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Thursday, 30 April 2020

Yusuf Islam AKA Cat Stevens to lead BBC Ramadan series

Ten-minute radio programmes will feature him reading from Qur’an and performing songs

The 1970s singer-songwriter formerly known as Cat Stevens who converted to Islam and renounced his life as a musician, is to lead a series of spiritual reflections during Ramadan on the BBC.

He changed his name to Yusuf Islam in 1977, 10 years after his debut album, Matthew and Son. Among his most successful hits were Peace Train, Morning Has Broken, Father and Son, and Wild World.

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Wednesday, 29 April 2020

Turkish students increasingly resisting religion, study suggests

Young people likely to challenge Islam and see themselves as less religious than previous generations

Twenty-two-year old Esra, from Mersin, is even more bored than usual this Ramadan. Universities are shut and Turkey has taken the unusual step of placing under 20s, as well as over 65s, under a nighttime curfew, because many Turkish families live in intergenerational households.

As a result, Esra can’t see any of her friends. And a few days into the Muslim month of fasting, like many young people, she is now feeling even more suffocated by the religious restrictions imposed by her pious parents.

“They normally don’t know how I dress when I’m not there but even in the house now wearing tight jeans bothers them and they’re commenting on it,” she said. “They think I am fasting but I’m not. I have water in my room.”

Despite more than a decade of efforts by Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s ruling Justice and Development party (AKP) to mould a generation of pious Turks, the country’s youth appears to be turning away from religion.

Turkey’s founder, Mustafa Kamal Atatürk, banished religion from public life, creating a secular, pro-western republic that broke with the Ottoman past. One hundred years later, Erdoğan has put Turkey back on a more religious and socially conservative path, aiming to create a “religious generation” that will “work for the construction of a new civilisation”. Some members of the opposition nickname him the “caliph in waiting”.

The president has trebled the number of religious İmam Hatip high schools in the country, steadily increased funding for Turkey’s religious affairs directorate and increased the powers of local muktars, or community leaders, who are usually pious men.

Yet a study by Sarkaya university and the ministry of education from earlier this year looking at religious curricula in Turkey’s school system found that students are “resisting compulsory religion lessons, the government’s ‘religious generation’ project and the concept of religion altogether”.

Almost half of the teachers interviewed said their students were increasingly likely to describe themselves as atheists, deists or feminists, and challenge the interpretation of Islam being taught at school.

Polling by agency Konda in 2019 also found that people aged 15-29 described themselves as less “religiously conservative” than older generations, and less religious than the same age group a decade earlier - respondents said they did not necessarily cover their hair, pray regularly or fast during Ramadan.

The overall drop in people who described themselves as religiously conservative was 7%, down from 32% in 2008, and those who said they fast during Ramadan declined from 77% to 65%.

The shift away from religion among Turkey’s younger generation follows a trend seen in many industralised countries. But some wonder if it is also a backlash to almost two decades of the AKP’s pushy brand of political Islam.

The 2019 survey only revealed a slight drop in religiosity overall. In a country where around half of the 82-million-strong population is under 30, however, even small societal attitude changes could have a dramatic impact on Turkish politics in future.

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Germany to set out rules for religious services including singing ban

Angela Merkel to meet with state leaders over safely conducting services during pandemic

Germany is to set out guidelines for religious services during the coronavirus pandemic with a list of strict restrictions expected to include a ban on singing.

Religious services have been legally banned from taking place since the start of Germany’s lockdown in mid-March and some worshippers have expressed fury at the government’s apparent slowness in plotting a route back to reopening churches.

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How are you observing Ramadan in lockdown?

We’d like to hear from Muslims in the UK about how they are observing Ramadan during the coronavirus crisis

As Ramadan began at the end of last week, Muslim communities across the UK were preparing to take the month of fasting, prayer and reflection online.

Mosques were adapting to lockdown measures by using conferencing apps to keep in touch with worshippers and live stream lectures, courses and prayers, while others turned to chefs on YouTube for recipe inspiration.

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Monday, 27 April 2020

Ramadan TV dramas signal shift in Arab-Israeli relations

Two popular Middle Eastern series stir surprise with pro-Israel messages backed by Saudi Arabia

Nightfall during Ramadan in the Middle East is drama time, when Arab soap operas accompany evening feasts with fare of feuds, historical heroes and villains and forbidden love. This year though, programmers have broached new ground using the popular shows to highlight a normalisation with Israel.

