Free Republic

The Washington, D.C. Office of Human Rights is investigating the Catholic University of America. The Tower, a student newspaper at the university, says the charges allege the school does not provide Muslim students with places to hold frequent prayer services free of crosses or other Catholic symbols. John F. Banzhaf III, a George Washington University Professor of Public Interest Law, ade the complaint to the human rights agency. In a news release Banzhaf alleges: "It is alleged that CUA does not provide space -- as other universities do -- for the many daily prayers Muslim students must make, forcing them...

Saudi Arabia's controversial Islamist and preacher, Sheikh Awad al Qarni, offered a bounty of $100,000 for the kidnapping of any IDF in 'Palestine' who can be used as leverage to force Israel to release more terrorists from its prisons. Qarni said on his Facebook page, "This award is in response to the allocation of funds to settlers who kill Palestinians prisoners released." Qarni claimed his initiative, highly praised by many in Saudi Arabia, was a response to reports in Israel's media that funds had been allocated by 'settlers' to kill terrorist Mustafa Muslimani, who was released under the deal for...

Why Islam is in as much trouble as the WestDenyse O’LearyMonday, 24 October 2011 David P. Goldman, who blogs at the Asia Times as “Spengler,” has written an insightful book challenging the truisms of the commentariat on both the rise of Islam and the decline of the West: How Civilizations Die: (and why Islam is dying too)History buffs will recognize that the pen name Spengler honours Oswald Spengler (1880-1936), author of Decline of the West. Goldman’s initial observations about the decline are most helpful but not unprecedented. From a much less religion-friendly perspective, American demographer Phillip Longman has been saying...

Libya’s transitional government, established as a result of President Obama’s intervention, announced its first rulings Sunday following the death of deposed dictator Moammar Gadhafi. They include reestablishing polygamy for men and banning Western-style interest on bank loans. Both provisions are features of Sharia, or Islamic law; Mohammed, Islam’s founder, introduced both some 1,400 years ago. On Sunday, Mustafa Abdul-Jalil abruptly announced that Islamic law, or Sharia, would provide the “basic source” of Libyan law. “This revolution was looked after by Allah to achieve victory,” Abdul-Jalil, the leader of the Transitional National Council, said to a celebratory crowd in Benghazi. Libyans...

CAIRO — An Egyptian court sentenced a man to three years in jail with hard labour on Saturday for insulting Islam in postings on Facebook, the official MENA news agency reported. The Cairo court found that Ayman Yusef Mansur "intentionally insulted the dignity of the Islamic religion and attacked it with insults and ridicule on Facebook," the agency reported. The court said his insults were "aimed at the Noble Koran, the true Islamic religion, the Prophet of Islam and his family and Muslims, in a scurrilous manner," the agency reported. It did not provide details on what he had written...

A conservative media watchdog organization says left-wing billionaire George Soros is funding a course that teaches journalists how to downplay the negative aspects of Islam. The three-hour online course called "Covering Islam in America" is a project of The Poynter Institute, which claims the program is designed to "give a broad explanation of the religious, social, political, and geographical facts about Islam today." That organization has partnered with the Social Science Research Council and Washington State University to strengthen "accurate" reporting and to enhance "the ability of the media to fairly report on a range of pressing issues." But Dan...

(Reuters) - U.S. officials have met members of the Muslim Brotherhood's political party, a U.S. diplomat said, after Washington announced it would have direct contacts with Egypt's biggest Islamist group whose role has grown since U.S. ally Hosni Mubarak was ousted.

For once we’re all in agreement this guy was a terrorist. But a reminder is in order of just who Awlaki was not so long ago. Just before the 9/11 attacks, he was the imam of the large Falls Church mosque in northern Virginia. He was the Muslim chaplain at George Washington University. The New York Times reported that, a few weeks before 9/11, Awlaki preached a sermon in the U.S. Capitol. After the 9/11 attacks, Awlaki was widely believed to be a moderate. He was first imam to pray at the U.S. Capitol with the Congressional Muslim Staff Association...

Election 2012: Hispanics, blacks and others among President Obama’s base may be abandoning him, but Muslims are holding fast. Apparently, theirs is a special bond born of shared interests. When Barack Hussein Obama first stepped into office in January 2009, he had 92% approval among blacks, 75% approval among Hispanics and 58% approval among whites, according to Gallup. Since then, his monthly approval has dropped eight points among blacks, 27 points among Hispanics and 25 points among whites. Blacks are frustrated with Obama's failure to create jobs in a recession that has hit African-Americans hardest. Discord is so bad that...

