From a Mughal-era mosque that was razed by radical Hindu nationalist militants more than three decades ago, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi has inaugurated a newly constructed and highly anticipated Hindu temple that was built in the former mosque’s place, drawing both support and criticism from various groups and sectors of Indian society.
NPR: India's Modi inaugurates a long-promised but controversial Hindu temple in Ayodhya https://t.co/47r8d9zlj4
Hatun Tash, a Christian preacher and ex-Muslim known for her public preaching, activism, and criticism of Islam, was finally located after her friends and family said they hadn’t seen her for more than a month.
A prestigious London school is under fire after its headteacher, dubbed by the media as “Britain’s strictest teacher,” introduced a blanket ban on prayer on its premises. This has sparked debate on the place of religious rituals in schools, especially as the United Kingdom faces a more multicultural, multireligious future.
A Nihang Sikh (Sikh warrior) was arrested on January 16th in the district of Kapurthala in India’s Punjab state for allegedly murdering a man over suspicions that the victim committed sacrilege at the Gurdwara Sri Chaura Khooh Sahib, a historical Sikh temple in Phagwara on the night of January 15th.
Seven men from a minority community in the city of Belagavi in the southwestern Indian state of Karnataka were arrested for assaulting two cousins after they mistook them for an interfaith couple. Two minors were also imprisoned for the alleged offense.
The incident occurred at the city’s Kote Lake Park around 3 PM on January 6.
Karnataka: ‘Moral’ police attack cousins mistaking them to be interfaith couple, 7 arrested https://t.co/c9nRz78wi3
Netflix is facing another backlash from right-wing Hindu nationalists in India over a film for its depiction of a deity and member of a traditionally vegetarian caste cooking and eating meat.
Netflix pulls Indian film after backlash from rightwing Hindu groups https://t.co/VFJQUC6ouw
For the first time since the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan following the withdrawal of US-led coalition forces in 2021, the Islamic fundamentalist group officially confirmed that they have arrested women in the country’s capital, Kabul, for wearing “bad hijab.”
Hindu advocates in the United States are expressing their concern and urging temples in the country to increase their vigilance and security measures after three Hindu temples in the San Francisco Bay Area were vandalized within two weeks.
An imam in California broke down into tears during a Friday sermon last month, asking what have they done wrong and why they did not become martyrs for Allah just like those in Gaza, adding that Allah chooses Palestinians and that the Children of Israel have a long history of cowardice, wickedness, and murder.
A wave of social media accounts in Saudi Arabia have been recently promoting and calling for the return of ancient Arabian, pre-Islamic deities as part of the kingdom’s national and cultural heritage, sparking outrage among religious Saudis and other Muslims as the ultraconservative kingdom pushes to modernize and replace its religious identity with a more nationalistic one.
