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 Sunni and Shiite Muslims in Iraq rarely agree on the exact sighting of the crescent moon that marks the beginning of Eid.
But this year even Shiites couldn’t agree among themselves on the start of the three-day holy feast that ends the fasting month of Ramadan.
In many Shiite families, some broke their fasts, others did not, making for strained and confused households.
For years, the Eid was set by Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani and other religious leaders who preside over the shrine at Najaf.
But these days, the Shiites who follow the guidance of other religious leaders celebrated the feast a day earlier than Sistani. They marked it on Wednesday, and Sistani followers on Thursday.
Shiites have become quite stubborn about the question. At least one man chased his wife through the house, trying to make her break her fast. She refused for an hour, then relented. She was angry at him for the rest of the day.
Abu Ali, a Sistani follower, said: "I fasted on Wednesday, but the issue ignited a debate inside my family on who was right or wrong. There was a big quarrel. I ended the debate in my family, but some of them started yelling at each other."
It is increasingly a sensitive topic, and one man told me that the bickering “has caused me to lose my anticipation and taste for the Eid.”
When I was writing this blog, a group of men told me: “If you write about this, we will show this story to bad guys.”
It is strange to me that writing about a holy day can get one into trouble.
— Usama Redha in Baghdad
Photo credit: Associated Press
Things have been quiet on the Palestinian end lately, thanks to Ramadan.
The Muslim holy month of fasting usually means shorter days, lower energy levels, lots of cheap plastic lanterns and a host of nightly social obligations. As a result, most serious business simply gets pushed until after the Eid al Fitr celebration.
The Eid started Tuesday, and many are predicting that events will begin to ramp up on the Palestinian end soon after. But just what direction those events will go depends on whom you ask.
Egypt plans to resume its on-and-off efforts to bring the feuding Palestinian factions together. A delegation from the Islamic group Hamas, which defeated its rival Fatah faction in January 2006 parliamentary elections, will travel to Cairo on Oct. 8 for talks expected to continue through the month.
Hamas and Fatah coexisted for several months in a unity government that collapsed last summer, leaving Hamas running a pariah ministate in the Gaza Strip and Fatah controlling the West Bank and Palestinian Authority with U.S. and Israeli backing.
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 Dust blew out of the desert and into Baghdad. It whirled around the sheep standing on a corner, eating grass, waiting to be sold. A man arrived in a small truck. He got out and waded into the sheep, pulling at their wool, feeling their sides, lifting their front legs and checking their bellies. It looked like he was dancing with them.
He chose one and hauled it away from the others. The sheep fought. The man pushed it aside, spotting a fatter one hiding in the herd. He carried it to the back of his truck, hooves clattering metal, the door slamming shut. The man paid for the sheep. He smiled. It was the eve of the Eid for Shiite Muslims in Iraq -- the end of 30 days' fasting.
It seemed normal. A man went to the market to buy his family's feast. He praised God. But he drove home through Army checkpoints, blast walls and barbed wire. And news that, although Iraq's casualties are dropping, some people would not live to break their fast -- a car bomb in the city of Balad 80 kilometers north of Baghdad exploded near a shrine, killing three and wounding 30.
Jeffrey Fleishman in Baghdad
An Iraqi boy with his sheep. Associated Press
 By questioning the faith of Shiites and warning against their attempts at invading Sunni countries, prominent religious scholar Yusuf Qaradawi reignited a new sectarian war of words across the Middle East.
Earlier this month, the Egyptian-born scholar said in an interview with a local newspaper: "Shiites are Muslims, but they are heretics. The threat they pose lies in their attempts to invade the Muslim world."
His statement provoked ripostes from top Shiite clerics in Lebanon and Iran. In the meantime, the sectarian rift was furiously played out in cyberspace. On the website of the Arabic Radio of Iran, several respondents voiced their outrage.
"You should incite Muslims against American and Israeli invasions and western hegemony over the Muslim world rather than incite them blindly against fellow Muslims. I pity you and would like to give you a piece of advice: Don't be a puppet in the hands of the Americans and the Israelis. Be more attentive to the Ummah's interests," wrote a respondent who identified himself as Mahmoud M. on the forum.
A Saudi respondent who identified himself as Hussein wrote: "May God reward our respected Shiekh."
On the website of the pan-Arab, Saudi-owned Al Sharq al Awsat daily, some Arabs hailed the statement made by the Qatar-based sheik. "You did a great job, may God bless you for your smart stand. Shiite doctrines pose the most serious threat to Islam," wrote Abdullah from Qatar.
— Noha El-Hennawy in Cairo
Photo: Yusuf Qaradawi Credit: BBC
Next week, the Jewish year is coming to an end.
 5768 has been a Shmita year, a special sabbatical observed every seventh year, during which land owned by Jews in the Land of Israel is left to lie fallow, its fruit forbidden, and most agricultural activities are forbidden. In modern times, most fresh produce in Israel is either grown in the sixth year, or grown outside the biblical geographic boundaries of the Land of Israel, or on lands owned by non-Jews- permanently, or temporarily.
Another lesser-known component of Shmita (literally 'to release', or 'drop') applies to all Jews, not only those living in Israel. "At the end of every seven years...every creditor shall release that which he has lent to his neighbor; he shall not exact it of his neighbor and his brother because the Lord's release has been proclaimed" (Deuteronomy 15:1-2). In short, a debt amnesty; any private loans left outstanding at the end of the sabbatical year are considered forgiven.
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The weekly newspaper that calls itself Al Esbuyia, or Iraq Weekly, offers a regular diet of sports, culture, features and sarcasm to readers, and one of its key features is the cartoon that accompanies each new issue. Most of the cartoons poke fun at the hardships endured by regular Iraqis, but some Iraqi lawmakers found the one published Sept. 14 to be not very amusing.
