This is Religion News Blog's news page on Islam. See our front page for more religion news.

A hardline Islamist group in Somalia is publicly whipping women for wearing bras they say violate Islam by constituting a “deception”, it was claimed yesterday.

Gunmen from al Shabaab have been rounding up any women with a “firm bust” and whipping them, say residents in the capital Mogadishu.

One woman said: “They first introduced a hard fabric which stands stiffly on women’s chests. They are now saying breasts should be firm naturally, or just flat.”

The group has also banned movies, football, musical ringtones and dancing at weddings.

The group’s hardline interpretation of Islamic law has shocked many Somalis, who are traditionally moderate Muslims.

Naturally Religion News Blog files these type of items under the category, ‘religious insanity.’
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Radical Muslim group Islam4UK has launched a campaign to impose sharia law on Britain, starting with a rally in London, according to a report.

The hate group — an offshoot of the banned Al-Mahajiroun extremist sect — says “we have had enough of democracy and man-made law and the depravity of the British culture.”

Tory MP Philip Davies replies, ““The simple solution is for these people to move to a country which already has sharia law.””

Meanwhile a spokesman for the Islamic Society of Britain said: “99.999 per cent of Muslims despise these people. This only serves to fuel racial ­tensions.”
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In Indonesia, a series of attacks on followers of the Ahmadiyah sect by fanatical Muslims — who consider the movement to be a cult of Islam — continues to draw criticism.

Alfred C. Stepan, director of the Center for the Study of Democracy, Toleration and Religion at Columbia University in New York, an expert in religion and democracy urging the government to exercise its authority when there are violations of human rights.
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Manila – An Irish Catholic priest abducted by unidentified gunmen in the southern Philippines appeared to be injured, a military commander said Wednesday.

Major General Ben Dolorfino said Columban missionary Michael Sinnott was seen by military informants ‘with blood on his head.’

Dolorfino said the military was coordinating with the separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) amid reports that the 78-year-old priest has been turned over to a commander of the rebel group.
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A Florida judge says he plans to order the teenager who ran away from Ohio to Florida because she feared physical harm for converting from Islam to Christianity sent back to Ohio.

The judge says Rifqa’s family must product legal documentation of their U.S. citizenship and proof she can continue her education in Ohio. [video]
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A mainly Muslim non-league French side said they could take on rivals consisting of gay players after all, four days after snubbing them in what the former on Saturday insisted was a “misunderstanding”.

Paris Foot Gay (PFG) were set to play fellow Creteil side Bebel, who are composed of mainly Muslim players last week but Bebel cried off a day beforehand, sending an email in which they regretted they could not honour the match as doing so was “against their principles”.
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There have been demonstrations by women students in Cairo after a leading cleric backed moves to ban the wearing of full women’s veils, known as the niqab, in classrooms or dormitories. The BBC’s Christian Fraser has been hearing both sides of the argument.
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MOSCOW, October 7 (RIA Novosti) – Italian lawmakers are set to consider a ban on the public wearing of Islamic burqas- clothing covering the entire face and body – by women, local media said.

Members of Italy’s second-largest Northern League party have drafted a bill amending the 1975 law that prohibits people from wearing clothing that makes their identification impossible.

Italian parliamentarians aim to extend the ban to garments “worn for reasons of religious affiliation.”
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A Canadian Muslim group wants the federal government to ban two kinds of garments, the burka and the niqab, worn by some women.

The Muslim Canadian Congress said the garments, which cover the face, have no basis in Islam.

The group’s spokesperson, Farzana Hassan, said the practice of wearing the burka and niqab is more rooted in Middle Eastern culture than in religious teachings. She added that there is nothing in the Qur’an that stipulates women must cover their faces.

She said the issue is one of public safety. “To cover your face is to conceal your identity,” she said.

The burka is a veil that generally covers the entire body, with only a mesh screen left to see through. The niqab covers virtually all of the face — with a slit generally left open for the eyes.

The proposed ban would not extend to the hijab, the head scarf that leaves the face uncovered.
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The global Muslim population stands at 1.57 billion, meaning that nearly 1 in 4 people in the world practice Islam, according to a report Wednesday billed as the most comprehensive of its kind.

These findings on the world Muslim population lay the foundation for a forthcoming study by the Pew Forum, scheduled to be released in 2010, that will estimate growth rates among Muslim populations worldwide and project Muslim populations into the future.
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Two controversial films about Radical Islam have aired around the world, but never in the United States until now.

A cable network plans to air the films despite the objections of North Texas Muslims who say the movies present a narrow view of their world. But does it? Watch an abridged version of one of the movies — The Third Jihad — right here. [video]
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Sabri Husibi, a former Muslim who is now an atheist, says he has been ostracized and threatened with death since publication of a Tulsa World article Saturday in which he was critical of Islam and all other religions.

