Madrasas, schools that teach young children strict Islamic basics and often viewed as incubators of militant Islam by Westerners, are likely to keep growing and remain relatively unchanged, even under current reform efforts. That is one of the conclusions of journalist Husain Haqqani writing in the magazine Foreign Policy (November/December). Haqqani notes that madrasas are not only […]

Although under pressure from militant Islam, Sufism, or Islamic mysticism, continues to show resiliance. That was one of the conclusions of a paper on the current status of Sufism in the Arab world delivered at the conference of the American Academy of Religion (AAR) in Toronto. Mark Sedgwick of American University in Cairo noted that […]

Films dealing with Mormon themes, and often targeting a LDS audience, are increasingly making their way to the cinemas, reports the independent Mormon magazine Sunstone (October). More “feature films than ever are targeting the LDS audiences,” a trend that started with the release of Richard Dutcher’s film, “God’s Army.” The films deal with contemporary and historical subject […]

Theologians and groups on the right and left are pressing the churches to incorporate new religious symbols and discard old ones in order to reach out to contemporary culture, writes Christine Wicker in the Dallas Morning News (Nov. 16). The most organized and well-known of the attempts to revise and discard traditional Christian symbols is the Jesus […]

At the annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion in Toronto, the sessions on Islam were bigger than ever, reports Leslie Scrivener in the Sunday edition of the Toronto Star (Nov. 24). One of those sessions was devoted to they way the study of Islam has changed in North American universities after 9/11. “Professors found they […]

Several workshops at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion in Toronto, held Nov. 23-26, dealt with the changing relationship between scholars and law-enforcement.officials on new religious movements after Sept. 11. Only a decade ago, the threat level from new religious movements (NRMs) was perceived as so low that actions committed in the […]

The November joint meeting of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion and Religion Research Association in Salt Lake City had as as its official themes “Practicing Religion in the 21st Century” and “Theory and Applied Research.” Along with the usual conversations and debates about data, both themes revealed an ongoing concern about the […]