It shows a Muslim woman clad in a burka holding a burning bomb fuse in her raised left hand, a la the Statue of Liberty, who stands beside her. The drawing reflects the growing number of female suicide bombers in Iraq, but members of Iraq's parliament denounced it as an insult to Iraqi Muslim women and voted Sunday to sue the newspaper for defamation.
It's too early to say where, if anywhere, the lawsuit will go. For months, Iraqi lawmakers haven't been able to pass pressing legislation to hold provincial elections or share the nation's oil wealth, so the chances of them getting organized enough to push through a lawsuit like this seem remote.
But the action itself is another sign of the Iraqi government's prickly relationship with the media, which were hobbled for decades under Saddam Hussein. His ouster ushered in press freedom, sort of. Iraqi journalists and media company employees get gunned down, kidnapped, threatened and roughed up with alarming frequency. They also get detained and held, sometimes for months, by U.S. forces.
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A new computer game promoting “modern religious genocide” against followers of the Islamic faith is causing an uproar among Muslims in the Arab world and elsewhere.
According to media reports, the game, "Muslim Massacre" (available on a website that appeared to be down Monday morning), allows players to be in control of an “American hero” on a mission to kill bearded Muslims and suicide bombers using a machine gun and a rocket launcher.
On the game’s website, the creator, identified only as Sigvatr, encourages Internet users to “take control of the American hero and wipe out the Muslim race with an arsenal of the world’s most destructive weapons.”
The game is said to be inspired by the "war on Islam" declared by the United States.
“Don’t be a liberal...! Download the game now,” reads the promotional ad on the game’s frontpage.
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 Watch out, TV executives peddling promiscuous, Western-style programming. A leading Saudi cleric has sanctioned the killing of media tycoons he blames for causing the “deviance of thousands of people.”
Sheikh Saleh Lihedan, a top Saudi judiciary official, may not have to look too far for the purveyors of what he regards as immoral broadcasting. A number of Middle East networks, including those featuring Hollywood movies and music videos, are managed by members of the Saudi royal family or those with palace connections.
The Associated Press reported that Al-Lihedan’s fatwa, or edict, was made during a religious radio program called Light in the Path. The cleric, responding to a call in question about TV programming, was quoted as saying:
“I want to advise the owners of these channels, who broadcast calls for such indecency and impudence ... and I warn them of the consequences. What does the owner of these networks think, when he provides seduction, obscenity and vulgarity?” He added: “This calling for corrupt beliefs; certainly it is permissible to kill them.”
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 The sex-on-the-beach trial in the United Arab Emirates has been adjourned for another month. The British couple accused of indecency and having unmarried sex along the coast in Dubai was delayed when the police officer in the case did not appear in court earlier this week.
The saga of Vince Acors and Michelle Palmer, two Brits who left a champagne brunch and allegedly ended up in a compromising position could face years in prison. Authorities say Palmer was discovered sitting on Acors with her shirt off. The couple claims they were kissing and hugging, and that medical reports will show they did not have sex.
The National newspaper in the UAE reported that Palmer, who was fired from her job in the publishing industry over the incident, had been hospitalized in recent days for stress. The newspaper quoted Palmer as saying in a blog entry: "Please imagine if it were you. This is punishment enough."
The case has become a sensation beyond the blowing sands and Oz-like skyscrapers coiling through the desert air of Dubai.
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A television documentary set for broadcast Wednesday on the Military Channel explores the role of an Army chaplain in helping soldiers endure the danger and dreariness of a 15-month deployment in one of the more dangerous parts of Iraq.
"God's Soldier" covers three months in the life of Capt. Charles Popov, chaplain for the 2nd battalion, 27th infantry regiment, the Wolfhounds. Popov, 49, a Baptist, does his best to keep the troops' morale from sagging during the deployment as the unit suffers 18 killed and 300 wounded.
One topic is ever-present: how can a chaplain justify war with the biblical admonition against killing? Popov tries to distinguish between killing and murder, and notes that the Bible, in several places, condones violence against the wicked.
"There is a justice that has to be served," Popov tells his flock. "God is a god of mercy, and God is also a god of justice."
It is a close-up, intimate look. The camera is present during moments of confession and trauma. Five soldiers in the unit are killed by a roadside bomb; an interpreter is killed by a sniper; soldiers are frustrated when the brass orders them to stop daylight patrols, lest they draw sniper fire.
A soldier admits to Popov that he doesn't know if he can kill. Another says he does nothing but argue with his wife during phone calls home. When news comes that the unit's stay will be extended, morale plummets.
Throughout it all, Popov is patient and cheerful, at least in his public face. Privately, the stress takes a toll. He admits he does not have all the answers, particularly to the eternal question: Why does God permit evil in the world?
"That is a struggle that I think people of faith contend with," Popov says.
Without chaplains, Popov insists, troops can lose their moral compass. "Everyone asks: Where was the chaplain at Abu Ghraib?"
"God's Soldier" covers months in late 2006 and early 2007 at a small outpost near Tikrit, a world away from the comforts of the large U.S. bases. The soldiers are suspicious of the Iraqi security forces living with them. A Christmas pageant arranged by Popov is marred when Iraqis set to play wise men and shepherds are arrested on various crimes.
Popov tells his video camera that he has trouble sleeping. The faces of the dead soldiers keep appearing in his dreams. Still, he wouldn't want to be anywhere else. His respect for the young soldiers never wavers.
"I'd rather be here than in the best church in the U.S.," he says. "It makes me feel very humble to be their chaplain, almost unworthy."
--Tony Perry, in San Diego
Photo: Capt. Charles Popov addresses troops. Credit: Military Channel.
 A Muslim emirate is not the best place to mix champagne and beach romance. A British couple is facing up to six years in prison for allegedly having public sex near the surf in Dubai, a split-personality emirate that toys with Western permissiveness but is ruled by Islamic tenets.
The couple -– Vince Acors and Michelle Palmer -– face up to six years in jail for indecency and having unmarried sex. A trial on the charges is expected to begin next week. The British Broadcasting Company quoted Palmer, who was reportedly fired from her job at a publishing house after the incident, as saying:
“We were just kissing and hugging. We didn’t have sex together. I was lying on top of him. I have been to Dubai for 2 1/2 years without committing any kind of offense. I’m sorry.”
