In The News

A New Mosque in Nicaragua Fires Up the Rumor Mill

Steve Stecklow November 16, 2009
A new mosque in Managua is sparking suspicions in the Nicaraguan capital, as citizens come to terms with the religion of the small Muslim community there. A variety of rumors are circulating about the mosque – that it was built by Iran, that all Muslims there are Taliban, and that all Muslims are actually Turks. None of these claims are true, assert leaders of the small Islamic community in...

Swiss Referendum Stirs a Debate About Islam

Deborah Ball, Anita Greil November 10, 2009
Switzerland has long been defined by its neutrality, a quality that has allowed its diverse population (of which one-fifth are immigrants) to avoid serious strife along ethnic or religious lines. Now, however, the rightist Swiss People's Party has initiated a referendum on the banning of minaret construction on mosques, raising questions about the status of Muslims in Switzerland. The issue...

What Motivates the Suicide Bombers?

Riaz Hassan September 3, 2009
The heart-wrenching and horrible daily accounts of suicide bombings rarely reveal the underlying cause of the bombers’ motivations. But a comprehensive database at Australia’s Flinders University that has compiled information on these types of attacks from as early as 1981 can shed light on such motivations. And the conclusions are startling, Professor Riaz Hassan, author of a forthcoming book on...

Mass Effect of Global Downturn

Cithara Paul August 17, 2009
In 2004, news of a tiny Kerala church in India holding a Mass to pray for the renowned British soccer player David Beckham fascinated the global media. Although Beckham’s celebrity certainly contributed to the focus, “Mass intentions” – applying a Mass for a specific purpose – had been around long before the media took notice. What is perhaps new is outsourcing Mass intentions to India where...

Nigeria’s ‘Taliban’ Enigma

Joe Boyle July 29, 2009
A recent spike in violence in northern Nigeria has drawn attention to a mysterious group of radicals known variously as “Taliban,” “Maiduguri,” and “Boko Haram.” All the terms have been attributed to the group by local people; it has no name for itself and has no link to the Taliban in Afghanistan. The group aims to overthrow the Nigerian state, impose strict Islamic law and abolish what it calls...

Tactics in a Cosmic War

Reza Aslan April 22, 2009
Former President Bush made a grave error when casting the “war on terror” as a “crusade,” according to Reza Aslan, author of “How to Win a Cosmic War: God, Globalization, and the End of the War on Terror.” By relying on distinctively religious rhetoric, Bush played into the jihadists' hands: that of conflating the war on terror with a war on Islam. President Obama has reversed such a stance...

Atheist Bus Ad Campaign Provokes Bitterness in Barcelona

Giles Tremlett January 7, 2009
In an age where ideas travel the globe in an instant, atheists in Barcelona have copied a UK ad campaign by posting ads on buses to present a possibility that God does not exist and urge the public to “stop worrying.” Spain is a traditionally Catholic nation, where the church receives some government funding. Some critics of the ad campaign blame the socialist government, with one leader calling...