Mosques

Jihad Turk -- clean-shaven and youthful -- is telling an interfaith audience that the prophet Muhammad traces his lineage to Abraham, the biblical patriarch. Turk explains to the crowd of mostly Christians and Jews that Muslims also revere Jesus and Moses as prophets, and that Islam cherishes life. But some in the Pepperdine University audience are skeptical. One man wants to know why so many Muslims are "willing with perfect ease to kill," as he puts it, drawing brief applause.

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.

Although the Mas Jid Omar Ibn Al Khattab Mosque is being touted as the first traditional mosque built in Los Angeles, the center's leaders are taking a less orthodox approach to its role in the community. "We're trying to have a mosque where everybody can come, not just Muslims," said Salaha Abdul-Wahid, a spokesman for the mosque at 1025 Exposition Blvd. and director of the nearby Pontifex Media Center.

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...

A suspicious fire gutted a mosque early Friday in the high desert city of Adelanto, the site of Southern California's only cemetery built exclusively for Muslims. San Bernardino County arson investigators who inspected the ruins of the United Islamic Youth Organization mosque believe that the blaze was possibly arson or a hate crime, authorities said.

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.

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.

In a daring midday raid that showed insurgents' ability to strike the Pakistani military virtually at will, militants Friday stormed a Rawalpindi mosque filled with military officers and their children, killing at least 37 people with a deadly combination of gunfire, grenades and suicide bomb blasts. The attack, which also injured at least 86 people, was the latest in a series of devastating terrorist strikes meant as retaliation for the Pakistani military's assault on Taliban strongholds in South Waziristan and other tribal areas along the nation's border with Afghanistan.

Re "Muslims say FBI spying is causing anxiety," March 1 If the teaching in mosques is about love, compassion and doing good deeds, why are Muslims fearful? Discussions about jihad, killings and destruction of lives and property should be reported to authorities. Muslims who are pure of heart -- honest, law-abiding citizens -- have nothing to fear. Herbert J. Young Beverly Hills -- Unfortunately, it's much more difficult to catch real terrorists than it is to catch mosque-goers.

Officials reopened the Red Mosque for prayers Thursday, two weeks after it was battered by fierce clashes between security forces and Islamist militants that left more than 100 people dead. Known as Lal Masjid, or Red Mosque, for its red bricks, the complex will emerge from the renovation painted cream and white.

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.

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.

At least 28 worshipers, including a member of parliament, were killed Sunday by a suicide bomber who blew himself up inside Baghdad's largest Sunni mosque, violence that harked back to the sectarian warfare in Iraq after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion that ousted Saddam Hussein. No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack on the Umm al Qura mosque. Sheik Abdul Ghafour Samaraie, head of the Sunni Endowment, which oversees Sunni mosques and is headquartered at Umm al Qura, said he believed the Iraqi affiliate of Al Qaeda was behind the bombing, even though the terrorist group is dominated by Sunni Arabs.

Muslims in the Greek capital can pray in a small room at a crowded cultural center, wedged between a clinic and a schoolroom, or in one of several makeshift basement venues. But government promises to build an official mosque for the city's growing Islamic community remain unfulfilled, sidelined by opposition from the powerful Christian Orthodox Church and a small group of neighborhood activists.

Churches in the Holy Land will close for two days this month to protest plans to build a mosque in Nazareth, the town of Jesus' boyhood, Christian leaders said Thursday. Leaders of the Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox and Armenian denominations said in a statement that the decision to close the churches Nov. 22-23 is intended to express the "disapprobation of all the churches at the way that their rights have been summarily violated."

A suicide bomber at a mosque jammed with worshipers killed at least 40 people and injured 100 Friday in Pakistan's restive tribal region along the Afghan border, one of the deadliest attacks in recent weeks in the country. At least 400 people were in the mosque near the town of Jamrud in the Khyber tribal district when the bomber walked in and detonated his explosives, police and witnesses said. Khyber, the gateway to Afghanistan for NATO supply trucks, remains a stronghold for Taliban militants fighting the U.S.-allied Pakistani government.

Tanks and troops stormed the eastern city of Dair Alzour early Sunday, launching yet another assault on enclaves in open revolt against the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad. According to accounts compiled by the activist network Local Coordinating Committees of Syria, the military entered nearly every single district of the Euphrates River city, which lies close to the Iraqi border. In video footage posted to the Internet, gunfire and explosions could be heard as mosques summoned the faithful to dawn prayers.