mosque - The African Mirror

Apr

11

2024

Gazans live on memories of past Eid festivals as war ruins special day

PALESTINIANS visited the graves of loved ones killed in the Gaza war and prayed beside the wreckage of a mosque and in shattered streets as the devastating conflict cast a pall over the Eid al-Fitr holiday. Millions of Muslims around the world are observing Eid, marking the end of the fasting month of Ramadan, with festivities, feasts and family gatherings. But few in Gaza can take solace from this special time for Muslims. After six months of war, their focus is on surviving Israeli air strikes, shelling, a ground offensive and a humanitarian crisis. Amany Mansour and her mother stood at…

Jul

03

2023

By The African Mirror

Iran holds off sending ambassador to Sweden in protest over Koran incident

WORLD

IRAN will refrain from sending a new ambassador to Sweden in protest over the burning of a Koran outside a mosque in Stockholm, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian said. A man tore up and burned a Koran outside Stockholm's central mosque on Wednesday, the first day of the Muslim Eid al Adha holidays. Swedish police charged the man who burned the holy book with agitation against an ethnic or national group. In a newspaper interview, he described himself as an Iraqi refugee seeking to ban it. Iran's foreign ministry summoned Sweden's charge d'affaires on Thursday to condemn what it said was an…

May

09

2023

By The African Mirror

Sudan’s well-off stuck in limbo at border town en route to Egypt

NEWS

MAGGIE MICHAEL AFTER sleeping for a week under a tree in the backyard of a mosque in the Sudanese town of Wadi Halfa, Dalia Hassan is torn over whether she should cross the frontier into Egypt, or wait until her 18-year-old son gets a visa. A few paces away in the hot, dusty, desert settlement, a family including three pregnant sisters and a grandmother with an oxygen cylinder take turns on rented beds as they await an Egyptian visa for Mohamed, who is 16. Amid the waves of displacement caused by the war in Sudan, many of the country's well-off have…

May

09

2023

By The African Mirror

Sudan’s well-off stuck at border town en route to Egypt

NEWS

MAGGIE MICHAEL AFTER sleeping for a week under a tree in the backyard of a mosque in the Sudanese town of Wadi Halfa, Dalia Hassan is torn over whether she should cross the frontier into Egypt, or wait until her 18-year-old son gets a visa. A few paces away in the hot, dusty, desert settlement, a family including three pregnant sisters and a grandmother with an oxygen cylinder take turns on rented beds as they await an Egyptian visa for Mohamed, who is 16. Amid the waves of displacement caused by the war in Sudan, many of the country's well-off have…

May

17

2022

By The African Mirror

Indian court limits Muslim gatherings at mosque after Hindu idols found, lawyer says

RELIGION

SAURABH SHARMA A court banned large Muslim prayer gatherings in one of north India's highest-profile mosques after a survey team found relics of the Hindu god Shiva and other Hindu symbols there, a lawyer involved in the case said. The judge at the court in Varanasi - Hinduism's holiest city and the site of the historic Gyanvapi mosque - ruled that Islamic gatherings there should be limited to 20 people, lawyer H. S. Jain said. The court ordered the survey of the mosque after five women - represented by Jain - sought permission to perform Hindu rituals in one part…

Jul

21

2021

By The African Mirror

Mali leader unharmed in knife attack

NEWS

TIEMOKO DIALLO and PAUL LORGERIE MALI’S interim President Assimi Goita, a special forces colonel who orchestrated two coups in the last year, said he escaped unharmed after an assailant attempted to stab him during prayers at a mosque in the capital Bamako. The president's office earlier said the attacker was overpowered by security officers, and investigations into the incident were ongoing. Mali, the theatre of French-supported operations against al-Qaeda and Islamic State-linked insurgents for a decade, was thrown into political turmoil after a military junta led by Goita toppled President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita in August 2020. Goita served as vice-president…

May

28

2021

By The African Mirror

Synagogue, mosque and church to join under one roof in Berlin

WORLD

A group of Muslims, Jews and Christians have joined to lay the foundation stone for a centre that will house places of worship for each religion in a symbol of interfaith dialogue in the German capital. Days after protests in Berlin over the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians in Gaza, and at a time when politicians are warning of rising anti-Semitism in Germany, the "House of One" offers a beacon of hope for dialogue, said its founders. "It is important that dramatic world conflicts can be discussed in the German capital and that people have a stage to highlight problems…

Oct

13

2020

By The African Mirror

South African high court prohibits Muslim call to prayer. Why it got it wrong

RELIGION

HELENA VAN COLLER, Associate Professor in Public Law, Rhodes University THE High Court in Durban, the port city in KwaZulu-Natal on the east coast of South Africa, has granted an interdict against a mosque, stopping its call to prayer (the athaan or adhan) because it can be heard from a neighbour’s house across the street. The neighbour had complained that the noise deprived him of the enjoyment of his property and interrupted his peace and quiet. The court found that the constitutional right to freedom of religion did not guarantee the practice of the religion in the form of the…