Anglican Mainstream

By Ed West, Telegraph

By Rich Trzupek, Front Page Magazine

By Michael Cook, MercatorNet

The mosque in Manhattan should be moved further away from Ground Zero, but not because of enmity toward Islam.

[.....]  Today, in most Western countries, the concept of reverence for the sacred is often dismissed or ridiculed or simply viewed with perplexity. But even a secularised sense of the sacred is a tenuous link to transcendence and an important element in forging a personal and national identity.

To take a non-political example, would Walmart ever build a mall and parking lot in Yellowstone? Will California ever sell off Redwood National Park to timber companies to balance its budget? Such proposals somehow violate places revered for their awe-inspiring beauty. Or if Mr Rauf somehow managed to shift his centre to the battlefield of Gettysburg, would the ensuing protests be due to hatred of Islam or to outrage at the violation of this hallowed ground?

And for Americans Ground Zero has been hallowed by senseless deaths, heroic sacrifice, national humiliation and an outpouring of grief.

It is hard to find words to explain why a plot of ground should be revered for memories like these. That is what poets are for. But part of being human is to be connected to places and spaces and memories. Analysing the conflict in terms of constitutional rights is utterly inadequate. Something more ancient is at work which disappears in sterile political battles over rights.

It is not pandering to prejudice to recognise that America, like other societies with a long and deep history, now has its own taboos which ought to be respected even if they are legally indefensible.

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From Inside Catholic

By Nichole Hungerford, FrontPage Magazine

A’isha (Allah be pleased with her) reported that Allah’s Apostle (may peace be upon him) married her when she was seven years old, and he was taken to his house as a bride when she was nine, and her dolls were with her; and when he (the Holy Prophet) died she was eighteen years old. (Sahih Muslim, Book 008, Number 3311)

Some of Yemen’s most influential Islamic leaders…have declared supporters of a ban on child brides to be apostates. 

by Eric Werner, OneNewsNow

WASHINGTON – After skirting the controversy for weeks, President Barack Obama is weighing in forcefully on the mosque near ground zero, saying a nation built on religious freedom must allow it.

By Mark D Tooley, FrontPage Magazine

As Catholic, evangelical, mainline Protestant, Jewish and Muslim leaders and scholars committed to religious freedom and inter-religious cooperation, we are deeply troubled by the xenophobia and religious bigotry that has characterized some of the opposition to a proposed Islamic center and mosque near where the World Trade Center towers once stood.

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By Chad Groening, OneNewsNow

A Christian law firm is elated about a bombshell report revealing that the developers of the controversial "Ground Zero" mosque only own half of the site where the structure is supposed to be built.

The New York Post broke the story on Sunday that the proposed mosque site on Park Place actually comprises two buildings that were connected years ago when the common walls taken down in order to house a Burlington Coat Factory Store.

According to the report, one of the two buildings is actually owned by Con Edison and has been leased to the owner of the other building where the mosque is going to be housed. The Post reports that the public utility company is in the process of having their building appraised in order to sell it to Soho properties in order to move forward with the $100-million project.

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By Adrian Blomfield and Martin Beckford, Telegraph

For more than a century, a point on the top of a hill in south-east London has been recognised as the centre of world time and the official starting point of each new day.

But now the supremacy of Greenwich Mean Time is being challenged by a gargantuan new clock being built in Mecca, by which the world’s 1.5 billion Muslims could soon be setting their watches.

Due to start ticking on Thursday as the faithful begin fasting during the month of Ramadan, the timepiece sits atop the Royal Mecca Clock Tower which dominates Islam’s holiest city.

It is at the heart of a vast complex funded by the Saudi government that will also house hotels, shopping malls and conference halls.

Bearing a striking resemblance to both St Stephen’s Tower, which houses the bell of Big Ben, and the Empire State Building, the Saudi upstart aims to outdo its revered British rival in every way.

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From OneNewsNow

Taliban terrorists have declared they shot and killed a team of missionaries, including six Americans, because they were 'preaching Christianity.'

Ten members of a medical team, including six Americans, were shot and killed by the Islamic terrorists as they were returning from providing eye treatment and other health care in remote villages of northern Afghanistan, a spokesman for the team said Saturday.

Dirk Frans, director of the International Assistance Mission, said one German, one Briton and two Afghans also were a part of the team that made the two-week trip to Nuristan province. They drove to the province, left their vehicles and hiked for hours over mountainous terrain to reach the Parun valley in the province's northwest.

 Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid told The Associated Press in Pakistan that they killed the foreigners because they were "spying for the Americans" and "preaching Christianity."

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By William Kilpatrick, FrontPage Magazine

[.....] It seems that quite a number of Christian churches are now involved in “outreach” programs with local mosques. The typical outreach is for a church to invite an Islamic leader to come in and explain Islam to the congregation. Naturally, the imams present Islam as a religion of peace and love. And naturally in their desire to appear loving and accepting, the Christians lap it up. The imams know how to press all the “tolerance,” “outreach,” and “respect” buttons, and the result is that the Christians end up thinking Islam is just another nice, brotherly religion like their own. As a result, they can probably be counted on not to oppose the building of a local mosque, or for that matter not to oppose any Muslim agenda or initiative. Islamic leaders have done a good job of framing their grievances as civil rights issues, and this, of course, has great appeal to the many Christians who see the pursuit of social justice as their main mission. Mentally, many Christians still live in the days of “We Shall Overcome” and lunch counter sit-ins. They think that in supporting and defending Islam they are like the Christians in the sixties who linked arms with civil rights marchers, and sang hymns together.