Authorities in Dubai -- the flashy, financial hub of the United Arab Emirates -- said the couple met at a champagne brunch, got in a taxi and were arrested on the beach by a policeman who spotted Palmer sitting on Acors with her shirt off.
“The lady is innocent,” Palmer’s lawyer, Hassan Mattar, told the media after the couple appeared in court this week. “The medical reports from the police show she didn’t have sex.”
Foreigners make up about 85% of the UAE's population of 5.6 million, and cultures often collide.
— Jeffrey Fleishman in Cairo
Photo: Vince Acors, accused of having sex on a Dubai beach. Credit: Reuters
P.S. The Los Angeles Times issues a free daily newsletter with the latest headlines from the Middle East, as well as the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. You can subscribe by logging in at the website here, clicking on the box for "L.A. Times updates," and then clicking on the "World: Mideast" box.
 Liquor is flowing -- well, let's say trickling -- again at the Grand Hyatt on the Nile. After a dry summer, the Saudi owner of the hotel made concessions this week to the Hyatt international chain by partially lifting a ban he had imposed on alcohol.
A few months ago, Sheikh Abdel Aziz Ibrahim, a relative of Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah, stunned the tourism business when he gave orders to dump more than $1 million worth of alcoholic beverages into the Nile River. The decision, driven by Islamic religiosity, stirred anger in the circles of the country’s tourism leaders, who threatened to demote the five-star hotel to two stars.
Yet, this is not to assume that the Saudi sheikh made major concessions. Liquor is back, but will not be served everywhere in the luxurious resort. Visitors can sip their beer and martinis only in a secluded 40th floor restaurant. The owner’s spokeswoman, Sally Khattab, was quoted by the Associated Press as saying that her boss' decision allowed him "keep his hotel with the family atmosphere he would like to present to his guests.”
Khattab added that this isolated restaurant will be managed by a different company so to keep the sheikh aloof from any alcohol business.
Guests are left with another option; They can order alcohol through room service.
—Noha El-Hennawy in Cairo
Photo: Grand Hyatt Cairo. Credit: Cris Bouroncle AFP/Getty Images
Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, spiritual guide to millions of Iraq’s Shiite majority, called eight local journalists to visit him Sunday as he sought to dispel rumors published in a Jordanian newspaper that he was seriously ill. Sistani, a reclusive cleric, has been one of the most influential voices in Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein. He used his moral authority to push the United States to allow elections in Iraq in January 2005 when U.S. officials had originally envisioned a longer timeframe. Sistani helped bring an end to the uprising waged by young radical cleric Muqtada Sadr in Najaf in August 2004. The frail cleric, who seldom leaves his house in Najaf, is a force to be reckoned with, whether by Americans or by politicians in Baghdad, who curry his favor.
Saad Fakhrildeen, The Times' special correspondent in Najaf, writes below about meeting the cleric in Sistani's office, located in an anonymous alleyway in the pilgrimage city.
By Saad Fakhrildeen in Najaf
All eight of us were called in the morning to visit the grand ayatollah’s bureau. We were met by his son, Mohammed Ridha, who serves as his father’s top advisor. He welcomed us and said the media needed to dispel the rumors that crop up from time to time about the grand ayatollah, in particular the latest one that he was ill. Mohammed Ridha entered his father’s office first while we waited in a guest area drinking tea. He then left and beckoned for us to go inside. We thought it would be the same as in the past, where we would grip his hand and kiss it and then leave.
Sistani sat on a mattress, dressed in his black robes and matching turban. He shook our hands and we wished him success. He beckoned us to sit with him. We sat on both his left and right. The room had about seven thin mattresses and one large rug. A small plastic bag held coins. The lights went out briefly and then a generator started up and emitted a steady roar. Sitting with him, I was so happy, I wanted to cry.
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God may have delivered Moses many things. He sent 10 plagues upon Pharaoh's Egypt and delivered the Israelites from slavery, and parted the seas for Moses and his people. He sent him manna from heaven, water from rock and his own words onto tablets of stone.
But he never sent him a printer.
DHL in Israel handles more than 100,000 deliveries every month and say they've seen it all. Except for a package sent by 'Yahweh' to 'Moses' (OK, so the mail's slow). The information on the shipping bill had an Arizona address for Yahweh and Moses at Mt. Sinai — but in Jerusalem. One would think He would know where Mt. Sinai was, and that Moses didn't make it into the promised land.
The Israeli side couldn't decide which was more baffling, the sender or the recipient. Tracing the sender's address located divinity in a branch of Walgreens in Tucson, AZ, but with a Seattle phone number. By divine coincidence, Moses shares the same zip code (the world was much smaller in those days). But in Israel it belongs to the small Bedouin community of Al Sayyid, a previously unrecognized Bedouin settlement recently granted legal status.
Funny names is one thing, bogus addresses another. With all due respect to celebrity, you can't be too careful. "Israel is exposed to threats. We called the bomb squad for fear the package contained explosives", explained senior DHL Israel executive Dr.Yisrael Schor to Ilan Gattegno, who first reported the story in the Israel Hayom Hebrew daily. The sappers blew up the package, decimating the contents, which turned out to be a cheap printer.
Walgreens, by the way, have in-house DHL shipping spots.
The mystery hasn't been entirely solved, though. Someone paid $200 for expedited shipping for a $30 printer. "There is no logical explanation for this," said Schor.
— Batsheva Sobelman in Jerusalem.
Photo: The shipping bill that came with the package, courtesy of Israel Hayom website.
P.S. The Los Angeles Times issues a free daily newsletter with the latest headlines from all over the Middle East, as well as the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. You can subscribe by logging in at the website here, clicking on the box for "LA Times updates," and then clicking on the "World: Mideast" box.