Two series broadcast across the region in the first three days of the Muslim holy month have stirred both surprise and contention – one by daring to explore the Jewish history of the Gulf, the other by suggesting that Israel may not be an enemy and that Palestinians have been ungrateful for Saudi Arabia’s support.

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Sunday, 26 April 2020

Walaikum Assalam,This page is

Walaikum Assalam,
This page is for Surah Al-Baqara and its Ayah 214 is placed. As you can see the preceding and succeeding ayahs are also of that of Surah Al-Baqara. Please elaborate about the issue.

 



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Assalmu alaikum there is a

Assalmu alaikum there is a mistake on this page instead of placing the ayaats of Surah Ankabut the verses of Surah Baqarah are placed

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Saturday, 25 April 2020

Leading Muslims hit out at Trevor Phillips’s role in Covid-19 BAME deaths inquiry

Objections raised to inclusion of man suspended from Labour over Islamophobia allegations

The selection of Trevor Phillips to investigate why Covid-19 is killing more Black, Asian and minority ethnic people has sparked a row after leading Muslims criticised his appointment as “insensitive”.

Phillips, the former chairman of the Equalities and Human Rights Commission, was asked by Public Health England to provide expert support to an inquiry into why increasing numbers of victims of the coronavirus pandemic are from BAME backgrounds.

Related: More BAME people are dying from coronavirus. We have to know why | Sadiq Khan

Related: Who's who on secret scientific group advising UK government?

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Friday, 24 April 2020

Twin sisters, one a nurse in Southampton, two of the latest to die from coronavirus

Katy and Emma Davis among recent victims, who include a BNP member who found Islam

Twin sisters, one of whom was a nurse, are among the latest victims to have died from coronavirus.

Children’s nurse Katy Davis, 37, died at Southampton general hospital on Tuesday. On Friday her identical twin sister, Emma, died at the same hospital.

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Thursday, 23 April 2020

Ramadan begins amid coronavirus restrictions as Trump 'disinfectant' theory dismissed

Countries with Muslim populations wrestle with best way to observe holy month amid outcry over US president’s latest suggestion

The governments of nations with large Muslim populations were divided on coronavirus restrictions as Ramadan began, with with some easing lockdowns while others enacted travel bans.

As the Muslim holy month was set to begin, US health experts rushed to warn against Donald Trump’s suggestion of exploring the use of UV light on people and injecting disinfectant as a way of combatting coronavirus.

Related: Medical experts denounce Trump's latest 'dangerous' suggestion to treat Covid-19

Related: Covid-19 pandemic casts long shadow as Ramadan starts

Related: Indonesia bans Ramadan exodus amid coronavirus fears

Australia's Chief Medical Officer, Brendan Murphy struggles to hide a few giggles as he's asked about President Trump's comments on injecting disinfectant and sunlight as treatments for coronavirus.

Says it all, really @abcnews @politicsabc #auspol pic.twitter.com/mMpvegrusH

About 91 crew on Italian cruise ship, the Costa Atlantica, have Covid-19, Japanese officials said on Friday. The ship is docked in Japan’s south-western port of Nagasaki, and those who have tested negative will be repatriated, health minister Katsunobu Kato said on Friday. Japan is also taking drastic measure to discourage people from gathering outside, by cutting the buds off thousand of roses in parks to deter public gatherings.

The Philippines extended its lockdown in the capital, Manila, until 15 May. President Rodrigo Duterte, also threatened to declare martial law if communist rebels disrupted the flow of relief goods for Filipinos affected by the restrictions, and asked his military to be ready.

Tom Hanks has sent a heartfelt letter and a Corona-brand typewriter to an Australian boy who wrote to him about being bullied over his name, Corona. Hanks hand wrote at the end: “P.S. You got a friend in ME!”

Ecuador’s health minister has said the country’s coronavirus case total is twice as high as previously confirmed, as authorities added 11,000 new infections that resulted from delayed testing. The new cases will be added to the confirmed total of 11,183 infections. The country has registered 560 deaths.