A father's complaint that his daughter's homework promotes the Muslim faith could lead to a lesson change in Cobb County. Channel 2's Tom Regan talked to the father who showed him where his daughter’s homework which said there's nothing wrong with having multiple wives...

A court in Saudi Arabia has sentenced a woman to 10 lashes for breaking the country's ban on female drivers.

An Islamic cultural centre close to the site where New York's World Trade Center once stood has opened quietly in spite of scenes last year of vehement protests from those who said the area should not house a mosque. The opening ceremony for the Park51 centre on Wednesday featured a photo exhibit called "NYChildren", displaying over 160 portraits of immigrant children living in New York. Sharif El-Gamal, the center's developer, said the biggest error on the project was not involving the families of 9/11 victims from the start. "We made incredible mistakes," El-Gamal told The Associated Press in an earlier...

UPDATE: The Georgia school teaching Islamic misogyny is a positive light is scrubbing the links from the web (like they did with the Rick Perry curriculum.) Here is the lesson that was taken down. Here is the cache. Page not found_1317048602078 The Georgia lesson plan for children I reported on here, s hosted on a public school district's official website. http://schoolwires.henry.k12.ga.us/437720430143529100/lib/437720430143529100/My_Name_is_Ahlima.pdf has been removed. If you see something, screen grab it.

Women are to be allowed to vote in Saudi Arabia. K ing Abdullah bin Abdulaziz announced the change yesterday and also said women would be allowed to run in elections. However, the new law will not come into force until 2015. In a speech, the king said the move was in accordance with sharia law.

ABBOTTABAD: It may have been a mere misplaced dot that led to accusations of blasphemy against a Christian eighth-grader, whose miniscule error led to her expulsion from school and uproar amongst local religious leaders. Faryal Bhatti, a student at the Sir Syed Girls High School in Pakistan Ordnance Factories (POF) colony Havelian, erroneously misspelt a word in an Urdu exam while answering a question on a poem written in praise of the Holy Prophet (PBUH). The word in question was ‘laanat’ instead of ‘naat’ – an easy error for a child to make, as the written versions of the words...

Thousands of Muslims gathered in London on Saturday at a rally "to fight extremism and promote a moderate, inclusive version of Islam." The event's organizers, Minhaj-ul-Quran International, said prior to the event that some 12,000 Muslims are expected at Wembley Arena. The group's founder, Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri, told journalists that killing innocents is forbidden in Islam and Muslims must integrate into the societies in which they are living.

September 21 at 6:30 PM, the Ground Zero Mosque will open its doors to show a photo exhibit in its community space. Park51 is hoping to discourage its opponents by declaring an early victory in spite of its recent embarrassments and setbacks. This grand opening does not mean that the fight is over. The project still has a long way to go until completion.

Canada is almost a liberal utopia with socialized medicine, oppressive gun control, no death penalty and gay marriage. Of course I have to qualify the utopian potential of our neighbor to the north with “almost” because Canada also has a state religion. And Canada may be leading the way for all western nations as they seriously consider de-criminalizing the practice of polygamy. It couldn’t happen to a nicer country. It seems there’s a Mormon fella in Bountiful named Winston Blackmore, who has 19 wives and more than 100 children. Oh yes, that’s Bountiful, British Columbia, not our beloved Top of...

<p>JOHNSTOWN, Pa. — A western Pennsylvania school district has decided not to stage a Tony Award-winning musical about a Muslim street poet after members of the community complained about the play on the heels of the 10th anniversary of the September 11 attacks.</p>

Many readers of the New York Times no doubt believe that Pope Pius XII was "Hitler's Pope." John Cornwell's bestselling book told them that, and it's been reaffirmed by Garry Wills, Daniel Goldhagen and other writers since. It's been said so often in fact that most well-read liberals know it for a certainty. The only trouble is: it isn't true. Not only does it contradict the words of Holocaust survivors, the founders of Israel, and the contemporary record of the New York Times, but even John Cornwell, the originator of the phrase "Hitler's pope," has recanted it saying that he...