 Stop, and listen to the sound of babies wailing.
Egypt’s population is growing too fast to sustain it, especially in the squatter neighborhoods of Giza, where 23,000 babies are born each year. That number adds to an overall annual population growth of 1.9 million people. President Hosni Mubarak is again encouraging birth control under the slogan: “Before you add another baby, make sure his needs are secured.”
Since Mubarak took office in 1981, the country’s population has nearly doubled to about 76 million, according to Egypt's Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics. Some counts put the number at more than 80 million.
That is straining a desert nation with shrinking farmland and limited water resources, and an economy in which about 45% of Egyptians live on $2 or less.
The poor are having the bulk of the babies, most notably in rural areas where large families are regarded as key to economic survival. The government’s Ask for Advice campaign is attempting to change such attitudes. It teaches contraception and other family planning methods and seeks to persuade men to be satisfied with daughters, instead of preoccupied with gaining sons.
Cairo’s upscale neighborhood of Zamalek makes demographers happy: It records a mere 235 births each year.
-- Jeffrey Fleishman in Cairo
Photo: A crowded Cairo street. Credit: Reuters
 Relying on modern visual and sound effects, Syrian singer Hossam Haj’s few works display a happy marriage between romantic song clips and Islam. After taking many viewers by surprise with his song, “O, Bravo, You Got Veiled!” a few years ago, Haj is about to launch his new song clip, “Let Us Pray Together, Sweetheart.”
“I am against pornography and indecency,” he said. “When you respect your faith, everyone will respect you. There is nothing wrong in expressing your faith or talking about love.”
In his first clip, Haj played the role of a groom who celebrated his bride’s decision to wear the veil. In his new stint, he depicts a ritual that has recently become widely practiced by young Muslims before marriage. When a couple feel like getting married, they perform a specific prayer to make sure their union will mark the right match.
“Nobody sings the way I do. My songs are about love but they also show that God is there to help lovers,” said Haj, who finances his song clips from his own pocket.
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Before leaving Israel on Thursday, Barack Obama took out a sheet of King David Hotel stationery and penned a heartfelt prayer to God. It was meant to be private, but his early morning visit to the Western Wall, where he deposited the folded piece of paper into a crevice, was a public event.
As the Democratic candidate headed for the airport, a young Orthodox religious student searched the Wall until he found the note and turned it over to Maariv. The newspaper's decision to publish the prayer drew a storm of criticism in Israel.
"It was unworthy and inappropriate to publish this note," fumed Shmuel Rabinovitz, the rabbi of the Western Wall. "This violates a request that is private and personal." The rabbi's objection follows a 1,000-year-old Jewish edict against snooping on someone else's mail.
Bloggers joined in denouncing the newspaper, even as they speculated how much Obama's letter would fetch on eBay. But one critic, attorney Guy Mashiach, figured the senator probably anticipated the invasion of his privacy.
"Obama is intelligent enough to understand that in Israel, nothing remains private, discreet and secret for more than a few hours and that one mustn't count on a secret meant to be shared only by you and God for eternity being kept even in the holy of holies," he wrote on the Haaretz newspaper's web site. "Obama didn't fall into the trap of asking for John McCain's disappearance ... and penned a remarkably beautiful note, as though he had known the note would go directly to one of the more tabloid-like papers."
Read more about Obama's stolen Western Wall prayer
— Richard Boudreaux in Jerusalem
Photo: Barack Obama places a note in the Western Wall, Judaism's holiest site, in Jerusalem's Old City. Credit: Tara Todras-Whitehil / Associated Press
A few landmarks and shadows still testify to their existence in Lebanon: scattered cemeteries with dust-covered stars of David and Hebrew inscriptions; remnants of synagogues engulfed by colonies of wild plants; fading stories about a neighbor who departed long ago.
The Jews of Lebanon are almost forgotten today. This in a small country that boasts 18 officially recognized religious communities, including Judaism.
Before the 1975-1990 civil war, they numbered in the thousands. But today, according to some estimates there are only a few hundred Lebanese Jews, who live in anonymity, mostly pretending to be Christians for fear of persecution. With Lebanon in a state of war with Israel, some do not differentiate between Jews and Israelis.
In an interview published recently on NowLebanon, a local news website, Liza, one of the few remaining Jews in Beirut, said: I am Lebanese, 100% Lebanese. But I am rejected, because people think I am Israeli, or a Zionist or a Mossad agent. For me to have a normal life here, you will need real peace between the Arabs and Israelis.... Until then, I will not be welcomed in this country, and actually, no one will feel stable here.
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 Up the corniche, along the Saudi Arabian coast where boats carrying pilgrims bound for Mecca sailed for centuries, a thicket of cranes rises over whitewashed mosques along the Red Sea.
Steel flashes and blowtorches glow as 20,000 workers build a $10-billion university ordered up by a king who hopes Western ingenuity will revive the economy of this ultraconservative Muslim nation. When finished next year, the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology will offer coed classes, Western professors, a curriculum in English and other touches loathed as dangerous liberalism by Islamic fundamentalists.
The West may be dependent on Saudi crude, now as high as $145 a barrel, but this campus outside the ancient fishing village of Thuwal is a recognition that the country that is home to Islam’s holiest shrines needs the likes of USC, Oxford University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to survive globalization.
Read more about the university in the Los Angeles Times.
-- Jeffrey Fleishman in Thuwal, Saudi Arabia
Photo: King Abdullah. Credit: AFP
The government may be in Baghdad and the oil reserves in Basra, but the smaller city of Najaf, halfway between Iraq’s two centers of power, has a treasure that could be the envy of them both.
"Our oil here is tourism," said Abed Hussein Abtan, the deputy provincial governor in Najaf.
Next to Mecca, the birthplace of the prophet Muhammad, Najaf and its neighbor Karbala hold Islam’s holiest monuments. If they could, Shiite Muslims from around the Middle East would flock to the city to pray at the shrine of Imam Ali, the cousin and companion of Muhammad, and the first caliph of the Shiite branch of Islam.
