Religion & Society

( Vision Radio )   A Christian academic says the targeting of young people in the fatal terror attack in Manchester shows the terrorists’ intent to inflict the greatest possible offence against their opponents.    The Manchester attack killed 22 people and injured 59 others after a pop concert at Manchester Arena.    Professor Peter Riddell, a Professorial Research Associate in History at the University of London, has told our newsroom, while he believes the targeting of young people was deliberate, the extremists operate from an ‘us and them’ mentality – whereby they see the lives of any non-Muslims as being of lesser value.    He says while there are Koranic verses that talk about the value of human life, there are references in both Koran and associated literature that prioritise the support, defence, and advancement of Muslims.    Professor Riddell says the extremists use such parts of their religious texts to justify their attacks, a...

Malaysia is a country in ferment. The abduction of protestant Pastor Raymond Koh missing since 13 February after being snatched from a street in Petaling Jaya near the capital Kuala Lumpur, comes against a background of pressure against non-Muslims. The growing demand for Islamic criminal punishment codes, known as hadd or hudud (plural Arabic for 'prohibitions'), which set Pakistan on the road to ruin, is worrying . Hudud crimes warrant severe corporal punishments, including stoning for adultery, and death for apostasy.  Though limited by rules of evidence, their implementation on any statute book creates consternation, and at worst, as in Pakistan, mob rule. Yet demand for and implementation of such penalties are creeping in from conservative fringe states in Malaysia. Emerging Malaysia is described by the CIA as ‘a middle-income country [that] has transformed itself since the 1970s from a producer of raw materials into an emerging multi-sector economy’, so the ...

STEREOTYPING the world of Islam is a fruitless task; such is its internal diversity. Sectarian conflict is tearing Muslim populations apart in the Middle East, Africa and Asia. While some Muslims pursue a vision of a forward-thinking, rationalist faith, others look backwards to what they see as a pristine age when Muhammad established the first Islamic community in Medina. For the latter group, the Hadith, or prophetic traditions, are crucial in realizing their vision, enabling Muslims who want to model their lives on that of their prophet to do so. These traditions record tens of thousands of short reports about Muhammad’s actions, attitudes, concerns, preferences and prejudices. Read literally, the Hadith reports can take Muslims in many directions: to compassion for widows and orphans, to patriarchal attitudes towards women, to disdain for religious minorities, and to military jihad for the cause of Islam. Read on at the Lapidomedia website...

   Stereotyping the world of Islam is a fruitless task; such is its internal diversity. Nowadays sectarian conflict is tearing apart Muslim populations in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. While some Muslims pursue a vision of a forward-thinking, rationalist faith, others look backwards to what they see as a pristine age when Muhammad established the first Islamic community in Medina.    For the latter group, the Hadith, or prophetic traditions, are crucial in realising their vision, enabling Muslims who want to model their lives on that of their prophet to do so. These traditions record tens of thousands of short reports about Muhammad’s actions, attitudes, concerns, preferences, and prejudices.    Read literally, the Hadith reports can take Muslims in many directions: to compassion for widows and orphans, to patriarchal attitudes towards women, to disdain for religious minorities, and to military jihad for the cause of Islam. Read on here .