One caller offered Husibi’s young Muslim wife $10,000 to leave him and return to her native Syria, he said.
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A Danish caricaturist is making his first tour of the United States since the 2005 publication of his cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad that provoked fury across the Muslim world, according to a Danish press freedom group that is promoting the trip.

Muslims throughout the world rioted in anger at the cartoon — and 11 eleven others — and the artist became the target of a terrorist plot.
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Several mayors of French towns faced with growing demands from Muslim residents say they fear a proposed ban on head-to-toe burqa and niqab veils could not be enforced and might even prompt more women to cover up.

All mayors said some Muslim residents were increasingly making religious demands on municipal services, such as halal school meals or women-only hours in pools.
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A leading Egyptian scholar has demanded that people caught importing a female virginity-faking device into the country should face the death penalty.

Abdul Mouti Bayoumi said supplying the item was akin to spreading vice in society, a crime punishable by death in Islamic Sharia law.
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If wearing a burqa prevents a woman from getting a job she should also not expect to receive benefits.

So says Amsterdam mayor Job Cohen in an interview with Dutch-language newspaper Trouw.

He is not calling for a ban on the burqa.
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Islamic leaders in Australia are working to break down misconceptions about dogs after a spate of complaints that Muslim cab drivers are banning guide dogs.

Guide Dogs Queensland (GDQ) threw open its doors to a group of clerics from the Imam Council of Queensland (ICQ) in Brisbane, in an Australian and possibly world first to promote the value of dogs to vision-impaired Muslims.
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The legal battle over teen runaway Fathima Rifqa Bary continues. The Ohio teenager fled to Florida fearing an “honor killing” for converting from Islam to Christianity.

Rifqa’s father has filed a criminal complaint against the Orlando pastors who helped shelter Rifqa for more than two weeks before the state intervened.
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Iranian police have warned shopkeepers not to display female mannequins without a hijab, or showing bodily curves, Irna news agency reports.

Display of bow ties and neckties, and the sale of women’s underwear by men are also banned, the police said.

“Un-Islamic behaviour” has been targeted since President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s first election in 2005.
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Islamic militants have shot and killed a long-time underground Christian in Somalia after finding Bibles in his possession.

The man arried 25 Somali Bibles he hoped to deliver to an underground congregation, Christians said.
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One of the most powerful figures in the Anglican Church believes that Africa is under attack from Islam and that Muslims are “mass-producing” children to take over communities on the continent.

Archbishop Nicholas Okoh, 56, was elected Primate of Nigeria last week and his elevation could exacerbate tensions at a time when Anglicans are working to build bridges with Muslims, The Times writes.

“They come to Africans and say, ‘Christianity is asking you to marry only one wife. We will give you four!’ ” Archbishop Okoh described this as “evangelism by mass-production”.

He said: “That is the type of evangelism they are doing: mass-production, so if you have four wives, four children, sixteen children, very soon you will be a village.”
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The Swiss-born thinker, who was denied a visa to teach in the U.S., says he is a reformist interested in a ‘post-integration discourse’ to explore the ways Muslims in the West can contribute.

Liberal Muslim or closet fundamentalist? Peaceful intellectual or militant in sheep’s clothing?

Tariq Ramadan has been called all these things — and more — by his friends and foes. Whatever the truth, the Swiss-born Oxford University professor ranks among the most influential thinkers in the Muslim world, the Los Angeles Times reports.
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In most Islamic countries, gay men and women are ostracized, persecuted and in some cases even murdered. Repressive regimes are often fanning the flames of hatred in a bid to outdo Islamists when it comes to spreading “moral panic.”

More than 30 Islamic countries have laws on the books that prohibit homosexuality and make it a criminal offense.
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A man accused of beheading his wife at the Muslim-American television station they founded is likely to pursue a psychiatric defense in the murder case.

Muzzammil Hassan is the founder of Bridges TV — an Islamic television station in upstate New York aimed at countering Muslim stereotypes.

Hassan was charged with second-degree murder after police found the decapitated body of his wife, Aasiya Hassan.
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Tensions remained high Thursday, September 17, in Pakistan’s Punjab province after police dispersed angry crowds protesting against the death of a young Christian prisoner, who was held for allegedly desecrating the Koran, viewed as a holy book by Muslims.

The National Commission for Justice and Peace (NCJP), a Catholic-led advocacy group, called the man’s an “extra-judicial murder” and demanded an investigation, Pakistan media reported.
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1. Michael Jackson Confirms Conversion to Islam
2. Muslim Woman Gives Sex Advice on Arab TV
3. Cartoons editor sent on leave
4. Salman Rushdie is not the problem. Muslims are.
5. Barack Obama's Background Crosses Religious Boundaries
6. Netherlands Islamic community to hit 1 million in 2006
7. Ex-Muslim turns her lens on a taboo
8. John Hagee warns against radical Islam
9. Women protest Sheikh's comments with bikini march
10. The veil is banned in UK hospitals

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