Word: islamics
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...secular alternative. "I believe in the importance of God and faith," he says. Such insistence that religion - any religion - should have a role in politics is echoing throughout Europe. After decades of rising secularism and declining church attendance, religion is now back on Europe's political agenda. Islamic terrorism and Turkey's hopes of entering the European Union have compelled politicians from Vienna to the Hague to declare their Christian identity; Pope Benedict XVI is making the war on secularism a defining feature of his papacy. France's presidential aspirant Nicolas Sarkozy suggested in a recent book that France might...
...advent of terrorism carried out in Islam's name - in Madrid, London and elsewhere - has deepened the rancor in the debate. Days after the most recent plot to blow up airliners over the Atlantic was uncovered by British intelligence, Muslim leaders used the renewed focus on their communities to call for further measures to make them feel at home. An open letter to the Prime Minister signed by 38 Muslim groups in Britain and six politicians even demanded that the government "change our foreign policy to show the world that we value the lives of civilians wherever they live...
During a speech in an academic setting two weeks ago, Benedict XVI said something that offended many people and made headlines around the world. By way of introducing a discourse on the tension between religion and reason, he quoted a 14th century Byzantine emperor who argued that Islam contained “evil and inhuman” elements. Muslims around the world objected to the quotation...
...Interesting how the pope apologizes here not for giving voice to the idea that Islam is evil but for the “reactions in some countries” to the controversial quotation. He acknowledges that the words “were considered offensive” by Muslims but he does not say that the words were, in fact, offensive. One would expect this type of apology from a politician, not from a spiritual leader who is supposed to possess more than an ounce of honesty and sincerity...
...tradition of banning names dates to the beginning of the Islamic Revolution in the early 1980s, when Iran's fundamentalist leaders sought to purge the country of both Western culture and its own Persian, pre-Islamic past. Religious extremists consider it unfortunate that Iranians used to be Zoroastrians, or that the ancient Persian empire achieved its greatest triumphs before Islam's arrival. To that end, they compiled a long list of forbidden names that included Zoroastrians gods and goddesses, commanders of ancient Persian armies, and other such tainted, best-forgotten figures. You were free to call your eight children...