London: MCB, parliamentarians discuss how to tackle Islamophobia ‘The formation of an All Party Parliamentary Group on Islamophobia would be a crucial step and one that would inspire confidence in Muslim communities’ The Muslim Council of Britain hosted a special closed-meeting to discuss the growing spate of attacks in all its forms against British Muslims on March 3rd at the Grand Committee Room of the House of Commons. The event entitled ‘Tackling Islamophobia: Reducing Street Violence Against British Muslims’ brought together distinguished Parliamentarians, academics, journalists, police, public servants, and community representatives who all endorsed calls for the establishment of an All-Party Parliamentary Committee on Islamophobia with a view to holding a parliamentary inquiry on Islamophobia in the UK

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EU: Human Rights Commissioner against burka ban Thomas Hammarberg, Commissioner for Human Rights for the Council of Europe writes that he’s against a burka or niqab ban.

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Shaykh Ebrahim I. Bham is born and raised in South Africa.

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Shaykh Ebrahim I. Bham is born and raised in South Africa. He has attained his masters in the Islamic sciences and theology under great traditional scholars.

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By Aarij A (Cross-posted from the True & Good Words blog) Bismillah. Introduction For students of Arabic, there are a lot of wonderful dictionaries and resources available online and in-print.

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A couple of weeks ago, I put in a request for Hijab Style readers to let me know what they thought of the current Islamic clothing industry, as part of a post I wanted to write about the topic. I am very grateful for everyone’s responses which can be found here ; they echoed a lot of my own thoughts and so it’s good to know I was on the right lines! The following is the result of personal research and reader’s opinions on today’s online modest and Islamic fashion options: The growing number of brands and websites catering to modest dressers from around the world is increasingly rapidly, and never before has there been so much choice available.

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Netherlands: Municipality project to have immigrants accept homosexuality The municipality of Zwolle is working on making homosexuality a discussable topic in immigrant circles.  The municipality is working together with COC Zwolle (gay integration org) and five religious orgazniations for immigrants. The aim is not for the muinciaplity to impose from above how the immigrant community will increase the discussability and acceptance.  The proposal by alderman Kenkhuis says that they should have their own movement.. and that this needs to happen patiently and carefully.  “Zwolle asks citizens to work together on living together”.

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Yemen: Norwegian citizen arrested on terrorism charges Update: There’s apparently an EU-wide push against the PKK. Ten Turks and one Italian nationals were arrested in Italy, on charges of recruiting and training PKK terrorists. ( EN ) ———— In other terrorism news, a Somali arrested in the Netherlands is fighting extradition to the US (h/t R., more here, Netherlands: American Somali arrested on terrorism charges ).

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Vienna: Experiences teaching a language-course Barbara Coudenhove-Kalergi, a well-known German journalist, writes about her experiences following a year of teaching German to headscarf-wearing women in Vienna. Coudenhove-Kalergi recounts numerous anecdotes, some humorous, some wistful, as she and her Muslim students gradually get to know one another better thanks to a program called “Mama’s learning German.” Though originally intended to be a language course, Coudenhove-Kalergi finds herself explaining the Christian origins of Christmas and taking her students, baby strollers and all, on a field trip to the famous St

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Frankfurt: Hospital removes crosses A German hospital removed twelve crosses, supposedly due to objections from Muslim patients, Christian German news agency Idea reported Tuesday. Workers in the Bad Soden hospital near Frankfurt took off the crosses from the wall in front of the patients and put them in trash bags, which led to criticism by patients

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