Issued October 13, 2007, and titled A Common Word Between Us and You, the Muslim document stressed the need for peace between...

GENEVA - The top U.N. rights body on Thursday passed a resolution proposed by Islamic countries saying it is deeply concerned about the defamation of religions and urging governments to prohibit it. The European Union said the text was one-sided because it primarily focused on Islam. The U.N. Human Rights Council, which is dominated by Arab and other Muslim countries, adopted the resolution on a 21-10 vote over the opposition of Europe and Canada. EU countries, including France, Germany and Britain, voted against. Previously EU diplomats had said they wanted to stop the growing worldwide trend of using religious anti-defamation...

Excerpt - AMSTERDAM, March 23 (Reuters) - A U.S.-based web service, which Islam critic and Dutch right-wing lawmaker Geert Wilders planned to use to show his film critical of the Koran, said on Saturday that it had inactivated the site due to complaints. "This site has been suspended while Network Solutions is investigating whether the site's content is in violation of the Network Solutions Acceptable Use Policy," the company said on the site www.fitnathemovie.com. Wilders, who has given few details about his 15-minute film, has said he plans to release 'Fitna' on the Internet before the end of the month...

No churches should be permitted in Saudi Arabia, unless Pope Benedict XVI recognised the prophet Mohammed... "It would be possible to launch official negotiations to construct a church in Saudi Arabia only after the Pope and all the Christian churches recognise the prophet Mohammed." "If they don't recognise him as a prophet, how can we have a church in the Saudi kingdom?" Ashiqi's comments came after a declaration launched by the papal nuncio of the Persian Gulf, the archbishop Mounged El-Hachem, at the opening of the first Catholic church in Qatar last week. El-Hachem estimated three to four million Christians...

Muslim immigrants are a serious threat to peace and democracy in Europe, according to the Israeli Ambassador to the Vatican Oded Ben-Hur. "[Muslims] have a different agenda, and are beginning to be a real serious menace to democracy and peace in Europe,"... Ben-Hur also criticised what he called the Italians' "docile, ostrich-like approach" to Muslims in Italy. "People here in Italy should have raised hell,"... Ben-Hur spoke at length about extremist Islam and what he saw as a "sharp decline in their [Islamic] culture," following the expulsion of Muslims from European lands in the 15th century during the Spanish 'reconquista'....

OXFORD, England (AFP) - Famous for its university and quintessentially English "dreaming spires," the city of Oxford has been plunged into controversy over the sound of Muslim call to prayer from a local mosque. Those church spires have been joined by a minaret, with a loudspeaker on top which has triggered protests from locals concerned about the influx of a foreign culture. "I don't have any problem with Islam but don't force it on people," said Oxford University historian Allan Chapman, whose typically English house has a view of both the minaret and the nearby Church of Saint Mary and...

The world's Muslim countries warned Wednesday that an "alarming" rise in anti-Islamic insults and attacks in the West has become a threat to international security. The Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) called on Europe and America to take stronger measures against 'Islamophobia' in a report prepared for a summit of the group's 57 members in Dakar on Thursday and Friday. The report by a special OIC monitoring group said the organisation was struggling to get the West to understand that Islamophobia "has dangerous implications on global peace and security" and to convince western powers to do more. Islamic leaders...

Islam's Universal Blasphemy Fatwa By Andrew G. Bostom FrontPageMagazine.com | 2/25/2008 Early Tuesday morning (2/12/08) “three men with a Muslim background” were arrested by Danish police on anti-terrorism charges, suspected of having plotted to murder Kurt Westergaard, a cartoonist for Jyllands-Posten. Westergaard is one of the 12 cartoonists who on September 30, 2005 published cartoons of the Muslim prophet Muhammad to protest the tacit enforcement in Danish society of Islam’s taboo on depictions of Muhammad, no matter how banal, or inoffensive, through intimidation—a clear violation of Western freedom of expression. Upon learning of the arrests, Westergaard (noted for this cartoon)...

MUSLIM university students want lectures to be rescheduled to fit in with prayer timetables and separate male and female eating and recreational areas established on Australian campuses. International Muslim students, predominantly from Saudi Arabia, have asked universities in Melbourne to change class times so they can attend congregational prayers. They also want a female-only area for Muslim students to eat and relax. But at least one institution has rejected their demands, arguing that the university is secular and it does not want to set a precedent for requests granted in the name of religious beliefs. La Trobe University International chief...