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Ramadan during coronavirus may seem disheartening but it's the ideal time for reflection | Heba Shaheed

As an introvert, I am really looking forward to spending this month focusing inwards, without the burden of social responsibility

It is going to be a very different Ramadan this year due to the Covid-19 global pandemic and the social isolation laws. For 1.8 billion Muslims around the world, the cultural traditions and customs of this religious month of fasting will have to be forsaken for the safety of the global community. As an introvert, I am really looking forward to spending this month focusing inwards, without the burden of social responsibility.

Ramadan in 2020 means no communal gatherings in mosques for “tarawih” night prayers, no large “iftar” dinners with family and friends at sunset to break the day’s fast,and, sadly, restrictions on celebrating Eid, the biggest social holiday for Muslims signalling the end of Ramadan.

Related: Covid-19 pandemic casts long shadow as Ramadan starts

Related: Ramadan in a time of plague: 'The best thing is to stay home, stay quiet'

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Covid-19 pandemic casts long shadow as Ramadan starts

Festival, normally marked by social gatherings and feasts, will be muted affair under lockdown

Ramadan is normally a sociable time, as abstention from food and water during daylight hours gives way to sumptuous meals and gatherings at dusk.

But this year, the coronavirus pandemic has cast a long shadow over the rituals, which have been modified to fit public health directives on physical distancing. The month of fasting and reflection, which has begun with the sighting of the crescent moon, will be observed by the world’s 1.8 billion Muslims mostly in private.

Related: Ramadan in a time of plague: 'The best thing is to stay home, stay quiet'

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American Muslims face a lonely Ramadan during lockdown

Families prepare for online prayers and virtual gatherings in a month of fasting typically marked by human connection

Shaista Sharaz, 34, doesn’t have many friends in Westchester county, north of Manhattan. She left her hometown of Atlanta, Georgia, five years ago after her divorce to settle in New York, the only other place she had family.

Between settling in a new city and raising her two children, Sharaz didn’t have many friends. During Ramadan, the lack of companionship always hit the hardest. This year will be even more difficult for her.

Related: Ramadan in a time of plague: 'The best thing is to stay home, stay quiet'

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UK Muslims prepare to take Ramadan online

Mosques are on lockdown and turning to social media to keep in touch

From rustling up meals to break the fast using recipes on YouTube to listening to sermons via Zoom, this year’s Ramadan will be unique for Britain’s estimated 2.6 million Muslims with a reliance on technology due to coronavirus.

With the first day of fasting due on Friday or Saturday, depending on the sighting of the new moon, mosques in the UK are adapting to the lockdown measures by turning to social media and apps to keep in touch with worshippers by livestreaming motivational lectures, courses and prayers.

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Wednesday, 22 April 2020

Two Muslim students face 'bogus' charges of inciting Delhi riots

Lawyers say pair were peacefully protesting against Indian citizenship act

Delhi police have been accused of slapping two Muslim student activists with “bogus” charges of conspiring to incite the recent riots, the worst religious violence in India’s capital for decades, and in which the police were accused of being complicit.

Meeran Haider and Safoora Zargar, students at Delhi’s Muslim-majority Jamia Millia Islamia University, were charged under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, which is usually reserved for terrorist activity and means they can be held for six months.

Related: Inside Delhi: beaten, lynched and burnt alive

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Tuesday, 21 April 2020

We were not able to detect

We were not able to detect any spelling mistakes. Please specify the location of the mistake. Thank you.

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Ramadan in a time of plague: 'The best thing is to stay home, stay quiet'

For many the inability to pray and eat together will be keenly felt, while others are carrying on regardless

Mosques will be deserted, daylong fasts will be broken in isolation and in some places the calls to prayer that rally believers together will end with a different exhortation: worship from where you are.

Ordinarily during Ramadan, the holy month that commences this week, Muslim community life swells with special prayers at mosques and crowded iftar dinners that can stretch into the early hours.

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Monday, 20 April 2020

Indonesia bans Ramadan exodus amid coronavirus fears

President of world’s biggest Muslim-majority country takes action after survey showed millions still planned to travel

Indonesia has banned an annual homecoming in which tens of millions of people travel to see their families for Eid-al-Fitr, fearing the mass exodus could accelerate the spread of coronavirus across the country.

