IRAN: In video, anger boils over at Friday sermon

Newly released video from Tehran shows crowds of angry opposition supporters reacting to a much-anticipated Friday sermon given by Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who called for the release of political prisoners but stopped short of a wholesale condemnation of the government's crackdown.

IRAN: A few pointers on how to attend Friday prayers in Tehran

Dissident cleric Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, one of Iran's most learned clerics, has urged supporters of opposition figurehead Mir-Hossein Mousavi to attend Friday's weekly sermon at Tehran University, to be led by Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.

Thousands are expected to attend the prayers, which could fizzle out into a non-event, turn into a triumphant celebration for the opposition or even supporters of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, or else escalate into another violent confrontation between the two camps.

For some of those attending, it'll be their first time at a Friday prayer, and a quirky set of pointers has been circulating through e-mail and on the Internet. 

"Our goal is not to participate in Friday prayers or pray before [Rafsanjani]," says the message. "The goal is to again gather millions of people in the street on Friday. . . . We will use the seed where [Supreme Leader Ali] Khamenei asked on June 19 to stop the movement to plant a new green tree and make our movement even more powerful."

Below are some other pointers in the circular:

ISRAEL: Riots in Jerusalem after religious woman's arrest

For the last few weeks, Jerusalem has been burning on weekends. Protesting the city's decision to open a municipal parking lot on the Sabbath to serve tourists, ultra-Orthodox residents have been demonstrating in the streets several Saturdays in a row, rioting and torching dumpsters after the end of the Sabbath.

On Wednesday, Jerusalem burned once more as ultra-Orthodox protesters set city property ablaze and clashed with the police -- but for a different reason. The new wave of rioting was sparked by the arrest of a member of Neturei Karta, a small but feisty group in Israel's ultra-Orthodox community, on suspicion that she starved her child to near-death. 

The 3-year-old had been in and out of hospitals for two years, but doctors couldn't determine the cause of what seemed like chronic and severe malnutrition. The absence of a medical explanation suggested the problem resided elsewhere and surveillance cameras eventually confirmed the suspicions of hospital staff and welfare workers.

IRAN: Are China's Muslims worthy of Islamic Republic's support?

Although Iranian authorities were quick to condemn the killing of a Muslim Egyptian woman by an alleged racist in a German courtroom last week, allowing protesters to organize a demonstration and hurl eggs at the German Embassy in Tehran, they've been less than compassionate about scores of Muslims killed in western China.

"The United States is behind the riots in Xinjiang," said an analysis published by the official Islamic Republic News Agency, or IRNA. "Living conditions have improved for the Chinese Muslims. These riots have no religious aspect and they are just the outcome of a U.S. conspiracy. However, the Western media have exaggerated the events in Xinjiang."

The government's domestic critics have been outraged by its response. Already emboldened and angered by the marred reelection of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, they have been quick to pounce. 

ISRAEL: The pope's gifts--taking stock

Pope Benedict XVI was presented with a great many gifts during his visit to the Holy Land. Careful thought had gone into each to ensure the token carried the desired message: religious, political, national and other.

Here's a (partial) list of what the pope left Israel and the West Bank with: 

• Nano-Bible: the whole Bible --all 1.2 million letters and 300,000 words-- engraved on a silicon chip the size of a grain of sand by researchers at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology.
• Painting: "Camp Synagogue," by Felix Nussbaum, a Jewish artist who perished in Auschwitz.
• Ancient lamp: a 1,500-year-old menorah, a rare antique lamp, gift of the Jewish National Fund, which had worked for weeks to prepare the site of the Mass at Mt. Precipice near Nazareth.  
• Covenant to save lives: Magen David Adom, Israel's largest medical organization, conceived a covenant addressing the highest religious value of all, saving lives, from an interfaith perspective. Written and signed by distinguished Jewish, Muslim and Christian leaders.
• Ancient map: a framed copy of Heinrich Bunting's famous 16th century depiction of Jerusalem as the center of the clover leaf-shaped Old World, presented by Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat upon welcoming Benedict to Jerusalem.
• The Gospel of Luke: a volume of 65 poster-size pages written in ornate Arabic script by a Bethlehem artist of Islamic calligraphy. The Bethlehem mayor commissioned the Muslim Yasser Abu Saymeh for the project, a message of religious coexistence that took two months to complete. 

  Bronze sculpture (right): Jerusalem artist Aharon Bezalel's sculpture designed of 10 bronze figures welded together, the tallest three engraved with a cross, moon and menorah in a sign of religious coexistence. This completes a circle for the artist, who had met with Pope John Paul II and presented him with a sculpture honoring the memory of the Holocaust. It is on display in the Vatican. 

