News - Khutbah Khaos

Marvel Comics makes history with female Muslim superhero

11/6/2013

Wednesday 6 Nov 2013 11:32 am

The first issue of the new monthly Ms Marvel (Picture: AP)

Marvel Comics has rebooted a 1970s superhero as a 16-year-old Muslim girl.

Ms Marvel – thought to be the first series protagonist who is female and from an Islamic background – is to be reintroduced as Kamala Khan, the teenage daughter of Pakistani immigrants who live in Jersey City.

Kamala, whose powers enable her to grow and shrink her limbs and body, is part of Marvel’s drive to reflect the diversity of its readers.

Saudi Arabia turns down UN Security Council seat

10/18/2013

18 October 2013 Last updated at 10:46 ET

Saudi Arabia would have been one of 10 new non-permanent members of the UN Security Council serving for two years

Saudi Arabia has turned down a non-permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council, accusing the world body of "double standards".

Malaysian court bans use of 'Allah' by non-Muslims

10/16/2013

October 14, 2013 11:00AM ET

Ban on widely used Arabic word for 'God' underlines religious tensions in Southeast Asian nation

Malay Muslim students

A Malaysian appeals court on Monday upheld a government ban against the use of the word "Allah" to refer to non-Muslim faiths' God, rejecting claims by Christians in the Muslim-majority nation that the restriction violates their religious rights.

Palestinians held over girl shot in W Bank settlement

10/9/2013

9 October 2013 Last updated at 10:25 ET

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned the "hateful attack"

Two Palestinian men have been arrested in connection with the shooting of a nine-year-old girl in a Jewish settlement in the West Bank.

Iranians mock Netanyahu over jeans comment

10/7/2013

7 October 2013 Last updated at 14:41 ET

Jeans are readily available in Tajrish Bazaar in Tehran

Iranians have used social media to mock Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, after he suggested they were not allowed to wear jeans.

Tenn. Man Says Daughter's Teacher Promoted 'Islamic Tolerance'

9/25/2013

Sept. 25, 2013
By ALEXIS SHAW » via Good Morning America

A Tennessee school district has cancelled some field trips to religious venues after a parent complained that a teacher was pushing "Islamic tolerance" on students.

Mike Conner, 46, of Hendersonville, Tenn., told ABC News that he felt his 14-year-old step daughter's teacher was intentionally giving Islam a greater emphasis than other religions in her Honors World Studies curriculum. The popular elective at the suburban Nashville school with 1,500 students examines five major world religions but only schedules field trips to two houses of worship – a mosque and a Hindu temple.

NYPD Designates Mosques as Terrorist Organizations

8/29/2013

NEW YORK August 28, 2013 (AP)
By ADAM GOLDMAN and MATT APUZZO Associated Press

The New York Police Department has secretly labeled entire mosques as terrorist organizations, a designation that allows police to use informants to record sermons and spy on imams, often without specific evidence of criminal wrongdoing.

Designating an entire mosque as a terrorism enterprise means that anyone who attends prayer services there is a potential subject of an investigation and fair game for surveillance.

Since the 9/11 attacks, the NYPD has opened at least a dozen "terrorism enterprise investigations" into mosques, according to interviews and confidential police documents. The TEI, as it is known, is a police tool intended to help investigate terrorist cells and the like.

Swedish women don headscarves after assault on Muslim

8/19/2013

19 August 2013 Last updated at 18:06 ET

Swedish women have been posting photos of themselves in traditional Muslim headscarves in solidarity with a woman attacked apparently for wearing a veil.

Among the protesters from various faiths were politicians and TV hosts.

The "hijab outcry" campaigners urged the government to "ensure that Swedish Muslim women are guaranteed the right to... religious freedom".

The campaigners say hate crimes against Muslims in Sweden are on the rise

Pakistan Quetta suicide bomber kills at least 28 people

8/8/2013

8 August 2013 Last updated at 09:56 ET

A suicide bombing at a funeral for a policeman in south-western Pakistan has killed at least 28 people including a senior police officer, police say.

They say that the blast in Quetta, capital of Balochistan, also wounded at least 50 people.

Quetta police chief Mir Zubair Mehmood told the AP news agency that the bomber detonated his explosives just before the funeral service was about to start.

No-one has claimed responsibility for the attack.

However suspicion is likely to fall on the Taliban who have in the past carried out numerous suicide bombings in Balochistan.

The province is plagued not just by the Taliban's insurgency, but also by sectarian in-fighting between Sunnis and Shias and a rebellion by Baloch separatists.

On Tuesday separatist gunmen killed at least 13 bus passengers near Quetta.

Correspondents say the latest bombing marks the culmination of a bloody Ramadan in Pakistan, with more than 90 people killed in at least 11 attacks during the month.

Reza Aslan and the Fox News Zealot

7/29/2013

Posted: 07/29/2013 1:56 pm

Author and academic Reza Aslan, whose work I've linked to a handful of times on my site, has a new book out entitled Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth, chronicling his research into the real life of Jesus, separate from the religious construct that's revered in different ways by the Christian and Muslim faiths. Now, what's interesting about this book is that his conjectures about Jesus are just as likely to be discomfiting to Muslims as they are to Christians, but that hasn't stopped certain vested interests from proclaiming that Aslan's work represents some kind of a shadowy attempt to blaspheme Christ by a Muslim who has no right to even mention his name.