Mosque

Before the sermon Oct. 9 at the Islamic Center of Irvine, a member of the board got up and informed the congregation that the beloved and charismatic religious director, Sadullah Khan, had been dismissed, citing inappropriate conduct. No further explanation was given. Many in the congregation were stunned; some demanded more information. One called out, "We deserve to know the reason why," according to Khalid Abdurrahman, a college student who attends Friday prayers at the mosque.

BEIRUT - Two weeks after a supposed cease-fire was meant to bring an end to violence in Syria, an explosion Friday ripped through the capital, Damascus, killing at least nine people and injuring almost 30. A suicide bomber in the pro-opposition Midan neighborhood detonated an explosives belt near a school and the Zein Abidin mosque as worshipers were leaving Friday prayers, the Interior Ministry said. Those killed included civilians and law enforcement officers, state media said.

Hamas government forces stormed a mosque in the Gaza Strip on Friday and apparently subdued a heavily armed group of Al Qaeda-inspired militants whose imam had vowed to impose theocratic rule in the Palestinian territory. Sixteen people were reported killed in fighting that raged for much of the day in the city of Rafah. Residents contacted by telephone said it took Hamas six hours to capture the two-story mosque from a group calling itself Jund Ansar Allah, or the Soldiers of the Companions of God. Fighting spread to the nearby home of the imam, who had fled the mosque, and ended early today after an explosion demolished part of the house, witnesses said.

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...

When the news broke that a loose-knit group planned to stage a protest against a planned mosque in Temecula, we feared an outbreak of Islamophobia in Riverside County. Several said they opposed the mosque because they feared the coming of jihad, terrorism and Sharia law. Particularly offensive was the suggestion by organizers of the protest that people bring dogs to the event as a way to show disrespect for Islam; many Muslims believe dogs are unclean. That's why it was encouraging to see that four times as many people turned out to support the Islamic Center of Temecula Valley last Friday as did to oppose it. The supporters upheld the right of the area's small Muslim community to worship as it chooses — a right that should be defended by all who cherish core American principles — but they did more than that.

Lt. Col. Shareda Hosein, who lives dual lives in Army fatigues and an Islamic head covering, sometimes encounters what she calls "Islam anxiety" among her fellow soldiers, saying they pepper her with direct questions about jihad and Islamic law. Army Sgt. Ayman Kafel, who served as a military police officer in Iraq before retiring two years ago, had to overcome family objections to his service. Marine Sgt. Souhaib Elkoun, who also served in Iraq, was heckled as a traitor by fellow Arab Americans when he showed up in uniform at a community event.

ISLAMABAD — Pakistani officials say at least 30 people have been killed and 40 to 50 injured today in a militant attack on a mosque in Rawalpindi. Pakistani military spokesman Athar Abbas told BBC Radio that more than two militants were involved in the attack, and that at least one entered the mosque and detonated a suicide bomb. Most deaths occurred in the mosque, Abbas said. One militant remained at large. Rawalpindi Police Chief Rao Iqbal said gunfire was continuing in the area.

Palestinian officials accused Jewish settlers of setting a West Bank mosque on fire early Monday, an attack that could reignite violence as frustration grows over stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. No one claimed responsibility and no arrests were made, but Palestinians said the incident bore the hallmarks of attacks by settlers angry over the talks and a moratorium on settlement construction that recently expired. The attack came as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu prepared to convene his Cabinet on Tuesday to discuss renewing the West Bank building freeze for two months to keep Palestinians from quitting the U.S.-brokered talks.

The FBI and the Army on Sunday were investigating whether the military psychiatrist suspected in the Ft. Hood shooting rampage had an association with militants at a mosque in Virginia or in cyberspace. A senior federal law enforcement official said there was no immediate evidence of such a link, nor of any direct connection between the suspected gunman, Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, 39, and terrorist groups or individuals, either in person or online. Hasan is accused of opening fire at a readiness center in Ft. Hood, Texas, on Thursday, killing 13 and wounding 29. He reportedly had been depressed about his upcoming deployment to Afghanistan.

The Temecula City Council early Wednesday morning unanimously approved a proposed mosque after a marathon eight-hour hearing that seesawed from vitriolic rants from residents castigating Muslims as terrorists to interfaith leaders praising the peaceful virtues of Islam. In the end, the council's decision was made solely based on mundane issues such as traffic, parking and environmental impacts, with the council agreeing that the project exceeded all legal requirements for approval.

