Islamic

A punchy jingle kicks off the promotional video of a French firm that sells Islamic women's swimwear. Models wearing brightly colored, full-body tunic, pant and hijab combos frolic at the sea's edge swinging their arms in free-spirited step with the music. The water-resistant burkinis , outfits that cover everything except a woman's face, hands and feet, are designed for Muslim women in search of "a little more modesty" so they can "have more freedom to play sports," according to the manufacturer.

Deborah Pauly, the outspoken Villa Park councilwoman who drew community ire when she protested outside an Islamic charity event, was removed this week from a leadership position with the Orange County Republican Party's central committee. Party officials said Pauly, who is running for county supervisor, has been a divisive figure. Her removal comes a month after Orange businessman Bob Walters mailed out letters supporting Pauly's candidacy on a "George Wallace for President" letterhead.

JACOBABAD, Pakistan — Rachna Kumari, 16, was shopping for dresses in this city's dust-choked bazaar when it happened. The man who her family says abducted her was not a street thug. He was a police officer. Nor was he a stranger. Rachna's family knew and trusted him. He guarded the Hindu temple run by her father, an important duty in a society where Hindus are often terrorized by Muslim extremists, and he had helped Rachna cram for her ninth-grade final exams. After she disappeared from the market, he did not demand a ransom.

CAIRO - Seizing a moment in history they never imagined, the two old men walked arm in arm into a polling station on a day that was thoroughly and wonderfully Egyptian: Opinion polls were unreliable, intrigue was high, and there was a sense of destiny to rekindle the grandeur of the nation's ancient past. But it was also unlike any other day in this troubled land that has veered from euphoria to disgust to resilience: The name Hosni Mubarak wasn't on the ballot, and the two men didn't already know the outcome when they walked into the polling booth in an election that was as thrilling as it was unpredictable.

Four decades ago, a rangy civil servant in charge of overseeing the forested ridges and brick-hut villages of Pakistan's Swat Valley sought a pastime to get through slow days. He dabbled in poetry, composing haiku in longhand. His wife read the poems and called them "rubbish. " "Why don't you write about something you know?" Jamil Ahmad recalled his wife, Helga, telling him. She said his focus should be the tribes of Pakistan's northwest frontier, where Ahmad had worked for 15 years.

They are, to be sure, ideas that go unexplored in the Koran: Is it a sin to slam dance? Can a person wear his hair in a mohawk, smoke weed like Snoop Dogg and still call himself a devout Muslim under the eyes of God? The micro-budgeted feature "The Taqwacores" ? which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January, opened in New York last week and reaches theaters in Los Angeles on Friday ? tackles such issues head-on. FOR THE RECORD: "Taqwacores" review: The Nov. 11 Calendar section review of the film "The Taqwacores" said a character in the film, Yusef, was an Arab American.

A mediocre book on an important topic always is disappointing. When the treatment also is shallow and vulgarly argued -- as is the case with Bruce Bawer's "Surrender: Appeasing Islam, Sacrificing Freedom" -- this reader is inclined to get up with a sour sense of resentment over time wasted, the sort of feeling that comes from being seated next to a garrulous bore at a dinner party.

The Rev. J. Edwin Bacon, rector of All Saints Church in Pasadena, had just returned from vacation when he heard about a Florida pastor who was threatening to burn copies of the Koran, Islam's holy book. "I was disgusted," said Bacon, whose Episcopal church is known for its progressive stance on many issues, interfaith relations among them. He said he thought: "Rather than burning Korans, we should be studying them. " The Koran burning never took place. But from Bacon's reaction was born "Islam 101," a speaker series that ended Saturday with a lecture by Dr. Maher Hathout, senior advisor to the Muslim Public Affairs Council and a leading voice of Muslims in Southern California.

In their Nov. 12 Times Op-Ed article, "Our enemy is not Islam — it's extremists," Judith Miller and David Samuels wrote regarding the Ft. Hood shootings that "in taking aim at the evasive psycho-babble that dominated early news accounts, the right has engaged in an equally dangerous bias that conflates [Nidal Malik] Hasan's radicalism with the religious beliefs of mainstream Muslims. In their narrative, any Muslim might suddenly 'snap,' as Hasan apparently did, and reveal himself to be the enemy within."

In trying to clarify recent comments from Rick Santorum about President Obama's "phony theology," the candidate's new national press secretary made a gaffe of her own, saying Obama had pursued "radical Islamic policies" (see video below). Alice Stewart, who had worked for Michele Bachmann's presidential campaign before signing on with Santorum earlier this month, made the slip during an appearance Monday afternoon on MSNBC's "Andrea Mitchell Reports. " The segment focused on the former Pennsylvania senator's line of attack on Obama for his environmental policies, which were guided, Santorum said in Ohio this weekend, by "some phony ideal.

