All posts tagged: Islamic

Islamic religious education providers teaching 10 or more must register with MUIS

Published by Sam Flores

SINGAPORE: People and organisations that regularly provide Islamic instruction to 10 or more individuals in Singapore must now register with the Islamic Religious Council of Singapore (MUIS), under expanded requirements that took effect on Friday (Oct 2). The rules cover instruction conducted in person, including at home, as well as online, and apply to settings ranging from full-time and part-time madrasahs to Quranic classes. Travel agencies that conduct Umrah and Hajj preparatory classes will also have to register as Muslim Religious Schools (MRS). Around 50 individuals and organisations are expected to come under the expanded registration requirements, MUIS said in a media release on Saturday. The changes stem from the Administration of Muslim Law (Amendment) Act 2024, which was passed by parliament in February 2024, as well as amendments to subsidiary legislation. Under the updated framework, any person, organisation or place that provides Islamic instruction at least once a month to 10 or more individuals must register with MUIS. Existing registered MRS do not have to register again and can continue operating under their current …

Reform UK councillors try to end Islamic prayers before meetings

Published by Sam Flores

Reform UK councillors have attempted to end prayers before meetings at Bolton Council – despite Reform introducing Christian prayers at other councils. At a council meeting on Wednesday, Reform group leader Cllr Trevor Jones moved a motion to “review the practice of including prayers as part of the formal proceedings of Full Council meetings”. Labour-run Bolton Council holds prayers according to the religion of the chaplain appointed by the mayor. The current mayor Mohammed Iqbal is Muslim and the prayers recited at meetings are Islamic. The chaplains of past mayors have also recited Christian and Hindu prayers. The motion was defeated, with several councillors pointing out the inconsistency that Reform councillors elsewhere have recently introduced Christian prayers as part of their councils’ meeting agendas. Reform councillors also recently objected to Islamic prayers said in Arabic at Birmingham City Council. Reform UK group leader: “We want to keep religion separate” In the agenda, Cllr Jones said the motion “is not directed towards any individual, any faith group, or any religious tradition” and his concerns “relate solely …

The Strategic Follies of the Islamic Republic

Published by José Betancourt

When Western countries engage in conflict with other parts of the world, they often indulge in a kind of strategic orientalism. They attribute to the enemy extraordinary degrees of perseverance, fanaticism, cunning, and farsightedness. The war with Iran has proved no exception: As soon as the missiles began to fly, the familiar tropes returned. The regime possesses strategic patience, akin to the years of effort required to manufacture a Persian carpet; it is animated by indomitable religious zeal; it has mastered the art of winning by losing; and, of course, it thinks half a dozen moves ahead, as you might expect from the land that created the modern game of chess. This gives the leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran way too much credit. The last half century reveals a record not of strategic brilliance, but of consistent folly, as the regime has waged wars badly—failing to achieve its objectives, creating new enemies, and inflicting more damage on itself than on others. Within a year of the revolution that brought Ayatollah Khomeini to power, …

The Islamic Republic’s Predatory Contract With Its People

Published by Daniella Wilson

Iran’s 86-year-old supreme leader, who believes that he represents God’s will on Earth, ordered what now appears to be one of the deadliest two-day mass slaughters in modern history. According to estimates provided by two anonymous senior officials in the country’s ministry of health, as many as 30,000 citizens may have been killed during this 48-hour rampage on January 8 and 9. If these estimates prove correct, Ali Khamenei’s January 2026 massacre—the climax of a decades-long reign of repression—will rank among modern history’s deadliest single episodes of state violence. Since the rise of the modern state in the 17th century, political legitimacy has come to rest on a social contract, in which the government provides security and sustenance in exchange for the consent of the governed. The Islamic Republic’s relationship with Iranians does not resemble a social contract, but a predatory lease signed in 1979 that has long since expired. The terms of this lease—imposed by the landlord upon the tenants—are nonnegotiable: You, the tenant, will live inside the religious fever dream of a man, …

The Islamic Republic Will Not Last

Published by José Betancourt

Under the cover of a total internet shutdown that has now lasted more than 100 hours, Iran’s security forces have unleashed bone-chilling brutality on protesters, killing at least 2,000 people, according to Iranian officials. Rather than hiding its crimes, the regime has broadcast footage from a morgue on state television. Corpses overflowed the facility, where relatives searched for their loved ones. The news anchor casually declared that the bodies were mostly those of “ordinary people.” This is not another incidence of the Iranian regime crushing a mass protest. Rather, it might just be the end of the Islamic Republic. But the Iranian opposition could still blow it. Although Iranians have demonstrated in huge numbers again and again—in 2009–10, 2017–18, 2019–20, and 2022–23—the protest movement has repeatedly failed to produce a well-organized leadership that poses a clear alternative to the regime. If this time is going to be different, the opposition has to fix that problem. Read: Is the Iranian regime about to collapse? In this wave of protests, for the first time, thousands of Iranians …

Coskun’s conviction is a surrender to Islamic blasphemy codes

Published by Miika Tikkanen

Today, a 50-year-old man named Hamit Coskun was found guilty of a religiously aggravated public order offence for setting fire to a Quran outside the Turkish consulate in London. Coskun’s action was political – a protest, in his words, against the “Islamist government of Erdogan, which has made Turkey a base for radical Islamists”. It was also a statement against Islam, a religion Coskun clearly has no time for. Coskun has his reasons. He was born and raised in Turkey and is of Armenian and Kurdish descent. He and his family have suffered persecution at the hands of Islamists, including his mother’s relatives, who were among those murdered in the Armenian Genocide of 1915. While Coskun was calmly carrying out his one-man protest, another man emerged from nearby buildings. After establishing what was happening, he informed Coskun, “I’m going to kill you.” He then left and re-emerged wielding a weapon, attacking Coskun while shouting, “Burning the Quran? It’s my religion! You don’t burn the Quran!” The CPS used this act of violence on Coskun to …

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