It's Friday, and this suburb just seven miles from the capital and dangerously close to the epicenter of the Syrian regime's control is in lockdown. Army trucks carrying extra troops trundle through the nearly deserted streets around the central mosque. The hunched green outlines of soldiers can be made out on the tops of tall buildings, following the movement below with the tracer points on their sniper rifles. Down the street, locals position their defenses: flaming barricades made of the week's trash, rocks and garbage cans.

I had traveled a lot in the Middle East, but never before to Beirut, the "Paris of the Orient. " I went just before Christmas last year, to interview a famous, beautiful woman, and I had a half-day to see the sights. Out on the Corniche, beyond the ruined art deco beachfront high-rises — lodging rats now, not VIPs — you can rent a bike. No one seemed to have a map, but the mid-December sun was warm and it seemed a shame not to pedal along the seashore on my free afternoon. Seeking the bike shop, I encountered two boys on a bench by the sea. One was smoking, holding his cigarette between flesh stumps where his hands had been cut or burned off at the wrists.

The U.S. Department of Justice has opened a public investigation into whether the city of Lomita discriminated against a religious institution when its council denied an application from the Muslim community to expand the Islamic Center of South Bay. Lomita City Atty. Christi Hogin said federal investigators interviewed 13 people this week involved with the city's decision after launching an initial inquiry in June. She said that there is not "any evidence at all" of anti-Muslim sentiments in Lomita.

The most important holiday of the Muslim calendar got off to a violent start in Afghanistan on Sunday when suspected insurgents staged a bombing outside a mosque in the north, killing at least seven worshipers and injuring more than a dozen other people, Afghan officials said. The attack in Baghlan province, which came on the first day of the three-day Eid al-Adha, or Feast of Sacrifice, was condemned by Afghan officials as un-Islamic. Gen. John Allen, the U.S. Marine who commands all Western forces in the country, called the bombing "despicable.

At a conference two years ago, I sat in on a meeting between U.S. officials and young Islamist politicians from Tunisia, Jordan and other countries in the Middle East. The Islamists wanted to know: Would the Americans allow them to run in free elections, even if it meant they might come to power? The Americans turned the question back at them: Would the Islamists, if they won, allow free and democratic elections, even if it might mean losing power? At the time, it was mostly a theoretical discussion — but now those questions have become very real.

Jewish extremists are suspected of torching a mosque in a northern Israeli town Monday, the latest in a string of anti-Arab attacks that have enraged Palestinians and alarmed Israeli security officials. After setting the fire in the early-morning hours, vandals spray-painted the words "revenge" and "price tag" on the walls of the mosque in the Bedouin village of Tuba-Zangaria. Similar messages have been left in the West Bank, where attackers have burned mosques, cars belonging to Palestinians and olive trees.

Muslims throughout Temecula and Murrieta have saved up for years to build a mosque to replace the plain white industrial building, tucked between a pipeline company and packaging warehouse, where they now gather to pray. But as the Islamic Center of Temecula Valley moves ahead with plans to build on a four-acre plot of vacant land near Temecula's gentle hills and invading housing developments, plans for the new mosque have stirred hostility in this mostly conservative community in southwest Riverside County.

Keeping the faith Re "Planned Temecula mosque draws critics," July 18 As a Christian and an American, I am outraged by the attempt of a vocal minority to prevent Muslims from building a house of worship on land they have owned for 10 years. The critics' objections are nothing but prejudice. The Constitution protects the right of all citizens to worship as they see fit. If we deny that right to one group, we endanger freedom of worship for everyone. Jon Neff Pasadena The controversy here in Temecula illustrates an embarrassing lack of education in our community.

While living in San Diego in the late 1990s, Anwar Awlaki regularly fished for albacore and shared his catch with a neighbor. At the local mosque where he preached, he delighted in playing soccer with young children and taking the teenagers paint-balling. "He had an allure. He was charming," Imam Johari Abdul-Malik, outreach director of an Islamic center in Falls Church, Va., where Awlaki later gave sermons, told reporters in 2009. With his fashionable eyeglasses and fluent English, the U.S.-born radical cleric also had been called a "Pied Piper of jihadists," an Internet phenomenon who produced video and audio recordings to lure Westerners to his extremist ideologies.

A car bomb exploded Friday near a mosque in southern Iraq as mourners gathered for the funeral of a tribal sheik, killing at least 17 people and wounding 70, Iraqi officials said. The blast took place at 5 p.m. in a town outside Hillah, about 60 miles south of Baghdad, as the mourners gathered in a hall near the mosque. The explosion set cars ablaze and damaged several nearby buildings. Many local officials, including the chief of provincial council, his deputy and some judges, were at the ceremony but were not among the dead or injured.