A new sharia law controversy erupted last night over Government plans to issue special "Islamic bonds" to pay for Gordon Brown's public-spending programme by raising money from the Middle East. Britain is to become the first Western nation to issue bonds approved by Muslim clerics in line with sharia law, which bans conventional loans involving interest payments as "sinful". The scheme would mark one of the most significant economic advances of sharia law in the non-Muslim world. It will lead to the ownership of Government buildings and other assets currently belonging to British taxpayers being switched wholesale to wealthy Middle-Eastern...

Britain's Treasury is likely to back plans to issue Shariah law-compliant bonds, officials said Sunday - amid continuing debate about the application of Islamic laws in the country. Treasury Secretary Alistair Darling, who will present his annual budget March 12, plans to issue the Islamic bonds, known as sukuk, to tap into a fast-growing market in the products. "We want the City of London to be one of the gateways globally for Islamic financial products," a Treasury spokesman said, on customary condition of anonymity in line with policy. ...Shariah law prohibits charging or paying interest, which has led to the...

Disclaimer: This page is provided to inform visitors about candidates for public office who identify themselves as Muslim. It is in no way an endorsement of any candidate. AL - Yusuf Salaam - State Rep (Incumbent) CA - Bill Dalati - Anaheim City Council (Challenger) CA - Ferial Masry - State Rep (Incumbent) IL - Rifat ‘James’ Sivisoglu- DuPage County Board, District 1 (Challenger) IN - Andre Carson - US Representative (Challenger) IA - Ako Abdul-Samad - State Rep (Incumbent) MD - Saqib Ali - House of Delegates (Incumbent) MN - Keith Ellison - US Representative (Incumbent) MO - Talibdin...

A convert to Islam stands an election victory away from becoming the second Muslim elected to Congress and a role model for a faith community seeking to make its mark in national politics. Political newcomer Andre Carson is the Democratic nominee in a March 11 special election to succeed his late grandmother, Julia Carson, representing Indiana's 7th District. She died in December of lung cancer, and her grandson is seeking to fill out the rest of her sixth term, which expires at year's end. If Andre Carson wins the Democratic-leaning Indianapolis district over a freshman Republican legislator and a long...

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- The images in the Basra police file are nauseating: Page after page of women killed in brutal fashion -- some strangled to death, their faces disfigured; others beheaded. All bear signs of torture. The women are killed, police say, because they failed to wear a headscarf or because they ignored other "rules" that secretive fundamentalist groups want to enforce. "Fear, fear is always there," says 30-year-old Safana, an artist and university professor. "We don't know who to be afraid of. Maybe it's a friend or a student you teach. There is no break, no security. I...

Tension was rife in Kano following moves by the state’s sharia police against brothel, hotels and cafes situated in non-Muslim sections of the Sabon Gari area of the metropolis. The sharia police numbering about two hundred were seen at night patrolling in seven open vehicles that carried dangerous weapons including bows, arrows, sticks and cutlass. They attacked a civil service club at Magajin Rumfa Road, and all the hotels that are located in Sabon Gari, an area where most of its inhabitants are Christians. The Sharia Police, otherwise called, Hisbah Police, earlier turned down summons by the Kano State Police...

23-year old has been sentenced to death for downloading information about women's rights in Afghanistan. Journalist Pervez Kambaksh was reading about the role of women in Islamic socieites. But he was accused of blasphemy after he downloaded a report from a Farsi website which stated that Muslim fundamentalists who claimed the Koran justified the oppression of women had misrepresented the views of the prophet Mohamed. Yesterday the upper house of the Afghan parliament supported the sentence against the journalist, despite an international outcry over the harsh punishment for blasphemy. The UN has criticised the sentence and said the journalist did...