Lately, Muslim leaders have been taking advantage of the Christian disposition for outreach by offering outreach programs of their own. 20,000 Dialogues is a nationwide interfaith initiative that helps local level imams set up outreach programs, and provides films and speakers to facilitate the dialogue. The current offering is a film titled “Inside Islam: What a Billion Muslims Think.” The film is based on a study of Muslim attitudes conducted by John Esposito of Georgetown University’s Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, and Dalia Mogahed, Director of the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies. Like the study, the film massages the polling data to make it appear that Islam is a predominately peaceful religion.

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By Andrew Gilligan, Telegraph

Whitehall's support only puts us at greater risk from the religious revolutionaries, says Andrew Gilligan.

[.....] it is not just wrong in principle for representatives of liberal democracy to treat with those who would destroy it, it is wrong tactically. Revolutionaries cannot be tamed by meetings with ministers, posts on committees or taxpayers' cash. They can only be strengthened. Britain's Islamist groups are largely self-appointed and represent almost no one. Their principal importance is that which has been gifted to them by the British Government.

Fresh from its misjudgments over Iraq, our security establishment has got relations with domestic Islam about as wrong as it could possibly get. We have been harsh where we should have been liberal – on control orders, on detention without charge, on blanket stop-and-search: all measures which alienated middle-ground Muslims, without much anti-terror effect. And we have been liberal where we should have been harsh, tolerating hate preachers and anointing fringe minority radicals as authentic, mainstream voices.

That is part of the reason why Britain faces the biggest Islamist threat of any Western country. That is part of the reason why ours is the only Western nation to have come under suicide attack from its own citizens.

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By Richard Adams, Guardian

By Peter Hitchens, Mailonline

Down a glum, dark back alley in Istanbul, I found a sinister sight. In a workshop two stern and bearded men were bent over sheets and patches of very black cloth, their sewing-machines whirring urgently.

I was plainly unwelcome and they objected to the very idea of being photographed. I quickly saw why. They were making dark robes and masks for women to wear. They looked to me as if they longed for the day when every woman in sight was clad in their workmanship.

They knew the women would wear them, because one day, not far off, they would have to. These robes would be, literally, a 'must-have' for the women of Turkey.

Those who think of Turkey as a relaxed holiday destination, or as a Westernised Nato member more or less 'on our side' need to revise their view.

And that very much includes our Prime Minister, David Cameron, who last week joined in the fashionable chorus urging Turkish membership of the European Union. Mr Cameron plainly hasn't been properly briefed.

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By William Kilpatrick, FrontPage Magazine

By Anna Arco, Catholic Herald

British police have said they are monitoring the internet for threats against the Pope and attempts to disrupt the papal visit in September.

Chief Constable Meredydd Hughes, who is co-ordinating the national police effort for the papal visit, said police were monitoring extremist websites and other media that appear to be targeting the Pope.

He was reacting to reports that an Islamist website has urged Birmingham Muslims to disrupt the papal Mass at Cofton Park.

Chief Constable Hughes said: “We are aware of this website and are monitoring it closely, as indeed we are monitoring all such websites and media.

“Although we are unable to discuss the content of individual websites, we will of course ensure that such measures are taken as to protect the Pope and all those who are coming to see him.”

Questions about the Pope’s safety arose last week after a post on the Leicester-based website suggested that Muslims in Birmingham use the opportunity of the papal Mass to protest against the Pope.

The website, called the Islamic Standard, urged Muslims to “tell the Pope just what they think of him after his insults against the Prophet Muhammad”.

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From The Guardian

Syria has banned the face-covering Islamic veil from the country's universities to prevent what it sees as a threat to its secular identity, as similar moves in Europe spark cries of discrimination against Muslims.

The education ministry issued the ban on Sunday, according to a government official. The ban, which affects public and private universities, is only against the niqab – a full Islamic veil that reveals just a woman's eyes – not headscarves, which are far more commonly worn by Syrian women.

The billowing black robe known as a niqab is not widespread in Syria, although it has become more common recently – a move that has not gone unnoticed in a country governed by a secular, authoritarian regime.

"We have given directives to all universities to ban niqab-wearing women from registering," the government official said today.

The niqab "contradicts university ethics," he added, saying the government was seeking to protect its secular identity

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By Michael Nazir-Ali, Telegraph

The Sheikh of Al-Azhar, the late Dr Tantawi, famously, and provocatively made female students remove the face-veil in the classroom. This was a brave thing to do at the premier place of Sunni Muslim learning. Was he right to do it?

It is clear that the fundamental principle of freedom of belief and of the right to manifest one's own belief must continue to be upheld in a free society, whether for Christians, Muslims or anyone else.

Such a principle does not, however, exist in isolation and has to be balanced against other considerations of the common good and of public order.

As far as the wearing of the Burka is concerned, there are, first of all, questions of safety.

Naturally, it would be quite inappropriate for the Burka to be worn whilst driving or operating certain kinds of machinery. It is dangerous even whilst crossing the street!

There have also been many cases in different parts of the world where terrorists and other criminals have made a getaway by disguising themselves with a burka.

For reasons of security then, where identity has to be established, the wearing of the burka cannot be permitted. This would include airports, immigration control and access to public buildings.

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From The Telegraph

Council bosses issued a document to all primary and secondary schools on how to avoid offending Muslim pupils who may still be fasting when the new term starts in September.

The tips from Stoke-on-Trent City council include distributing free school meals as packed lunches to take home and cancelling social events when Muslim parents might not be able to attend.

During Ramadan, it is compulsory for all males and females who have reached puberty to fast from dawn until sunset every day.

Some younger children also choose to fast for all or part of the month.

The council says some pupils will get up before dawn to have their breakfast and, as a result, sleeping patterns could be interrupted.

Schools are also advised to heighten staff awareness about factors affecting pupils during Ramadan.

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