01: Religion & Politics is the new online news journal of the John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics at Washington University in St. Louis. The site is more than the usual opinion blog, as it publishes original articles by leading journalists and academics. The journal is concerned with the interactions between religion and […]
Iran’s homosexual prohibitions make sex-change option popular
The prohibition and punishment of homosexuality in Muslim societies have been given a new twist in Iran, with “sex-reassignment” surgery becoming a sanctioned means of dealing with the tendency. Foreign Policy magazine (May/June) reports that since 2008 Iran has carried out the second-highest number of sex-change operations of any country after Thailand. These operations have […]
The Saudi textbook reforms on religious tolerance that never happened?
For more than a decade since 9/11, Saudi Arabia has remained resistant to educational reform, judging by the persistent extremist Islamic themes in Saudi textbooks, reports the magazine Foreign Policy (May/June). Despite periodic reforms, textbooks in the nation’s schools “remain stubbornly impervious to change. Even in the past two years, they have instructed first graders […]
Palestine Salafis hesitantly wading into political waters
While many Salafi Muslims in the Gaza Strip remain opposed to politics, some have recently been discussing the foundation of a political party, following developments in Egypt, writes Andreas Hackl in the Jerusalem Report (May 21). With their purist Islamic practice, aspiring to follow the pattern of the original Muslim community, Palestinian Salafis—like their fellow […]
German Muslim scholar analyzes the rise of radical views and ways to contain them
Extremist trends have often defined the perception of Islam by outsiders and even by Muslims, states the Islamic German monthly Islamische Zeitung (May) in introducing an interview with researcher Muhammad Sameer Murtaza, himself a practicing Muslim, who works with the Global Ethic Foundation. Murtaza traces the roots of these problems to the influence of (Saudi-funded) Wahhabi […]
Sunni concerns grow over Shiite conversions spreading to Algeria
In various places across the Muslim world over the past ten years, Sunni circles have expressed misgivings about the preaching of Shiite beliefs and the conversion of Sunni Muslims to Shiite Islam. Among recent reports, in Indonesia, Muslim leaders from West Java have issued a declaration alerting the faithful about Shiite teachings and their spread […]
Tunisia’s religious freedom furthering democratic revolution
The fate of the Arab Spring and its implications for Islamic democracy are far from certain, but Tunisia and its revolution have made substantial progress in ensuring religious freedom and tolerance in the country’s political structure, writes political scientist Alfred Stepan in the Journal of Democracy (April). In comparison to Egypt, the revolution in Tunisia, […]
Current Research: May/June 2012
01: A new analysis of belief in God worldwide finds that the percentage of people saying they were atheists increased in 15 of the 18 nations studied from 1991 to 2008. The study, conducted by Tom Smith of the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago, was based on the International Social Survey. […]
Modern dating techniques support Hindu traditionson marriage
Even though marriage and dating practices are in flux among Indian-Americans, “Hindu tradition still holds sway through mixers, matrimony websites and matchmakers,” reports the Huffington Post (April 23). While matchmaking and arranged marriages endure in many Indian villages, such arrangements tend to be informal, making use of “extensive kinship networks,” said Connecticut College religion professor […]
The Family discards communal living,moves in evangelical directions
The Family International (TFI), formerly the Children of God, continues to transform itself from a countercultural, quasi-evangelical movement to one much closer to the evangelical mainstream, judging by a new report in Christianity Today magazine (April). TFI started out as a movement on the radical edge of the Jesus movement of the late 1960s and […]
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