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Justice Dept. to Sue on Behalf of Teacher for Pilgrimage [VIDEO]
By not in system - AOL News...
Indonesian Muslim Mobs Burn 3 Christian Churches in Central Java
By Mary Phillips-Sandy - AOL NewsBlasphemy or freedom of expression? A mob rampage in Central Java, a province of Indonesia, destroyed Christian churches and schools in the city of Temanggung, 250 miles east of Jakarta, the Herald Sun reported. Parked cars were also set on fire, and other buildings were damaged with stones. Police used tear gas to disperse the rioters. The violence began in a Temanggung courtroom, where Antonius Richmond Bawengan was being sentenced on blasphemy charges. He has been in custody since October and is accused of distributing materials that described two Islamic holy sites, the Black Stone in ...
US Sues School for Denying Teacher Leave for Muslim Pilgrimage
By Lauren Frayer - AOL News(Dec. 14) -- The U.S. government is suing a suburban Chicago school district for refusing to grant a Muslim teacher unpaid leave to go on a Hajj pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia. Attending the annual pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca once in a lifetime is one of the five central tenets of the Islamic faith. Safoorah Khan, a middle school teacher in the Berkeley school district, about 15 miles west of Chicago, applied for an unpaid leave of absence in 2008 to go on the Hajj, but her request was denied. She ultimately quit her job to attend and later filed a complaint with the U.S. Equal ...
FBI: DC Sting Ended Before Suspect Could Flee US
By Allan Lengel - AOL News
WASHINGTON (Oct. 28) -- The FBI decided to end its sting and arrest a Northern Virginia man now charged with plotting to blow up D.C. -area subway stations because it was concerned he was about to leave the country to go on pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia, according to a court document and law enforcement sources. FBI agents arrested Farooque Ahmed, 34, of Ashburn, Va., on Wednesday on charges that he conspired with people he thought were al-Qaida operatives to blow up the Arlington National Cemetery, Pentagon City, Crystal City and Court House subway stations in Northern Virginia. In some other ...
WTC Was Influenced by Islamic Architecture
By David Knowles - AOL News(Aug. 20) -- Lost in the cacophonous debate over plans to build an Islamic cultural center just blocks from ground zero is a seldom-discussed aspect of the former World Trade Center itself: It was a complex loaded with Islamic architectural references. Having worked for the Saudi royal family on projects such as the Dhahran International Airport, Minoru Yamasaki, the Japanese-American architect who designed the World Trade Center, was deeply influenced by Islamic design, experts say. In fact, Yamasaki incorporated design aspects found in the Muslim holy city of Mecca into many of his ...
Ramadan in the Digital Age: From iPhone Apps to Web Porn Censorship
By David Knowles - AOL News(Aug. 11) -- With the Muslim holy month of Ramadan under way, technology continues to play a bigger role in the observances of the holiday. Below, the latest ways that the digital era is helping facilitate Ramadan's ancient rituals, which call for abstaining from food, water and sexual activities from sunup until sundown until Sept. 9 of this year. There's an app for that Observance of Ramadan requires knowing when to pray (it depends on the worshipper's location) and then making sure to pray in the direction of Mecca. A bevy of iPhone apps like the Ramadan Daily Dua, iPray and iQuran have ...
Saudis Want 'Mecca Time' to Replace GMT
By Lauren Frayer - AOL News(Aug. 11) -- For centuries, an astronomy observatory in Greenwich, London -- the namesake of Greenwich Mean Time -- has been the reference point for lines of longitude, ships' navigation on the world's seas and the time zones used today. But Saudi Arabia wants to change that. It's building what it calls the largest clock in the world, atop the second-largest skyscraper in the world, in the Islamic holy city of Mecca -- in hopes of replacing GMT with "Mecca Time." The clock dwarfs London's Big Ben, with four huge faces each about 130 feet in diameter and inscribed with the Arabic words "God ...
Director of '2012' Destroys Rome, Spares Mecca
By David Gibson - Politics DailyNo one would ever accuse director Roland Emmerich of being subtle or shy. The German-born filmmaker has blown up or mowed down just about everything on Earth in movies from "Independence Day" (bye-bye, White House!) to "Godzilla" (sayonara, Manhattan!) to "The Day After Tomorrow" (welcome to our world, Antarctica!). As for religion, he also takes no prisoners. He is openly gay and a fairly "outlandish provocateur," as he himself boasts. His London home features a wax sculpture of Pope John Paul II laughing as he reads his own obituary (sitting under the stair, like Harry Potter), and a ...
The Hajj and H1N1: Pilgrimage During a Pandemic
By Ria Misra - Politics DailyBy some estimates, the hajj is the single largest, annual gathering in the world; the pilgrimage of Muslims to Mecca attracts between 2 and 3 million visitors from all over the globe. But this year, officials are worried about several strains of H1N1. In a study published in the journal Science on Thursday, researchers warned that measures would need to be taken to prevent outbreaks of H1N1 both during the hajj, which takes place Nov. 25-30 this year, and after, as travelers return to their home countries. One of the authors of the study, Dr. Ziad Memish, who is also the Assistant Deputy ...
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