Islam

Malaysia's highest court on Monday dismissed a bid by Christians for the right to use the word "Allah", ending a years-long legal battle that has escalated religious tensions in the Muslim-majority country.
      

Ultra-conservative Muslim clerics denounce football as millions turn to watch the World Cup games.

Portuguese midfielder Raul Meireles has shown his newest tattoo, featuring the Blue Mosque in Istanbul, during a recent training for his team’s upcoming game at the World Cup in Brazil.

The former Chelsea and Liverpool player now calls Turkey his home, as he plays for Turkish football giants Fenerbahçe. 

Malaysian authorities on Thursday were searching for 35 people missing at sea following two boat accidents at a time when many illegal migrant workers head home to Indonesia for the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.
      

The Turkish government has updated its official terrorist organization list, removing the al-Nusra Front from the group listed under the title “al-Qaeda in Iraq.” However, the changes published in the Official Gazette on June 18 kept al-Nusra listed as a “terrorist organization.” 

A handful of Islamic preachers in Turkey will earn more than a million Turkish Liras with their special shows on Turkish TV screens throughout Ramadan this year, which will start on June 28.

Top of the list is Islamic scholar Nihat Hatipoğlu, who has clinched a contract worth 600,000 liras with ATV for 30 episodes of his trademark Ramadan program, according to daily Vatan.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague says that ‘circumstances are right’ to reopen Britain’s embassy in Iran, which was closed in 2011 after hard-liners overran the building and ransacked it Britain plans to reopen its embassy in Iran, Foreign Secretary William Hague announced June 17, as the West steps up its engagement with Tehran amid rapid jihadist advances in neighboring Ir

The violence in Iraq is part of a broader Sunni Arab revolt that could lead to a holy war in the country, and is not just a rampage by Islamist militants from an al-Qaeda splinter group, fugitive vice president Tarek al-Hashemi told Reuters on June 16.

Israeli forces searching for three teenagers believed to have been kidnapped swept into a second West Bank city on June 16, touching off street confrontations in which they killed a Palestinian, witnesses and hospital officials said.

Israel said on June 15 Hamas militants had abducted three Israeli teenagers in the occupied West Bank, warning of "serious consequences" as it pressed on with a search and detained dozens of Palestinians.

The two 16-year-olds and a third man aged 19 disappeared on June 12 night in the West Bank, where they were seminary students in a Jewish settlement.