“After a difficult time for all communities, I take this opportunity to praise the Right Honourable Eric Pickles MP, for recognising that extremism requires a multitude of voices to challenge. Unity against the voices of division is a potent and powerful message. We agree that Britain is diminished without its Muslim communities but we would […]
Continue Reading
Rev Nadim Nassar of the Awareness Foundation writes for Faith Matters on the Charlie Hebdo massacre. God created everything, and the Torah says that after this magnificent act, God found that everything was good; the first ever art critique. Creativity belongs to divinity. God has given humanity one of the best gifts that could be […]
Continue Reading
Muslim and Christian, young and old, men and women came together last week at St John’s the Evangelist Church in the Diocese of Southwark in order to remember those young children so viciously cut down in their youth by the Taliban in Peshawar. Some of the speakers could not hold back their emotions as they […]
Continue Reading
A quick observation of Twitter accounts of ISIL sympathisers shows a set of narratives that have been circulating for over more than a decade. These are the types of narratives that draw in and lead young men to destructive paths that ultimately lead to their deaths. Worryingly, the sheer willingness to destroy lives and historical […]
Continue Reading
War is a word that often evokes anxious feelings of terror, weapons, violence, hatred, and death. The word soldier often evokes the image of a person who is given the task of protecting their country from the conflict of the war; they become the powerful face of war. It is not common for the average […]
Continue Reading
Is religion a force for good or harm in society? A recent poll for the Huffington Post UK found a slim majority (51.6 per cent) of people in Britain agree with the latter. The most obvious flaw in a poll about religion is the lack of religious respondents – 60.5 per cent of the sample […]
Continue Reading
Meat that is religiously slaughtered and sold in British shops should be labelled to say if the animal was pre-stunned, according to one MP. Neil Parish, Conservative MP, who chairs the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Beef and Lamb, argued in parliament for better research into shechita and halal slaughter. Mr Parish will ask the […]
Continue Reading
The murder of a Christian couple yesterday in Pakistan due to the perception that they had desecrated a Quran, shines another light on the treatment of minorities in Pakistan. What is even more shocking is the level of anger that is targeted at minorities and which has led to many deaths in Pakistan. There is […]
Continue Reading
The degree of understanding of Polish identity varies by geographic location. We in Britain, tend to view the nation in kaleidoscopic terms. Hardworking but ‘foreigners stealing jobs’. A fragmented contradiction that hints at positive xenophobia. Migrants restored Britain after the scars of World War II. The annuals of history detail the worst of colonialism. But […]
Continue Reading
The Islamic Religious Advisor to the Chief of Defence Staff and Service Chiefs Asim Hafiz has called for a more nuanced debate about the role of the armed forces. In a wide-ranging and exclusive interview for the Religious Reader, Hafiz was critical of those in Muslim and non-Muslim communities who see the army as […]
Continue Reading