It is not clear how the rule will be enforced, or how many people have already embarked on journeys after losing jobs in the cities where they worked before the virus emerged. Millions of people across Indonesia have been left with no income as a result of the economic crisis caused by the pandemic.

Related: Jakarta to start shutdown as burials, and fears, rise amid coronavirus outbreak

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In brief: No Return, Peace Talks, This Is Shakespeare – reviews

A gripping account of five Britons waging jihad in Syria; an elegant novel about a diplomat’s peace negotiations in a luxury hotel; witty interpretations of the Bard

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Sunday, 19 April 2020

You are Welcome to do Just Enough

Good morning friends. Actually, it’s just shy of noon here as I sit down to write down the stuff that’s been flying around in my head. I’m not sure how this post will turn out. I have so many things to talk about but I should probably focus on just one thing. Right? I don’t […]

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Saturday, 18 April 2020

British Muslims find new ways to be together for Ramadan under lockdown

With mosques closed, prayers are moving online and video conferencing apps will be used for iftar parties at sunset

At Finsbury Park mosque in north London – once a byword for extremism, now a model of tolerance and community outreach – the first night of Ramadan heralds a month of communal praying, eating and charity work. About 2,000 people attend prayers each day. Volunteers cram into its kitchen to prepare iftar, the meal that breaks the Ramadan fast at sunset, for 300 people each night.

Not this year. “We will miss all that,” said Mohammed Kozbar, the mosque’s general secretary. The building’s gates are locked, with only security guards patrolling its prayer halls and community spaces. “I visited last week. It was heartbreaking to see it empty and silent,” said Kozbar.

This Ramadan will be at a slower pace. It will give us more time for reflection and the opportunity to be closer to God

Related: Easter, Passover, Ramadan … festivals test the faithful’s resolve over lockdown

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How Istanbul won back its crown as heart of the Muslim world

While Turkey stands accused of domestic repression, its largest city is increasingly seen as a beacon for the persecuted

A ruined yali, or Bosphorus mansion, is still standing on the shore of the largest island of the Istanbul archipelago. The roof is long gone, but in better days it was the magnificent home of Leon Trotsky, who fled to Constantinople after his exile from the Soviet Union in 1929.

Trotsky arrived during the turbulent birth of modern Turkey. The new republic sought to rid itself of Armenians, Greeks and other “undesirable” populationsbut Istanbul was opening its arms to White Russians, disillusioned Bolsheviks and African American jazz musicians. Later in the 20th century, intellectuals and dissidents from Germany and the Balkans would add to the diversity of a city that has always stood at the world’s crossroads.

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Thursday, 16 April 2020

Food parcels and a makeshift morgue: inside a coronavirus-adapted mosque – video

The Green Lane Masjid in Birmingham was among the first to shut its doors to worshippers after the coronavirus outbreak, well before large gatherings were banned in the UK. But their work at the centre of the community continued, expanded and evolved. Richard Sprenger speaks with Saleem Ahmed, the head of welfare at the mosque, about the changes they have made to continue to serve their local community, Muslim and non-Muslim alike

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Wednesday, 15 April 2020

How Saudi Arabia's religious project transformed Indonesia

The world’s largest Muslim-majority country was long considered a tolerant place. But thanks to Saudi money and influence, it has taken a sharply conservative turn. By Krithika Varagur

Half a million people, all dressed in white, radiated from the Hotel Indonesia roundabout in central Jakarta. Protesters clogged the streets for a mile in every direction; they went all the way up to the National Monument and beyond it to the presidential palace. It was 4 November 2016, and they had come on buses, planes and on foot, from all across Java and even from some other islands, to participate in the largest Islamist demonstration in Indonesian history.

“We came to the palace to enforce the law,” said the cleric Rizieq Shihab, to rapt silence. “Desecrators of the Qur’an must be punished. We must reject the leaders of infidels,” he said, referring to Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, the Chinese-Christian governor of Indonesia’s capital city, who is known as Ahok. “If our demands are not heard, are you ready to turn this into a revolution?” “We’re ready!” screamed the crowd, breaking into huge applause. “God is great!”, they shouted. There were cries of “Kill Ahok!”

Related: ‘The Saudis couldn’t do it without us’: the UK’s true role in Yemen’s deadly war

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Monday, 13 April 2020

Please upload surah fatiha

Please upload surah fatiha with english translation verse by verse. I mean arabic with English translation.

