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Ali was raised in a strict Muslim family, but after surviving a civil war, genital mutilation, beatings and an arranged marriage, she renounced the faith in her 30s. ... Thomas Doherty, chairman of American studies, refused to sign the faculty letter. He said it would have been great for the university to honor "such a courageous fighter for human freedom and women's rights, who has put her life at risk for those values."

Gov. Terry Branstad today signed the annual Muslim Recognition Day proclamation at the Iowa Statehouse today at 11:30 AM. Representatives of several Muslim communities from around Iowa gathered under the rotunda to educate and share information about Islam and its presence in Iowa. Muslims served food and mingled in the statehouse beginning at noon.

Tuesday, April 08, 2014 Islam Is What Happens When Civilization Loses Posted by Daniel Greenfield @ the Sultan Knish blog Saudi Arabia and Qatar aren't talking to each other. Syria and Turkey are shooting at each other. Not only are the Shiites and Sunnis killing each other in Syria, but the Sunni groups have been killing each other for some time now. There are even two or three Al Qaedas fighting each other over which of them is the real Al Qaeda while, occasionally, denying that they are the real Al Qaeda. There's something about Syria that splits down everything...

BRIDGEPORT -- A Moroccan national who allegedly plotted to turn a radio-controlled model airplane into a drone-like flying bomb and crash it into a school and a Connecticut federal building was arrested Monday by FBI agents. Wires and tools were found in the High Ridge Drive apartment where El Mehdi Semlali Fahti, 27, had been living since January with an individual he met while incarcerated in Virginia, according to the FBI. It was not known if any explosives were found. Fahti told an undercover agent in five recorded conversations that he studied the bomb attack operation for months, and had...

In British law, race and religion are increasingly becoming deliberately confused for the purpose of accusing critics of Islam of racism. A soccer fan was recently arrested on suspicion of inciting racial hatred after allegedly ripping up pages of the Qur’an and throwing them at a match. While on bail, he was also banned from attending any football games, visiting St Andrew’s – the stadium of the incident -, and going to any city where his team Middlesbrough was playing.Insults against Islam are taken very seriously in Britain, and the world of soccer is particularly sensitive to them. After the...

GCSE and A-level examinations could be brought forward for hundreds of thousands of pupils to avoid a clash with Ramadan under controversial proposals. Teachers and lecturers in England and Wales are pushing for the summer exam timetable to be altered to help Muslim students who will be fasting when they sit papers. School exam boards and universities are considering the radical shake-up from 2016, when the religious period of Ramadan clashes with the exam season.

Jay-Z causes controversy by wearing gaudy medallion of 'Five Percent Nation' group who believe whites are 'wicked and weak' • The Brooklyn-born rapper wore a medallion representing the Five Percent Nation at a Nets game last week • One of the main tenets of the Nation of Islam offshoot is that white people are 'weak and wicked' and that black men hold the power of God • When asked if the medallion holds any importance to him, Jay-Z said: 'A little bit' • Jay-Z was spotted wearing the nation's symbol last year while giving radio interviews for his new album,...

On Tuesday 8 April at 10am Tim Burton’s trial at Birmingham Magistrates' Court will settle the question of whether the defendant, by calling Muslim Fiyaz Mujhal “a mendacious grievance-mongering taqiyya-artist” on Twitter, committed racially aggravated harassment, as he is accused of having done by the West Midlands Police. Mujhal was exposed by The Telegraph’s Andrew Gilligan for exaggerating the numbers and seriousness of “anti-Muslim attacks” following the Woolwich murder of soldier Lee Rigby, and had his organisation Tell MAMA’s public funding discontinued. Many of these “attacks” were in fact simple posts on Facebook and other social media, similar to...

Accused terrorist conspirator Khurram Sher knew his money was going to fund terrorism and far from being an innocent caught in a web of terrorist intrigue was an active participant. Sher, a 31-year-old Montreal-born pathologist, has pleaded not guilty to conspiring with two others to facilitate a terrorist conspiracy. Key to the case against Sher is a 70-minute conversation secretly recorded at an Ottawa apartment by RCMP anti-terrorist officers in July, 2010.

Friday the ACLU Foundation of Southern California (ACLU SoCal) sent a letter to Sheriff John Scott requesting an end to the Los Angeles Sheriff Department’s current practice of denying Muslim inmates access to congregational prayer.

BRITAIN FIRST CONFRONTS HATE PREACHERS IN LONDON The activists of the "Britain First Defence Force" confront hate preachers Anjem Choudary and Abu Izzadeen and their Muslim extremist horde in London. Bayswater Road, Lebanon Embassy, Friday 4th April 2014.