Decades of repression and war had reduced the pilgrimage to a trickle. But next week, Najaf is taking a giant step toward tapping into its tourism resource when it joins the short list of Iraqi cities with airports capable of handling large commercial jets.
After an $80-million renovation of an abandoned military airfield, Najaf Airport will open to commercial traffic July 20, Abtan said.
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 By Saad Fakhrildeen in Samarra
It was the place where Iraq’s sectarian war began. This week, the city of Samarra and its ruined shrine once again became a place of peaceful pilgrimage for thousands of Shiite Muslims.
A bombing on Feb. 22, 2006, destroyed Al Askari shrine’s famous golden dome and unleashed a cycle of revenge killings between Shiites and Sunnis in which countless numbers perished. Another bombing on June 13, 2007, collapsed the two minarets.
But with security improving, I took my place Monday on one of more than 100 buses carrying worshipers from the southern holy city of Najaf north to Samarra to commemorate the death of the 9th century imam Ali Hadi, who is buried there with his son, Hassan Askari.
Each bus had room for 50 passengers, in addition to those who stood in the aisles for the five-hour journey, so eager were they to participate in the pilgrimage.
"We haven't witnessed such a procession for a long time," civil servant Abdul-Kareem Ali told me along the way. "The former regime banned them, and then they were banned by the terrorists."
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As world powers studied Iran's response to a package of proposals meant to convince it to stop enriching uranium, a curious series of meetings took place today in Iran.
 Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili (pictured at left), took a trip from Tehran today to the holy city of Qom, home to some of the most powerful clerics in the Shiite Muslim faith, which is prevalent in Iran and Iraq.
That's according to the usually rather reliable Persian-language news website Tabnak, but other sources also confirmed the information.
In Qom, he visited three key Iranian clerics for closed-door meetings. They were Ayatollah Naser Makarem Shirazi, Ayatollah Lotfullah Safi Golpayegani and Ayatollah Jaffar Sobhani.
All are staunchly pro-Islamic Republic but have been critical of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's handling of the economy. All are "marja," sources of emulation at the top of the Shiite clergy. No reporters were allowed in for photo-ops, which is unusual, and the state-controlled news outlets were mum about the sessions.
Iranian politicians often seek political and religious cover before making bold moves, in case something backfires.
Analysts say that when Iranian political leaders such as Ahmadinejad, experienced council chairman Ali Akbar Rafasanjani or parliamentary speaker Ali Larijani visit Qom to consult with the marja, it is sometimes to appease them or gain their blessing ahead of a major change in policy. Examples include Iran's 2003 decision to temporarily halt uranium enrichment or its 2006 decision to meet directly with Americans over Iraq.
Jalili is close to Ahmadinejad, whose circle has been the most strident voice arguing against halting enrichment, which the U.S. demands as a precondition for negotiations. Today, Gholam Hossein Elham, the spokesman of Ahmadinejad's government, told reporters "that nothing has changed" with regard to Iran's stance on nuclear technology, which presumably includes the hot-button issue of enrichment.
But his words shouldn't be taken too seriously. He made similar remarks when the package was first presented last month, and was largely ignored.
Analysts offered a number of possibilities for Jalili's secretive visit:
- To the chagrin of Ahmadinejad, powerful moderates in the government want to bend on the issue of enrichment, either by accepting the so-called "freeze-for-freeze" proposal to stop adding new uranium-enriching centrifuges, or by suspending enrichment altogether. Jalili and his camp, led by Ahmadinejad, want political backing for going up against them.
- Ahmadinejad wants to do a U-turn and accept some kind of compromise with the West, but needs some political cover.
- Jalili is a relative political newcomer. Unlike his well-connected predecessor, Larijani, he doesn't have the political standing to make any bold moves, and wants to improve his ties to the clergy in order to do so.
— Ramin Mostaghim in Tehran and Borzou Daragahi in Beirut
Photo credit: Islamic Republic News Agency
 The Egyptian interior ministry called on Sunni religious leaders to train state security officers on how to fight the proliferation of Shiite doctrines, according to a news report that appeared Thursday in the well-respected El-Masry El-Youm daily .
The report quoted a prominent scholar at Al-Azhar University as saying that the state security apparatus is concerned about the creeping influence of Shiite Islam since the influx of thousands of Shiite Iraqis to Egypt.
Egypt has been one of the major destinations of Iraqis who fled the violence at home. About 150,000 Iraqis are believed to have moved to Egypt since the 2003 outbreak of the war in Iraq and last year, when Egypt closed its borders.
Sheikh Mohamed Abdel Moneim El-Berry told the paper that his lectures to police officers focused on the dangerous nature of Shiite beliefs and the dire need to protect Egypt’s national security against such a threat. Several Shiite groups have already settled in a number of Egyptian provinces and have filed requests with the government to build their own mosques, added El-Berry.
Egypt has predominantly Sunni Muslims; however, the number of Shiites is estimated at 1% of the country’s 76 million inhabitants. Like other minorities in Egypt, Shiites are usually discriminated against and their loyalty is often questioned.
However, the Sunni-Shiite animosity has recently become more of a sensitive issue in most Sunni Arab countries due to the rising regional influence of Shiite Iran and the growing popularity of Lebanon’s Shiite Hezbollah group.
-- Noha El-Hennawy in Cairo
Photo: Shiite pilgrims visit shrines in Karbala, Iraq. Credit: Getty Images
 The legendary Muslim movie star Adel Imam has been accused of apostasy by Facebook activists over his role as a Coptic Christian priest in the upcoming production "Hassan and Marcos," according to news reports.
Under the slogan "A call to all Muslims, boycott Christian Adel Imam," a Facebook group has recently launched a smear campaign against the actor. The group accuses him of promoting Christianity and discourages Muslims from attending the big-budget movie, which is expected to be released in early July, according to a report posted on the website of the pan-Arab satellite channel Al Arabiya.
