Word: islamic
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Magdi Allam is Italy's answer to Ayaan Hirsan Ali, the Somalian-born Dutch writer and politician forced to live under police protection for her repeatedly stark public criticism of Islam. Like Hirsan Ali, the Egyptian-born Allam was raised in a Muslim family, before emigrating as a teenager to Europe, where he eventually became famous for railing against what he sees as fundamental flaws in his native religion. The Rome-based journalist has faced repeated death threats from Islamic radicals, and travels to speaking engagements in Italy and abroad with an armed security detail. Needless to say, neither Allam...
...convert to Christianity. And now, Allam has himself become a Roman Catholic, converting in a baptism rite inside St. Peter's Basilica, a ceremony conducted by no less than Pope Benedict XVI. Allam has held a unique public role as the most prominent Muslim commentator - and critic of Islam - right in the Vatican's backyard. Church officials may be pleased that Allam has so publicly joined the Catholic flock, but he is unlikely to become any kind of mediator in the Vatican's attempts to start a dialogue with Islam...
...Radical Muslims become bombers, Sageman argues, when the causes of their anger - the Israeli occupation of Palestine, the U.S. invasion of Iraq - come to be perceived as part of a general war against Islam. The feeling of being under attack may be amplified by personal experience of discrimination, and then validated by exchanges with like-minded friends, family members and Internet users, before being converted into action by "al-Qaeda." Not, as Sageman puts it, "al-Qaeda Central" (made up of those who have sworn an oath of loyalty to Osama bin Laden), but al-Qaeda the informal network, mobilizing...
Radical Muslims become bombers, Sageman argues, when the causes of their anger--the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land, the U.S. invasion of Iraq--come to be perceived as part of a wholesale war against Islam. This feeling of being under attack may be amplified by personal experience of discrimination and then validated by exchanges with like-minded friends, family members and Internet users before being converted into action by "al-Qaeda." Not, as Sageman puts it, "al-Qaeda Central" (made up of those who have sworn an oath of loyalty to Osama bin Laden) but al-Qaeda the informal network...
...Among fellow Buddhists, the Dalai Lama delivers complex, analytical talks and wrestles with doctrinal issues within a philosophy that can be just as divided as anything in Christianity or Islam, but he has decided after analytical research that when he finds himself out in the wider world talking to large audiences of people with no interest in Buddhism, the most practical course is just to offer, as a doctor would, simple, everyday principles that anyone, regardless of religion (or lack of same), might find helpful. Since material wealth cannot help us if we're heartbroken, he often says...