The Muslim Brotherhood front group, CAIR (the Council of American-Islamic Relations) is actively trying to deny us our right to free speech. Not only has CAIR ‘tweeted’ in opposition to our upcoming ‘Exposing the Muslim Brotherhood in the Heartland’ events next week (in Lincoln and Omaha, NE), with our guest, bestselling author and activist, Robert Spencer, they’ve also been able to wield their fear filled influence with the main stream media, who continues to deny exposure to these national security issues every time they have a chance. ... the Muslim Brotherhood has been outlawed in most Muslim countries, not because...

Nigeria’s leading prelate has briefed the German Bishops’ Conference on religion and violence in Nigeria, particularly the violence committed by members of the Islamist terrorist movement Boko Haram. “Beyond verbal tirades by some pastors, so far I am not aware of any violent groups claiming Christian inspiration,” said Cardinal John Onaiyekan of Abuja, according to a report by the Catholic News Service of Nigeria. “This seems to me to put a significant responsibility on our Islamic community to do more about ‘reining in their mad dogs,’” he added. “It is not immediately clear how much they are doing in this...

Within the context of keeping the Syrian jihad alive, it seems there is no end to the attempts of some Islamic clerics to legitimize otherwise forbidden behavior in order to gratify the sexual urges of the jihadis and keep them fighting Syrian president Bashar Assad. First, there was the now infamous “sex-jihad” fatwa, which holds that any Muslim woman who willingly allows her body to be used by the sexually-deprived jihadis becomes herself a jihadi, if not a “martyr,” deserving of all the honor and rewards associated with those titles. (Much has been written about the sex jihad, including videotaped...

Infiltration: Though the Fort Hood copycat shooter wasn't motivated by jihad, the FBI is hunting for another member of the Army, a Muslim convert allegedly planning a terrorist attack on U.S. bases. After a Muslim Army major in 2009 massacred 13 fellow soldiers at Fort Hood, Texas, the FBI and Pentagon opened more than 100 investigations into suspected Islamic extremists inside the military. At least a dozen showed a strong intent to attack military targets. These ongoing threats come on top of the 30 plots or attacks against military targets within the U.S. that law enforcement has disrupted or prosecuted...

Within the context of keeping the Syrian jihad alive, it seems there is no end to the attempts of some Islamic clerics to legitimize otherwise forbidden behavior in order to gratify the sexual urges of the jihadis and keep them fighting Syrian president Bashar Assad.

Muslim moms and dads in Dearborn, Mich. are upset after students received flyers promoting an Easter Egg hunt at a local Presbyterian church. The parents say the egg hunt "violates the U.S. Constitution".The Muslims told the Detroit Free-Press that they were concerned about the religious implications of Cherry Hill Presbyterian Church’s “Eggstravaganza!” They were also "troubled" by images of a bunny rabbit.

The liberal mainstream media has long portrayed the picture of moderate (good) Muslims versus extremist Muslims. This narrative has been institutionalized in the thinking of Western Muslim scholars who advocate for Islam as well. This has led to the thought that Islam is an ideology and religion of peace, because a majority of Muslims fall in the category of moderate or good Muslims. If we analyze this dichotomy in-depth, the reality of this phenomenon on the ideology of Islam can become clear. Besides analytical and theoretical frameworks, I will also draw on my own experience growing up in the Muslim...

KABUL, Afghanistan — A Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer for The Associated Press was killed and a reporter from the news agency was wounded by a police officer in eastern Afghanistan on Friday, officials said. Anja Niedringhaus, 48, a photographer who had covered numerous conflicts, and Kathy Gannon, 60, the reporter, were shot in Khost Province in eastern Afghanistan, where they had traveled to cover preparations for the country’s presidential election on Saturday. Both had spent many years covering the war in Afghanistan and knew the country well. Ms. Gannon, who was shot twice, was receiving treatment at a hospital in the...

CHARLESTON, West Virginia - Charleston police executed a search warrant on a downtown Charleston business Wednesday evening following an 8 month investigation. According to officers, it happened at the Middle East Mart, located by the Transit Mall around 6 p.m. Authorities told 13 News that undercover officers were made aware that the business had been receiving stolen property, as a result, the investigation was launched. Undercover officers had been selling employees at the business items that those employees believed were stolen. Those items were marked. During the raid of the business, officers located those stolen items, marijuana, and an undisclosed...