“This man is promoting conversion to Christianity and I am calling upon you to boycott him,” read the group’s mission statement. Another group was also created for the same purpose under the slogan “Boycott Imam’s new movie.”
The film, ironically, promotes national unity between Coptic Christians and Muslims through the relationship between a Coptic priest (Marcos), played by Imam, and a Muslim cleric (Hassan), played by Academy-Award nominated Omar Sharif. The criticism of Imam comes in a tense atmosphere marked by violent clashes between Muslims and Coptic Christians in Egypt.
-- Noha El-Hennawy in Cairo
Photo: Actor Adel Imam (center) dresses for his part in "Hassan and Marcos." He is flanked by two Coptic Christian priests. Credit: Al Arabiya
In the midst of continuing sectarian tensions between Muslims and Coptic Christians in Egypt, the Coptic diaspora has recently called for demonstrations in the U.S. and European cities.
Hundreds of Coptic migrants took to the streets in the Netherlands, France and the U.S., raising banners reading "Save Christians in Egypt," "Stop Islamic Terrorism" and "Help! Christians of Egypt are under attack."
The protests follow an eruption of violence between Muslims and Copts in several parts of Egypt. Last month a land dispute involving a Coptic monastery left one Muslim man killed in the southern province of Menya. Four Copts, including two monks, were injured. The clash arose after the monastery began building a wall around neighboring farming land, saying it belonged to the church. Days earlier in Cairo, four Copts were shot dead in a jewelry shop by two gunmen who fled without stealing anything.
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In a stunning display of religious rigidity, the Saudi owner of a five-star hotel in Cairo recently banned the serving of liquor by reportedly dumping more than $1 million of beer, wine and whiskey into the Nile River.
Sheikh Abdel Aziz Ibrahim, a relative of Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah, has ordered that no more cocktails will be mixed or stirred at his Grand Hyatt Cairo. Goodbye, martini; hello, fruit punch. The move is a gesture to bring his business into conformity with Islamic standards. That may be so, but the Egyptian Hotel Assn. has its own rules.
The organization has given Ibrahim an ultimatum: Either put the liquor back by July 2 or have his hotel demoted from five to two stars, according to Agence France-Presse. Although alcohol is forbidden in Islam, Egyptian law allows the consumption of booze in hotels and other tourist haunts. Tourism is one of this nation's biggest industries, and Cairo doesn't want to give the impression that conservative Islam is spreading.
"If he doesn't want to serve alcohol, it's his choice. If that doesn't comply with our regulations, he has to bear the consequences," Tourism Minister Zoheir Garranah said.
However, Ibrahim has found support for his decision. In an online forum hosted by the popular Islam Online Website (a Qatari-funded and Cairo-based Islamic website that covers religion, news, society and culture), some visitors hailed the move as "great news."
"Thank you Grand Hyatt, this is a great step and I hope that all hotels in Egypt and Muslim countries do the same," wrote a visitor of the same forum.
— Noha El-Hennawy in Cairo
Photo: Grant Hyatt Cairo. Credit: Cris Bouroncle AFP/Getty Images
 It’s been a time of prayer and angst for Egypt’s Coptic Christians.
The leader of the nation’s Coptic Church, Pope Shenouda III, was reportedly flown this week to a U.S. hospital after breaking his leg in a fall at his residence. The 85-year-old patriarch has been in frail health for years, and his latest travail comes during rising tension in this predominantly Muslim nation over the murders and kidnappings of Copts.
On Monday, the pope “slipped on a carpet in his home and fell, breaking his thigh bone," Tharwat Bassily, a member of the church’s lay council, told Agenece France-Presse. He added that Shenouda was unable to reach the telephone and remained alone on the floor from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak arranged for the pope to be transported in his state jet to a hospital in Cleveland.
The Coptic church and the Mubarak government have been attempting to defuse a resurgence of sectarian animosity. In May, four Copts were shot dead in a Cairo jewelry shop by a man firing an automatic weapon who fled without stealing anything. Days later, armed Muslims attacked a monastery in the southern town of Malawi; one Muslim was killed and several Coptic priests were briefly taken hostage.
Egypt has prided itself on peaceful coexistence among its religious groups, but Copts, who make up about 10% of the country’s population of 78 million, have often complained of discrimination. Coptic protesters in Malawi recently chanted: “With our blood and soul, we will defend the cross.... Coptic hearts are on fire.”
-- Jeffrey Fleishman in Cairo
Photo: Coptic Pope Shenouda III. Credit: freecopts.net
 After weeks of heated deliberations, the Egyptian parliament on Saturday passed new pieces of legislation that impose relatively harsh legal restrictions on female circumcision and allow women for the first time to register their babies even if the father’s identity is unknown.
One law imposes a sentence of a maximum of two years and a fine of a maximum of $1,000 for performing female genital mutilation. This issue has caused much stir in the people’s assembly, especially among the Muslim Brotherhood, which holds one-fifth of the parliamentary seats. Conservatives maintain that Islam condones the removal of a girl’s clitoris to tame her sexual desires and condemn the amendment as a western import.
Attention-getting opposition to the bill came from an ostensibly secular MP a couple of weeks ago. Mohamed El-Omda, a member of a marginal opposition party, appeared before the people's assembly with his three daughters to protest the ban. One of his young daughters raised a banner reading: “No to any attempt to forbid what is divinely allowed. No to any attempt to allow what is divinely forbidden.” El-Omda said that two of his daughters were already circumcised.
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 The call to prayer is a pervasive, comforting echo across the Middle East, but a fatwa by a prominent Islamic cleric urges Muslims to spend less time prostrating and more time working. Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi said worshippers often use prayer to slip away from their jobs longer then they should.
“Praying is a good thing . . . 10 minutes should be enough,” according to an edict posted on Qaradawi’s website. The sheikh’s opinion is shared by many clerics and highlights the dilemma between economic productivity and religious devotion in a part of the world where piety is prized.