A few of the gifts combined ancient and modern, some were an interfaith statement, and others yet hinted at political issues, such as the sash that was given to him when he visited a West Bank refugee camp; it was embroidered with a key--a symbol of Palestinian refugees' desire to return to their homes, now in Israel.

Pope Benedict brought some gifts with him too, such as the ventilator for a children's hospital and a mosaic representation of the birth of Jesus he presented to Bethlehem. And, he left a note in the Western Wall.

But some people wanted the pope to return some stuff too.

ISRAEL: Atittudes toward Christians

Jewish Israelis are very diverse. In a nation whose immigrants come from countries and cultures far and wide, pluralism often refers to tolerance among different cultural groups of Jews.

But diversity discourse in Israel differs considerably when it comes to interaction with non-Jewish groups. Rival historic, religious and national narratives make real diversity a tough principle to practice.  

Most Christians in Israel are Arabs, a minority within a minority squeezed between different layers of conflict. Christians account for 2.1% of the population. Israel's non-Arab Christians are mainly immigrants from the former Soviet Union, foreign workers, resident clergy and even Catholic Jews. And Jewish Israelis don't quite know how to perceive any of them -- for cultural, national and religious reasons.

Fifty-two percent of Jewish Israelis have no Christian friends or acquaintances, but almost 100% of them have opinions about them. A recent poll surveyed attitudes among the adult Jewish population toward Christians, Christianity and the Christian presence in Israel. The results of the survey, carried out by the Jerusalem Center for Jewish-Christian Relations (JCJCR) and the Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies (JIIS), shed light on how Jewish Israelis perceive Christians and what they know about them, or think they do know.

Generally, most answers showed that the higher the level of religious observance, the more negative the attitude toward Christians. Such attitudes also were seen the lower the level of age, income and education. The following numbers mostly refer to the overall sample, but keep in mind the observance breakdown of the respondents: 23% Orthodox, 24% traditional and 53% secular.

EGYPT: Cautiously celebrating Obama's new Muslim advisor

Egyptians cautiously rejoiced at the recent appointment of a veiled Egyptian American Muslim woman as an advisor to President  Obama. Dalia Mogahed, senior analyst and executive director of the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies, was appointed earlier this month to Obama’s Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.

“Dalia Mogahed is the best example of a successful Muslim woman. She proves that the Muslim should be successful in all fields at least in [her] area of specialization,” wrote a commenter on the website of Al Masry al Youm independent daily.

Another writer to the newspaper's site, Saled Abdel Hamdi, said: “Congratulations! I wish that you convey the truth in full to an understanding man and not to a one-track minded who wants to shape the world the way he wants or the way they want.”

SAUDI ARABIA: Court refuses to nix 8-year-old's marriage to 60-year-old

The latest clash in the struggle between Saudi Arabia's religious hardliners and reformists erupted this week when a court refused for the second time to annul a widely publicized marriage between an 8-year-old girl and a man of 60. 

The case has been brought by the girl’s mother, who accused the child’s father of selling her to pay off his debts. 

Saudi Justice Minister Mohammad Issa went on to tell the Saudi Daily Al Watan that the ministry of justice was seeking to “regulate” marriages of young girls but gave no indication the practice would be stopped. 

LEBANON: Ayatollah says nail polish permitted under Islam

 

Religious edicts are generally not fodder for beauty salon gossip, but as soon as Shiite cleric Ayatollah Mohammad Fadlallah issued a fatwa allowing women to pray wearing nail polish, word spread through Beirut faster than knockoff Prada bags. 

“All the girls in the Dahiyeh are talking about it,” said 29-year-old Nadine Dirani, a veiled mother of two living in the Dahiyeh, Beirut's heavily Shiite southern suburbs. 

“I think it’s an important step, and why not?" she said. "It makes our lives easier.” 

EGYPT: Bahai minority group under attack

The homes of some members of Egypt's Bahai minority came under violent attack by Muslims this week in a rural area in southern Egypt.

The attacks erupted in the village of al-Shuraniya in the upper Egyptian province of Sohag where Muslim residents gathered outside the homes of some Bahais and chanted, “There is no god but God" and "Bahais are the enemies of God.” 

Shortly afterward, they threw rocks at the homes, breaking windows. Violence escalated when Muslim residents threw firebombs and Molotov cocktails at the house of five Bahai families, according to a statement released by human rights groups.

"The heinous and unprecedented attacks on Baha'i Egyptians are a crime against all Egyptians,“ said a statement issued on April 2 by six human rights groups. “We shall never allow the perpetrators of these crimes to benefit from the same climate of impunity that has marred the government's response to sectarian violence against Egyptians Copts over the last four decades.”