Free Republic

30,000 Norwegian Muslims could change membership to a new umbrella organization set up to replace the controversy-hit Islamsk Råd Norge (Islamic Council Norway, IRN). The purpose of the breakaway organization would be near-identical to that of IRN. “I see no other option than to set up a new organization,” Basim Ghozlan, trustee at the Rabita Mosque in Oslo, told Klassekampen. IRN’s employment of niqab-wearing Leyla Hasic as an administrative consultant has sparked extensive debate on the council’s role in promoting dialogue between Muslim communities and the rest of Norwegian society. Both the Bosnian and Albanian mosques in the capital have...

Norwegian Muslim umbrella organization Islamic Council Norway has been criticized for hiring a woman who wears the full face-covering niqab as a communications officer. Minister for Culture Linda Hofsted Helleland called the move “extremely ill-advised” and members of other parties have also voiced their concern about the appointment. The appointment of 32-year-old Leyla Hasic as an administrative consultant by Islamic Council Norway (Islamsk Råd Norge, IRN) comes soon after the Ministry of Culture (Kulturdepartementet) granted almost half a million kroner ($58 million) to help the organization with initiatives aimed at improving dialogue between Muslim communities and the rest of society,...

Three major German Muslim organizations have come together to establish a new umbrella organization to better coordinate and expand assistance to refugees. More than a million asylum seekers arrived in Germany last year. The Central Council of Muslims in Germany (ZMD), Islamic Council of Germany and Islamic Society of Shiite Communities announced the formation of the refugee aid umbrella group in an effort to coordinate and expand services to refugees. “The refugee situation presents all of us Muslims with great challenges. It is important and necessary to pool our forces in order to support newly arriving people in the best...

The US embassy in Oslo has issued a statement after Imam Zulqarnain Sakandar Madni, leader of Muslim imams in Norway, cast doubts on the existence of Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. The embassy statement said that while it was "normal and healthy to have disagreements", Sakandar Madni's suggestions that Sep. 11 was anything but a terrorist attack was simply incorrect, and "spreading false stories to protect terrorists is destructive". "The UN has listed Osama bin Laden as a terrorist and Al Qaeda as a terrorist organization, and the attacks on September 11 affected the whole world. We find it...

It is a rather surprising byproduct of the War on Terror: For the first time, a consensus seems to be emerging among Islamic authorities worldwide that Muslims in the West should participate in democratic politics. Before taking credit for this, President Bush might note that these authorities tend to favor votes for his opponent. But... Kerry's pleasure in that must be tempered by the awareness that those authorities favor him only because they are quite sure he will permit the undoing of Bush's work in Afghanistan and Iraq.... British Muslims have used that fatwa to inflict defeat on candidates from...