CENTRE for RELIGIOUS PLURALISM in the MIDDLE EAST

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On Sunday, January 10, the Franciscans of the Custody went to Jericho to commemorate Christ's baptism. The Franciscans, led by the Custos, Br. Pierbattista Pizzaballa, as well as pilgrims, first made their way to the small Latin parish of the Good Shepherd. There, the Custos was welcomed by local authorities and various representatives of the Spanish, Italian, French and Belgian consulates.

AMMAN — Church bells rang in Balqa's Rmeimeen town on Friday in celebration of the opening of a neighbouring mosque after renovation, in an expression of coexistence among Jordanians, Awqaf Minister Hayel Dawood said on Saturday. 

Sisterhood of Salaam-Shalom conference attracts record crowd of women from two faiths working to build bridges, but Israeli-Palestinian conflict remains ‘elephant in the room.’

Russia’s official Muslim establishment blames the West for the rise of the self-proclaimed Islamic State and refuses to admit that radical Islam has a real social base, ignoring the radicalization of many ordinary Muslims in Russia and Central Asia.

Abstract

The clash of visions over the Iraqi state’s identity, legitimacy, and ownership, long predating the U.S.-led invasion of the country in 2003, has been the root cause of political violence in postwar Arab Iraq.

The Future of Religious Pluralism in the Middle East

Abstract

Andrew Doran, special advisor at In Defense of Christians, Faith McDonnell, director of the religious liberty program at the Institute on Religion and Democracy, and David Saperstein, ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom at the U.S. Department of State, join National Public Radio's Thomas Gjelten to discuss the state of religious pluralism in the Middle East. The

I was one of the many Muslim scholars and other faiths leaders invited to a major summit of its kind in Morocco to debate the rights of religious minorities living in the Muslim world. The summit opened on 25 January and brought together 300 influential thinkers from across the globe to reassert the principles stipulated by the Charter of Medina. The Charter is the first constitution for Muslims which enshrines the principles of tolerance, co-existence and pluralism.

Hundreds of Muslim scholars will meet in Morocco next week to reassert the rights of non-Muslims living among them as Christians and other religious minorities flee extremism across the Middle East for safety and freedom elsewhere.

On November 6, 2015, King Mohammed VI pardoned a group of 37 Salafi detainees who had been convicted of terrorism charges, including Sheikh Hassan al-Khattab. According to a ...

The Emirates Center for Strategic Studies and Research hosted, on Sunday and Monday, January 17-18, 2016, the proceedings of " First Arab Thinkers Forum," at its premises in Abu Dhabi. A large group of Arab intellectuals participated, including, notably, H.E. Dr. Jamal Sanad Al-Suwaidi, Director General of the ECSSR, and a number of Muslim and Christian religious figures, including H.E. Dr. Mohammed Mokhtar Gomaa, Minister of Religious Endowments (Awqaf), Head

Father Miguel Angel Ayuso Guixot, the Secretary of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, on Sunday said “to counter extremism we have to commit ourselves to a sincere dialogue.”

The alliance of Iraq’s minorities is a step to prevent Iraq from being totally stripped of its minorities.

Next Sunday, some 80 mosques will invite the public in to counter negative stereotypes about Britain's Muslim minority.

Muslim fashion designers reflect on a rapidly growing industry.

The Palestinian Authority will not permit Israel to change the entrance to the Temple Mount in order to facilitate the building of an egalitarian prayer area near the Western Wall, PA Religious Affairs Minister Mahmoud Habbash told The Jerusalem Post in Ramallah on Thursday morning.

In 1924, a year after founding the Turkish Republic on the ruins of the Ottoman Empire, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the country’s new leader, abolished the Ottoman Caliphate, which had been the last remaining Sunni Islamic Caliphate since 1517. Having introduced a secular constitution and a Western-style civil and criminal legal code, Atatürk shut down the dervish lodges and religious schools, abolished polygamy, and introduced civil marriage and a national beauty contest. He granted women the

A majority of Arab Muslim youths see the actions of extremists such as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and Al-Qaeda as a perversion of Islam’s teachings, according to a new poll.

President makes historic first visit to a US mosque, amid a rise in hate crimes against the country's Muslim community.

The group is highlighting the, often forgotten, stories of Muslims who helped Jews during one of history’s deadliest genocides.

Civil wars crippling many Muslim states and fuelling a global refugee crisis are driven in part by major struggles within Islam that cannot be ignored, former British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said on Wednesday.

Abstract

The religious profile of the world is rapidly changing, driven primarily by differences in fertility rates and the size of youth populations among the world’s major religions, as well as by people switching faiths. Over the next four decades, Christians will remain the largest religious group, but Islam will grow faster than any other major religion.

AMMAN — Jerusalem Awqaf Department Director Azzam Khatib Tamimi has condemned Israel’s violations against the Umayyad Palaces area to the south and southwest of Al Aqsa Mosque/Al Haram Al Sharif, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported on Thursday.

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Every Friday afternoon people flock to a small mosque in one of the alleys in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood in Gaza City. They are there not only to perform the five daily prayers, but to chant hymns in what is known as al-Hadrat among Sufis. This is what sets this mosque apart from the rest of the mosques in the Gaza Strip, not to mention the sign hung on its mihrab (prayer niche) indicating that it is affiliated with the ...

For centuries, a community of Jews has lived peacefully alongside their Muslim neighbours on the island of Djerba, off the coast of Tunisia.

Event marking restoration of 167 Jewish graveyards in Morocco also marks need for respect, tolerance, and appreciation of all religions.

Old men push wives in wheelchairs. Mothers manoeuvre overloaded baby buggies. The Iraqis among them mainly come on foot, in long columns beside the main highway, southwards from Baghdad, and westwards from the string of Shia towns that stretches from Basra to Karbala.

More than 90 mosques across the UK have opened their doors to visitors to allow Muslims to "explain their faith beyond the hostile headlines".

A dark archway and an old uninspiring plastic plaque are all that mark the entrance to the residence and mosque of Salahuddin Ayyubi, the iconic 12th century Muslim general who retook Jerusalem during the Crusades, then went on to rule the city.

In a meeting with Cardinal Peter Turkson, the president of the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, Grand Ayatollah Sayyed Hashem Hoseyni-Bushehri, the director of Islamic Seminaries across Iran, stressed upon the relations between Muslim and Christian leaders, saying they are a necessity for the current world and counted oppression, corruption, irreligiousness and anti-spirituality approaches as some of the joint challenges of both religions.

Incorporating Iraqi Sunnis in the hard-hitting mainly Shiite Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) fighting ISIS militants is still falling short of what the minority sect is striving for, a parliamentarian has said.

The majority of the Middle East’s population today is Muslim, as it has been for centuries. However, as the place of origin of a range of world religions – including Judaism, Christianity, Zoroastrianism, and many lesser-known faiths – it remains a region of remarkable religious diversity. This article considers the place of religious minorities in the modern Middle East from three angles: their distinctive religious and communal identities, their place in the major transformations of the

To try and sum up extremism in one word or reason will ultimately lead to a vast generalization. But the main reason behind the cause of extremism is the educational curricula, because this lays the foundations that shape one’s thoughts. So when these curricula teach extremism, extremists will be born.

Christian and Muslim religious leaders on Saturday, February 6, stressed the role of the media in spreading a culture of tolerance, respecting the "other", and human dignity.