Islam

Bangladesh's Nobel-winning microfinance pioneer Muhammad Yunus will lead an interim government after mass protests forced longtime prime minister Sheikh Hasina to flee, the presidency announced Wednesday.

The appointment came quickly after student leaders called on the 84-year-old Yunus — credited with lifting millions out of poverty in the South Asian country — to lead.

President Tayyip Erdogan's election victory showed the magnetic hold he still has over millions of Turks after 20 years in power, with many believing he is the man best placed to fix problems which critics say are partly of his own making.

Bulgaria should tighten rules on foreign financing for religious communities and restrict visits by foreign clerics to help counter the potential spread of radical Islam, deputy prime minister Krasimir Karakachanov said on Thursday.

77 Bulgarian citizens are included in the "black list" of the Turkish Interior Ministry. The reason is that they're suspected for participation in terrorist organizations, according to a report by the Ministry of Interior of our Southern neighbor, dedicated to the fighting with the Islamic State group, quoted by bTV. 

The Oxford English Dictionary has declared "post-truth" as the most popular word of the year. Use of the term has increased by around 2,000 percent in 2016 compared to last year. The dictionary defined the word as "circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than emotion and personal belief."

Complaints and news stories on the apprehension of the innocent alongside the real suspects are increasing. The issue is growing into a social victimization dimension. Students, civil servants, journalists, businessmen, academics, judges and prosecutors are being detained, so much so that the prime minister feels the need to make frequent warnings. 

American Muslims should not apologize for terrorists who claim affiliation with Islam, Turkey's head of Religious Affairs, Mehmet Görmez said March 1 at a sermon in the newly built Diyanet Center of America in Maryland, some 21 kilometers from Washington D.C.

Swiss voters on Feb. 28 rejected a proposal to automatically deport foreign criminals for even minor offences, referendum results showed.

There was a heart-warming news story in the Hürriyet Daily News yesterday titled: "Stray cats make their home in historic Istanbul mosque." Accordingly, the Aziz Mahmud Hüdayi Mosque, a beautiful Ottoman artifact from the 16th century located in Istanbul's Üsküdar district, has recently become the home of not just human worshippers but also feline refugees.

A French convert to Islam and her husband were under arrest on Dec. 23 after police discovered a fake stomach used to make someone appear pregnant.

The couple from the southern town of Montpellier, aged 23 and 35 respectively, were initially arrested on charges of condoning terrorism, a judicial source said.