A struggle is underway for the heart and soul of Islam. Moderate Muslims need to engage in the contest to ensure their view of Islam is the one that prevails.
Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, as self-declared caliph, seeks to exploit the historical resonance of the caliphate for a brutal present-day cause.
EPA/Furqan Media
The Caliphate has inspired disputes among Muslims for centuries, but attempts at revival in modern times are unlikely to succeed. Most of the world’s Muslims would not accept its authority over them.
Will the dollar prove a draw for Islamic investors?
Reuters
Financial assets compliant with sharia are growing at a much faster pace than the conventional kind, yet North American banks are still stuck on the sidelines.
Praying before an IS banner in a Mosul Mosque.
EPA/STR
In the late summer of 2014, the international community watched helplessly as Islamic State (IS) unleashed widespread human rights abuses against civilians across Syria and Iraq, with little standing in…
Islamic dietary law requires that certain methods be used when preparing meat, such as that a Muslim be the one butchering the animal.
Reuters
For many Muslims, adherence to Islamic dietary laws, known as halal, is an intrinsic part of their everyday lives. Even those who are relatively lax with other rituals of the faith tend to adhere to halal…
Ever since arriving in Canberra in July, Senator Jacqui Lambie has had the media in a spin.
AAP Image/Alan Porritt
If a movie is ever made about the life of the well-known PUP senator from Tasmania, we can be sure it won’t be titled “Silence of the Lambie”. After a little over two months in public life, quiet and stillness…
A handwritten Qur'an in Lahore Museum, Pakistan.
Usman Ahmed/Flickr
Islam, like Judaism, is a religion of law. The usual Arabic word for Islamic law is sharia (pronounced shar-ee-ah), originally the track leading to a waterhole in the desert. For Muslims, the morally good…
Imagine being a young Muslim in the UK today. You are committed to your religious belief – which tells you that lending money at interest is forbidden in Islam – but you want to further your education…
Sudanese protesters against the al-Bashir regime.
EPA/Marwan Ali
The case of Meriam Ibrahim, a pregnant woman sentenced to death for apostasy by a Khartoum court, has rightly refocused international attention on the dire state of human rights in Sudan. Ibrahim’s prosecution…
Two women wearing niqabs in France. The traditional Islamic garment has caused controversy in the UK after a judge forced a woman to remove hers to give evidence in court.
EPA/Ian Langsdon
The rights and wrongs of women wearing niqabs to give evidence have been the subject of an English court decision and much social and media debate recently. Over the past few years, the issue has also…
Word of god: the Qur'an is the source of much of the Sharia..
Crystalina via Creative Commons
As Iranians go to the polls to elect a new president, new research suggests they have misgivings about the role of religious figures in the government of the country. But, as the US-based Pew Research…