London: Youth jail inmates converting to Islam for protection, easier lifestyle Via the Daily Mail : A third of inmates at one of Britain’s most notorious youth jails are Muslims and the religion is attracting a large number of converts. (…) ‘The popularity of the faith has surprised people. We are seeing a large number of inmates converting to Islam.’ He added: ‘There is a difference between mainstream believers and extremists, but the fear is that some in the jail are being radicalised.

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Germany: Muslim car-pool service Via TAZ (German, h/t Snaphanen ) Selim Reid (24) is the founder of MuslimTAXI, a Muslim ride-sharing service.

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France: Le Pen slams Qatar for investing in French ‘Muslim’ suburbs Via AFP : Far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen on Friday lashed out at Qatar for investing in “Muslim” areas of French cities and for taking over Paris Saint-Germain football club. “The massive investments which it has made in suburbs are made because of the very high proportion of Muslims who are in the French suburbs,” she told reporters. “I think this situation could be very dangerous,” she said.

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By Camilla Morrison In the early days of Islam, a few companions of the Prophet were fleeing persecution in Mecca and sought refuge in Abyssinia.

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KU Leuven: No exams on religious holidays Via VRT : Leuven University has decided to allow students to move the date of their exam if this conflicts with a holiday in their religion. The university has now drawn up a list of holidays that qualify.

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Finland: Police called in to settle Islamic teaching dispute Via the Tundra Tabloids : The State Police (SUPO) was involved in a dispute during the autumn in a school in Tampere concerning a controversy which arose between the teacher and the parents of children over the Islamic religious education that they were receiving. The situation came to a head when according to Muslim representatives the teacher was not teaching their religion properly nor cared about the values​​ of the Koran. ( source )

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Brussels: Plans for first Muslim retirement home Via HLN (Dutch): Muslim theologian Abdelkader Dahmichi intends to open the first Muslim retirement home. The private home will be open for everyone and could be open in 2014, possibly in Molenbeek, according to a report in La Capitale. Dahmichi is concerned about the situation of elderly Muslims.

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UK: “They’re Somalian Muslims and alcohol or drugs isn’t something they’re used to” The quote is from the girls’ lawyer. According to the article, the judge didn’t actually say that was a mitigating circumstance.

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Norway: Muslim colleagues pressured to drink Via Vårt Land (Norwegian): The experience of Muslim employees is that Norwegians don’t accept abstaining from alcohol for religious reasons. Counselors at the Advisory Center for issues related to alcohol, drugs and addictive gambling in the workplace (AKAN) spoke with employees who said that there are basically only two acceptable reasons for abstaining from alcohol when meeting with colleagues: being pregnant or driving. “We Norwegians don’t accept temperance for religious convictions

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UK: Study of representation of Muslims in the press Via ENGAGE (h/t The LibertyPhile ): Academics at Lancaster University have completed an ESRC financed research project on ‘The representation of Muslims in the British press 1998-2009′. The researchers analysed over 200,000 media articles written on Islam and Muslim over the eleven year period.

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