Devout Muslims pray five times a day, two of which fall during working hours. They kneel in mosques or unfurl prayer mats and recite the Koran in offices, clogging aisles and bringing work to a halt. The time between ablution -– washing hands and feet -– and a prayer can take 10 minutes, but many Muslim spend as many as 30 minutes on the ritual.
Companies and store owners have been complaining for years about lost labor minutes and inefficiency. The problem goes well beyond prayer time. A recent government study found that Egypt’s 6 million government employees, a massive platoon of bureaucracy, are each estimated to spend only 27 minutes a day working.
If frustrated citizens or customers ask to speed things up, they are met with a sigh, a roll of the eyes and the centuries-old reply: "Inshallah" (God willing).
--Jeffrey Fleishman in Cairo
Photo: Muslims at prayer. Credit: Associated Press, Hasan Sarbakhshian
Makram Azer was sitting in his jewelry shop this week in the El Zeitoun neighborhood in Cairo when two gunmen stormed in, killing him and three workers and injuring two. Nothing was stolen.
The murder is far from being seen as a mere crime. The victims were Copts, and that struck a nerve with the Christian community that constitutes about 10% of Egypt's predominantly Sunni Muslim population.
The prosecutor reportedly announced that preliminary investigations showed that no sectarian or terrorist motivations stood behind the crime.
Copts have long complained of religious discrimination, and sensitivities between Muslims and Copts have erupted in violence. In 2006, for example, a knife-wielding assailant attacked three churches in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria, killing one and wounding at least 12. The government announced then that the perpetrator was mentally sick, a finding that fell short of convincing Christians.
With this week's killing, those in the Coptic diaspora have seized the opportunity to shed light on the conditions of their co-religionists at home. Their websites have been following closely the murder and displaying plenty of incendiary comments. Most commentators have accused the government of neglecting violence against Christians, expecting it to put the blame on some sick-minded gangster, as it has done with similar incidents in the past.
"There will be no punishment for the criminals. Christians are slaves in their own country. All these killings happen with the full blessing and planning of Habib Adli [Egypt's interior minister] and his gangsters," read a comment on the United Copts website, which represents a group of hard-line Copts in the diaspora.
"God willing, the perpetrators will be arrested by the police and they will not turn out to be mentally retarded," read a comment on another Coptic website maintained by Copts living in the U.S.
— Noha El-Hennawy in Cairo
Photo: A cartoon commenting on the murder on a Copts website. The officer tells the prosecutor: "Here are the pictures of some mentally retarded men. Your highness can choose one or two of them for this case." Credit: Shafiq Botros / United Copts website
The sentencing of a fugitive Al Qaeda in Iraq leader to hang for the slaying of Chaldean Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho has drawn mixed responses in Iraq.
The U.S. Embassy and U.S.-led military force praised Iraqi authorities Sunday for bringing to justice the person responsible for the kidnapping and death of the archbishop in the northern city of Mosul more than two months ago.
But today, Chaldean Archbishop Louis Sako of Kirkuk protested the sentence, saying, "Christianity is the religion of tolerance." Sako was troubled by the government's failure to release details of the investigation that led to the conviction of Ahmed Ali Ahmed, also known as Abu Omar.
"Was he the only one who killed four men? Why did he kill him? For religious or political reasons? Who was behind that?" Sako asked.
Rahho was kidnapped Feb. 29 by gunmen who killed his driver and two guards. His body was found two weeks later, though officials said at the time that it was unclear whether the ailing archbishop had been killed or had died of natural causes. His death prompted an outpouring of grief among Iraq's dwindling Christian community and drew international condemnation.
Tell us what you think.
--Alexandra Zavis in Baghdad
Human rights advocates have decried the apparent arrests this week of six leaders of Iran's embattled Bahai community.
Rights groups say Fariba Kamalabadi, Jamaloddin Khanjani, Afif Naeimi, Saeid Rezaie, Behrouz Tavakkoli and Vahid Tizfahm were all unofficial leaders of Iran's outlawed but often tolerated Bahai religious minority who lived in Tehran.
They were arrested Wednesday, most likely on security charges, by Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and Security and locked up Tehran's infamous Evin Prison, according to rights activists.
No one's sure why. Bahais are mostly apolitical. But Iran's clerical leadership considers them heretical. And they are informally barred from obtaining public-sector employment or university scholarships.
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"5.4 million Jews live in Israel today -- more than in any period throughout history, but only 0.1% of them believe" in Jesus, says an internal memo of Israel's messianic communities announcing a campaign to spread the gospel throughout the country's Jewish residents. Anti-missionary circles say their "intelligence people" intercepted the "shocking memo" (Hebrew) that also expressed concern over legislators' support for a bill seeking to tighten restrictions on missionary activity, already outlawed in Israel.
Reportedly, a campaign equating Jesus with salvation came to an abrupt end after people complained of billboards on buses throughout the country reading "Jesus = Yeshua = Salvation" (the words are very similar in Hebrew, perhaps too close for some). An urgent appeal by Yad L'Achim to the national bus company bore quick results and the billboards were removed within hours, the company's advertising department stating it did not want to offend the Jewish public's feelings.
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Police say they've already rounded up suspects in a devastating bomb blast at a mosque in northern Yemen today that killed at least eight people and injured 38, according to Yemen's official news agency.
The suspected motorcycle bomb targeted worshipers leaving the Bin Salman mosque. The official news agency took pains to emphasize that political and tribal organizations condemned the terrorist attack.
An investigation is underway, but officials are already blaming the attack on Shiite Muslim rebels loyal to Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, who has been leading an insurgency against the government.
A source told the news agency that Houthi and his followers "rejected all religious and moral values, imbibed criminality and terrorism and have no respect for sacred shrines."
Houthi rejected the allegation in an interview with Al Jazeera television: We criticise and condemn this regrettable incident. We deny completely any role in this incident. It is not part of our ethics to target any mosque or any worshipers at all.