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Sunday, 12 April 2020

Remote rituals: in a time of coronavirus, mourners find comfort where they can

As Covid-19 makes it impossible for funeral crowds to gather and for hugs to be exchanged, the bereaved must say farewell in new and unsettling ways

Last week the funeral for Pat McCann was held at the St Peter Julian Eymard Catholic church in Mooroolbark, in Melbourne’s east.

Her sons, Charlie and Mike, read the eulogy. There was a singer, an organist and a full mass led by a family friend and priest. Tommy Roe’s Party Girl, a track McCann and her family knew by heart, was beamed out into the church.

Related: Australia’s coronavirus victims: Covid-19 related deaths across the country

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Saturday, 11 April 2020

Easter, Passover, Ramadan … festivals test the faithful’s resolve over lockdown

Anglican vicars are not the only spiritual guides fighting curbs imposed on worship, with many flouting their government’s rules as more people seek solace in religion

Members of the Church of England are not noted for their resistance to authority. But during Holy Week, the most significant time in the Christian calendar, its leaders have faced mounting objections to its edict that all churches must close - even to their own clergy.

Some prominent Anglicans have taken to social media and blogs this Easter to argue that churches must remain open, and that to lock their doors is to risk people’s spiritual health. Even Sarah Mullally, the bishop of London – a former nurse, and number three in the C of E’s hierarchy – suggested in a letter to parishes that vicars could live-stream services from their church buildings… before correcting herself on Twitter.

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Friday, 10 April 2020

The Guardian view on closed churches: a necessary sacrifice

This is an Easter like no other for regular and occasional churchgoers. But Britain’s faith communities will be vital in helping Britain through the coronavirus ordeal

Towards the end of his landmark work A Secular Age, the philosopher Charles Taylor wrote that, while churches in the west have emptied at an accelerating rate in the 21st century, most of us still seemed to value their presence in our cities, towns and villages. Traditional places of worship are still cherished, Prof Taylor suggested, because they act “partly as a holder of ancestral memory, partly as a resource against some future need (eg a rite of passage, especially a funeral); or as a source of comfort and orientation in the face of some collective disaster”.

That the coronavirus pandemic counts as a “collective disaster” is beyond dispute. But, at least in a physical sense, our churches, mosques and synagogues have found themselves unable to provide a space of refuge. As with almost all other forms of human bonding, faith has been driven into the cybersphere by the need to socially distance. With the pews empty, this will be an Easter weekend like no other, both for regular churchgoers and for those who, in uniquely challenging times, might have been tempted to pay a visit.

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Sunday, 5 April 2020

Police investigate UK far-right groups over anti-Muslim coronavirus claims

Monitoring group says it has had reports of false claims online as well as physical attacks

Counter-terrorism police in the UK are investigating far-right groups accused of trying to use the coronavirus crisis to stoke anti-Muslim sentiment.

The monitoring group Tell Mama said that in March it recorded dozens of incidents of far-right groups allegedly trying to put blame on British Muslims for the spread of the virus.

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Wednesday, 1 April 2020

Fuad Nahdi obituary

Prominent British Muslim journalist and activist whose voice was heard from Downing Street to Dakar

Fuad Nahdi, who has died aged 62 due to complications related to diabetes, was one of the most important figures over the past 30 years in the framing, development and mainstream influence of British Islam. He also made Britain a bridgehead between east and west, where Islamic scholars came to face their reckoning with modernity.

Nahdi held no great administrative office but he was a consummate communicator with crucial connections when it mattered – which was the moment when British Islam emerged as distinct from “Asianness”, through the Rushdie Affair, 9/11, the Iraq war and the 2005 London bombings.

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Hajj pilgrimage could be cancelled because of coronavirus

Saudi authorities pave way for first closure of annual Islamic event in Mecca since 1798

The biggest occasion in the Islamic calendar, the annual hajj pilgrimage, has become the latest global event to be jeopardised by coronavirus, with Saudi authorities suggesting travellers delay plans to visit Mecca in late July.

The comments have been widely interpreted as clearing the ground for a cancellation of this year’s event, a rare occurrence in modern history: the last such closure took place more than 200 years ago.

Related: Coronavirus mapped: which countries have the most cases and deaths?

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