CAIRO - A mechanic hammered a fender and boys wandered amid tin and rust as Adham Bishr, his opinions flaring on an agitated afternoon along the Nile, said Egypt's next president should give him a job, not tell him how to worship God. Men gathered around Bishr in a scrap of shade, arguing over inflation and politics before disappearing into the grit and anger of a neighborhood at Cairo's edge. The men, mostly unemployed drivers, mill hands and laborers, want work; their sons, college students with dim prospects, wonder whether the future will bring enough money to take a wife.

JACOBABAD, Pakistan — Rachna Kumari, 16, was shopping for dresses in this city's dust-choked bazaar when it happened. The man who her family says abducted her was not a street thug. He was a police officer. Nor was he a stranger. Rachna's family knew and trusted him. He guarded the Hindu temple run by her father, an important duty in a society where Hindus are often terrorized by Muslim extremists, and he had helped Rachna cram for her ninth-grade final exams. After she disappeared from the market, he did not demand a ransom.

CAIRO - The men gathering outside the yellow mosque agreed: Adulterers should be stoned to death, the hands of thieves cut off. "But not now," said Kareem Atta, waiting in a cool breeze for the sheik's car to roll up next to the Koran sellers. " Sharia law must be gradually put into place so it doesn't shock the system. You can't cut people's hands off if you first don't give them financial justice. " The young students, engineers and laborers are followers of Hazem Salah abu Ismail, a lawyer and holy man whose poetic blend of populism and ultraconservative Salafi Islam has turned him into a leading presidential candidate.

Not long ago, an astute reader noted that it has been nearly two years since I wrote in a column that "most experts now estimate that Iran needs about 18 months to complete a nuclear device and a missile to carry it. " His point - that those estimates were way off - was a good one, especially since experts are still estimating that Iran is 18 months away from being able to build a nuclear weapon. So what gives? Why does Iran always seem to be about 18 months away from a nuclear bomb, at least in the eyes of U.S. officials?

  Amal Zuhair's hijab is pushed back, revealing a strip of hair that to her traditionalist elders is a provocation, much like her fondness for rock music. She says she feels like two people: "I leave myself at home whenever I go outside. I am this other thing, this pretend person they want me to be. " Zuhair's struggle with her identity mirrors a broader quest in Libya as the country tries to recover from the four-decade rule of Moammar Kadafi, whose Arab nationalist regime long repressed minority cultures.

The Los Angeles office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations and a civil rights law firm have filed a joint complaint against the city of Lomita for denying the Islamic Center of South Bay's application to build a new mosque.‬ ‪The federal complaint, filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in downtown Los Angeles, contends that the city is discriminating against the center and that there is no evidence to back up neighbors' concerns about...

The unfortunate choice of wording in the headline of your article ("U.S. Struggles to Deal With Global Islamic Resurgence," Jan. 26) does injustice to the balanced and perceptive treatment of the subject by the writer. While it presses the panic button of those who cannot abandon the medieval mentality of the Crusades, it ruffles the feathers of those who cannot understand how a secular country, like the United States, can turn the Islamic inclination of sovereign peoples and governments into a foreign policy dilemma.

At the pulpit of an inner-city Chicago mosque, the tall blond imam begins preaching in his customary fashion, touching on the Los Angeles Lakers victory the night before, his own gang involvement as a teenager, a TV soap opera and then the Day of Judgment. "Yesterday we watched the best of seven.... Unfortunately we forget the big final; it's like that show 'One Life to Live,' " Imam Suhaib Webb says as sleepy boys and young men come to attention in the back rows. "There's no overtime, bro. " The sermon is typical of Webb, a charismatic Oklahoma-born convert to Islam with a growing following among American Muslims, especially the young.

With the possibility of a confrontation looming with Iran, one historical example that should command American attention in its hour of decision - but is being neglected - is the bloody conflict that Iran fought against Iraq from 1980 to 1988. It is worth recalling the fierceness of that struggle to gain some appreciation of the enormity of any decision by Washington to go to war with Iran, for it may foretell what Tehran is capable of doing when it feels its Islamic Revolution is at stake.

  For 15 years, Pakistanis exalted Imran Khan as a cricket legend but largely ignored his politics. When Khan discussed cricket, the public hung on his every word. But when he campaigned for office, they dismissed him as an outsider. Now, asPakistan'stopsy-turvy political landscape careens into an election season, Khan the politician has emerged for the first time as a major force, his ascent directly proportionate to the rising tide of frustration Pakistanis feel over woes such as seemingly endemic corruption, poverty and shortages of power and natural gas. At an Oct. 30 rally in Lahore, he stunned the political establishment by drawing more than 100,000 people.