Poor, populous Yemen has been bedeviled by a years-long sectarian conflict as well as Al Qaeda attacks.
— Borzou Daragahi in Beirut
Photo: Yemeni soldiers patrol outside a government building in Saada, Yemen. AP Photo/Mohammed Al-Qadhi
 By Noha El-Hennawy in Beirut
Carrying the preconceived baggage of many Arabs, I traveled to Lebanon: A beautiful country with a Westernized population and beaches flecked with bikinis not far from bars where men and women mingle freely. Reality, however, turned out to be more dizzying and complex. After a week of shuttling between the North, South, East and West of Lebanon, my Egyptian sensibilities realized that despite its small size, it’s hard to believe this exceptionally diverse land is actually one country.
EAST BEIRUT: In a nutshell, it is quiet, clean and cosmopolitan. You may think the country’s official language is French as you hardly hear the neighborhood’s Christian residents speak Arabic. Even houses are built and renovated according to European architecture. Blond women walk around in tight blouses showing cleavage; they seek posh malls and Western baubles. On weekends, nightclubs on the famous Gammayze Street are packed with young couples who cruise with hip-hop music thumping from luxurious cars. This is but one, intriguing window into Lebanon.
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This is the most loaded week in Israel's year. One week of grounding; an anchor, a reality-check, the center of gravity.
Holocaust Remembrance Day is being marked Thursday. In exactly one week,the country shall commemorate its war and terror victims, back to back with Independence Day the following day. The essence of Israeliness compressed into a week of transitions: past to present, grief to celebration, individual to collective, Jew to Israeli.
The changes are sharp, nearly impossible at times. Yet most Israelis are accustomed to furious swinging of the pendulum of its national mood and emotions.
A week apart, Holocaust Remembrance and Independence Day - with the price paid for the latter in between - are bookends containing the modern text of a nation; the commemoration days were among the first laws passed by Israeli governments.
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This is the most loaded week in Israel's year. One week of grounding; an anchor, a reality-check, the center of gravity.
Holocaust Remembrance Day is being marked Thursday. In exactly one week,the country shall commemorate its war and terror victims, back to back with Independence Day the following day. The essence of Israeliness compressed into a week of transitions: past to present, grief to celebration, individual to collective, Jew to Israeli.
The changes are sharp, nearly impossible at times. Yet most Israelis are accustomed to furious swinging of the pendulum of its national mood and emotions.
A week apart, Holocaust Remembrance and Independence Day - with the price paid for the latter in between - are bookends containing the modern text of a nation; the commemoration days were among the first laws passed by Israeli governments.
Read on »
He is an Iranian Muslim who looks so much like a Hollywood or Renaissance image of Jesus Christ that the faithful sometimes make the sign of the cross when they see him.
Ahmad Soleimani-Nia has been playing Jesus for seven years, keeping his hair long and lightly dyed, his beard knotty and vibrant.
He is the star of "Jesus, the Spirit of God," a new film from Iran that depicts the man Christians believe to be the messiah and son of God as a tormented Judean prophet heralding the coming of Muhammad, the founder of the Muslim faith. Nia's Jesus is at once serene, devout, driven and passionate.
In real life, if there is a real life after a spiritual and artistic odyssey that is still not over, Nia lives in Tehran. He was once a soldier in the Iranian army and then a welder for — the irony is interesting in this Jesus story — his nation's Atomic Energy Agency, which the Bush administration accuses of pursuing nuclear weapons.
That may unsettle some American neo-cons, but perhaps not as much as the film itself, which suggests that Jesus wasn't crucified and never rose from the dead.
Check out the rest of the story in today's Los Angeles Times.
— Jeffrey Fleishman in Tehran
Photo: Ahmad Soleimani-Nia as Jesus. Credit: minbar.tatar.ru/rus/Messiah.htm
Human Rights Watch today released a 54-page report criticizing the lack of women's rights in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, one of America's key allies in the Middle East.
It is a lengthy indictment of a a legal system that deprives women of basic rights considered ordinary almost everywhere else in the world.
According to the report, the law treats Saudi women like children, maybe worse.
If you're a Saudi woman, you can't board an airplane, get a job, go to school or get married without the permission of a male "guardian," whether a husband, father or, if they're both out of the picture, your son.
You're not even allowed to make decisions on behalf of your own children without the approval of your husband or father.
Sometimes you're even barred from undergoing a medical exam or leaving a hospital without the permission of a male relative.
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As the rising sounds of oriental percussion and lutes resonated around him, the frail Sufi chanter struck a glass with prayer beads in fast repetitive movements. His vibrant voice sang love for the prophet Mohammed.
The man featured at a cultural center in Cairo was Sheikh Ahmad Al-Tuni, one of Egypt's emblematic figures of Sufism, a school of Islam with mystical dimensions. Al-Tuni represents an old line of performers of musical and singing traditions transmitted orally from generation to generation. Sufis believe they can transcend into a state of altered consciousness and experience closeness to Allah, or God. This is usually achieved through a set of rituals that involve whirling the head or the body to intense rhythmic music and repetitive chanting of divine names.
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The relative peace created by the surge in Iraq is a fading memory. Talk of imminent strife dominates the news coming out of Iraq.
Cleric Muqtada Sadr, his forces under seige in Basra and Baghdad, warns of all-out war if the Iraqi government continues its offensive. Here's a translation of an extract from the statement he issued Saturday: I am directing the final warning and talk to the Iraqi government to return to the right pathway, the peaceful way, reject violence towards its people — or they will be like Saddam's government. If the government would not return to the right pathway and rein in the militias that have interfered, we will announce an open war until liberation.
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More than 2,000 Kurdish Sufis gathered Saturday at religious shrines in Barzanchi, a village 37 miles east of Sulaymaniya in Kurdistan. The followers of the mystical Islamic sect practiced their rituals. Worshippers beat drums and chanted Allah (God) as dervishes swallowed swords and then cut themselves with the blades.Others ate light bulbs and swallowed fire.
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