Malaysian authorities confiscated Christian children's books, claiming the illustrations of prophets such as Moses and Abraham violate Islamic Shariah law. The independent news agency Malaysakini reported the Internal Security Ministry confiscated the literature from bookstores in two cities and one small town in mid-December. The Malaysian Embassy declined to comment on the news service's Jan. 11 report. The Rev. Hermen Shastri, general secretary of the Malaysian Council of Churches, confirmed the report and accused the government of persecuting Christians. "The officials have offended the sensitivities of Christians because their publications and depictions of their Biblical personalities have now become targets...

Neil MacFarquahar of the New York Times artfully navigates politically sensitive waters with an article on the problem of wife-beating among Muslims in the United States. The general question, simply put, is how to admit a pattern of outrageous behavior by designated victim groups, without provoking a serious reaction of outrage. So the reportage is artfully constructed to imply that solution as well as the problem lie within Islam, and non-Muslims have a minor role, if any, to play. Thus, the article begins with insensitive Americans failing to accommodate the special needs of battered women who happen to be Muslim:...

Caribou Coffee Claim: An Islamic bank is the majority owner of the Caribou Coffee chain. Status: True Example: [Collected on the Internet, 2002] As you will see from the links below, Caribou Coffee is owned 87.8% by the First Islamic Investment Bank which, among other things has the following philosophy: "Above all, ensuring that all activities conform to Islamic Shari'ah" The chairman of their Shari'ah supervisory board is: Dr. Yusuf Abdullah Al-Qaradawi Chairman, Seerah & Sunnah Center, Qatar University; Professor, Faculty of Shari'ah, Qatar University. As you will see from the links below he is also on the supervisory board...

More than 100,000 people are expected to attend the world's largest Islamic Caliphate conference to be held in Jakarta on Sunday. According to Hizb ut-Tahrir, the pan-Islamist political party staging the conference, people will come from all over the world to hear speakers from England, Australia, Palestine, Japan and the Sudan. Abu Bakar Bashir, the controversial leader of Indonesia's Mujahiddin Council, who is committed to transforming Indonesia into an Islamic state will address the conference. He is the alleged spiritual leader of Jemaah Islamiyah jailed for his role in the 2002 Bali bombings. Considered by many to be the mastermind...

CAIRO (Reuters) - Egyptian police have detained two Egyptian Christians for their work on the Web site of a Christian Arab group based in Canada, police sources said on Thursday. Named as Adel Fawzi and Peter Ezzat, the two worked for the Middle East Christian Association, which has its headquarters in Ontario and has a Web site with the address www.m-e-c-a.com. Unnamed lawyers had complained to the prosecutor general that the organization and its Web site "insulted Islam and the prophet Mohammad on behalf of diaspora Copts," said one police source, who asked not to be named. It was not...

Pace University Koran Case - Unbelievably Outrageous I’ve received an email from Stanislav Shmulevich, who has been arrested in New York for putting a Koran in a toilet at Pace University. And his case is even more outrageous than we first reported. First, Shmulevich was arrested and jailed for 24 hours. Second, he’s not facing misdemeanor charges—he’s being charged with two felonies, criminal mischief and aggravated harassment. Felonies. For putting a book in a toilet. Third, his income is on a borderline that disqualifies him for a public defender, so he stands to suffer incredible financial hardship as well. Fourth,...

NEW YORK (AP) _ A 23-year-old man was arrested Friday on hate-crime charges after he threw a Quran in a toilet at Pace University on two separate occasions, police said. Stanislav Shmulevich of Brooklyn was arrested on charges of criminal mischief and aggravated harassment, both hate crimes, police said. It was unclear if he was a student at the school. A message left at the Shmulevich home was not immediately returned. The Islamic holy book was found in a toilet at Pace's lower Manhattan campus by a teacher on Oct. 13. A student discovered another book in a toilet on...

COLLEGE KORAN 'FLUSHER' COLLARED By PHILIP MESSING and HASANI GITTENS NYPost.com July 28, 2007 -- From Russia with . . . hate? Police yesterday arrested a Pace University student born in the former Soviet Union and charged him with a hate crime for allegedly clogging toilets with the Koran on two occasions last year. Business major Stanislav Shmulevich, 23, was collared at his Brooklyn home after cops confronted him with surveillance photos from the incidents last Oct. 13 and Nov. 21. In both cases, a teacher discovered a Koran in a second-floor toilet at 1 Pace Plaza in lower Manhattan.

The 10-month-old mystery of who threw the Koran into the toilets at Pace University's Manhattan campus was solved yesterday with the arrest of a student, cops said. Stanislav Shmulevich, 23, was confronted by detectives with a surveillance photo of himself leaving a Pace meditation room where the Muslim holy books were stored, police sources said. He made "admitting statements" after seeing the photograph, a source said. The suspect's roommate in Gravesend, Brooklyn, said she was stunned by the charges. "It's impossible. He was defending the Koran," said Ola Petrovich, 24, an online saleswoman. "We had that conversation. He said, 'Don't...

Radical Islam’s Goal is Global Conquest By Andrew G. Bostom FrontPageMagazine.com | July 2, 2007The largely failed (and/or thwarted) acts of jihad terrorism at the end of this past week in London and Glasgow show once again that the aim of the current Islamic crusade against the West is global in scope, is not about Iraq and is not a fringe development in Islam itself. What Samuel Huntington aptly termed “Islam’s bloody borders” around the globe—flow from the timeless logic of jihad. Franz Rosenthal, the late (d. 2002) Yale University scholar of Islam, who, 50 years ago, translated Ibn...

Like some secretive, sinister army they march on their target. With only eyes visible behind black burkhas, scores of women wielding bamboo poles descend on a police checkpoint in the Pakistan capital of Islamabad. Backed by armed male students, they snatched weapons and took four officials hostage, triggering a gun battle that left at least nine people dead and 140 wounded. As the bullets flew, many of the women took to rooftops to shout anti- Government slogans. Students set fire to two government offices and torched dozens of cars outside. There were even loudspeaker calls for suicide attacks on the...

Radical Islam's 'End-Game'http://www.cnsnews.com/news/viewstory.asp?Page=/Commentary/archive/200706/COM20070615b.htmlA friend of mine said recently, "We shouldn't even be there. Let them kill each other. I mean, that would solve the problem. Right?" I thought about that statement as I read the news coming out of the Gaza Strip. As Hamas and al-Fatah literally battle to the death for supremacy in their region, it is crucial that we take the time - right now - to understand what it is they're fighting about. The truth is our lives depend on it.To look at the situations in Iraq and Gaza as separate conflicts is to view them in...

JERUSALEM – Christians can continue living safely in the Gaza Strip only if they accept Islamic law, including a ban on alcohol and on women roaming publicly without proper head coverings, an Islamist militant leader in Gaza told WND in an exclusive interview. The militant leader said Christians in Gaza who engage in "missionary activity" will be "dealt with harshly." The threats come two days after a church and Christian school in Gaza was attacked following the seizure of power in the territory by the Hamas terror group. "I expect our Christian neighbors to understand the new Hamas rule means...

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip -- An Islamic group threatened to behead female TV broadcasters if they don't wear strict Islamic dress, frightening reporters and signaling a further shift toward extremism in the Gaza Strip. The threat to "cut throats from vein to vein" was delivered by the Swords of Truth, a fanatical group that has previously claimed responsibility for bombing Internet cafes and music shops. The new threat was the first time the organization targeted a specific group of people. In many parts of the Muslim world, conservative policies keep women out of TV anchor positions or dictate they wear...

Islamism, not Islam is the Problem By M. Zuhdi Jasser Most of the attention, scholarship, and punditry in the United States given towards Islam and Muslims since 9-11 have focused upon problems with comparatively little attention toward solutions. Understandably motivated by a need to improve security and understand the enemy, American curiosity about Islam, Islamism, and militant Islamism continues to grow. Yet, comparatively American Muslims have offered few solutions except for the few rare voices of Muslim moderation (anti-Islamism) across America, Canada, and Europe. At times there is only a binary choice in the public ether between the voices who...

STOCKHOLM, Sweden - A soccer game between Muslim imams and Christian priests at the end of a conference to promote interfaith dialogue was canceled Saturday because the teams could not agree on whether women priests should take part. Church of Norway spokesman Olav Fykse Tveit said the imams refused to play against a mixed-gender team of priests because it would have gone against their beliefs in avoiding close physical contact with strange women. The church decided to drop its female players and the priests' team captain walked out in protest. Hours before the game was to end the daylong "Shoulder...