Samatar and Adam, both 29, met at St. Catherine’s University in St. Paul, where they studied to become respiratory therapists.

Though hospitals provide sterile protective equipment to health care workers, they didn’t have a head covering that met a Muslim Woman’s veil (hijabi) standard.

“We had to find the right material so it’s not too hot or thick, but also not too sheer and meets hijabi modesty standards,” Samatar said.

They settled on two disposable designs: the Zanub, a pull-over with an adjustable elastic band around the face, and the Ikram, a one-size-fits-all wrap.

Mawadda officially launched on Nov. 9, and has since gained international attention, with 30 percent of their reach coming from France, according to business analytics on their website. Their site has also reached users in the United Kingdom and China.

Samatar and Adam hope that providing culturally appropriate protective garments in hospitals will lead to more inclusivity and comfort for Muslims in health care.

“It’s created by us, for us. But having culturally appropriate protection won’t just affect us, it will affect everyone under the care of a Muslim woman: patients, families and communities,” Samatar said.

Islam sees hijab as an obligatory code of dress, not a religious symbol displaying one’s affiliations.

Source: St. Paul Pioneer Press

Athens, the Greek capital, had not had a dedicated, purpose-built Muslim place of worship since the expulsion of Ottoman forces in 1833, a gap that officials have long sought to fill. The first act of Parliament aimed at opening a mosque came in 1890, an effort that intensified in recent decades as the Muslim community has grown, now praying in dozens of unpermitted, makeshift venues like basements, garages and parking lots.

In the face of objections from the powerful Orthodox Church, and from nationalists who associate Islam with foreign occupation, plans repeatedly came to nothing over the years, leaving Athens as virtually the only European Union capital without a purpose-built place of worship for Muslims.

But in 2006 Parliament approved construction of a fully state-funded, state-run mosque in Athens — the only such arrangement in the European Union, Greek officials say. The opening, initially scheduled for 2010, finally arrived early this month after the project surmounted a mountain of red tape and legal challenges.

With coronavirus spiking, though, restrictions immediately limited a building designed for around 350 worshipers to only 13 at a time. Then, the day after the mosque’s first Friday Prayer, Greece returned to a national lockdown, forcing it to shut completely for now.

The closing heightened the bittersweet feelings many Muslims already had about the state-funded mosque — a squat off-white building, conspicuously free of minarets, set on a sprawling former naval base in an industrial district near downtown Athens. Its 4.2-acre grounds include a park with a fountain and a playground.

Source: The New York Times

Mohamed-Aslim Zafis was stabbed to death Sept. 19 and a suspect is in custody.

While Prime Minister Justin Trudeau expressed his condolences and said it was concerning the incident was tied to Neo-Nazism and Islamophobia, words must be followed by action, said National Council for Canadian Muslims (NCCM) Mustafa Farooq in an email to Anadolu Agency.

Zafis, 58, was outside the door of the International Muslim Organization of Toronto Mosque, keeping tabs on the number of worshippers entering in accord with health regulations concerning the coronavirus pandemic, when he was stabbed. A man who endorsed the views of an online neo-Nazi group has been charged with first-degree murder.

Source: Anadolu Agency

Despite a push to fill that legal void in 2017, “Muslims continued to experience difficulties in acquiring permission from local governments to construct mosques or to continue operating existing ones,” the report said. Before the COVID-19 emergency, Italy’s Muslims didn’t regard the cemetery shortage as a priority. The living were more concerned with where to pray, with some resorting to so-called garage mosques. These makeshift places of worship have been connected, with little evidence, to terrorist activity and radicalization, especially since the radical cleric Abu Omar was abducted in Milan in a controversial CIA rendition in 2003.

But many in the Muslim community say the linkage to terrorism amounts to prejudice, mostly from right-wing parties. In 2015, legislators on the right proposed and passed a law to map the “Muslim cultural centers” and introduced a national registry for imams in order to aid police counterterrorism operations.

With few places to pray, there were even fewer places to bury the dead.

Muslim migrants to Italy often pay thousands of euros to repatriate the body of a loved one to the person’s country of origin. According to a 2018 paper issued by the Initiative for the Study of Multiethnicity, a think tank that studies the impact of migrants on Italian society, roughly 90% of relatives of the dead preferred to repatriate the body of a Muslim family member.

The pandemic brought the issue of burial space to the forefront. Since Italy stopped allowing bodies to be sent out of the country on March 1, many had to be buried on Italian soil, and the stricture to hold the burial within 24 hours could not always be honored.

Source: Religion News

Lacy’s company lets churches broadcast live and recorded sermons and events through their websites, social media platforms like Facebook, and streaming platforms like YouTube and Roku. The company provides customer service to help digitally unsure pastors get services online, often using computers and video equipment they already have in the church or at home. It also offers a range of options such as multilingual digital Bibles that parishioners can access, live chats and prayer requests that can be facilitated by church volunteers, and even automated messages to check in on members who may not have virtually attended in a while.

StreamingChurch.tv isn’t the only religion-focused streaming service. Some religious leaders may prefer to do business with those who share their spiritual philosophies, and some are wary of broadcasting through mainstream platforms like YouTube or Facebook.

Source: Fastcompany.com

All four men – Alfa Sa’adu; Amged el-Hawrani; Adil El Tayar and Habib Zaidi – were Muslim and had ancestry in regions including Africa, Asia and the Middle East. Dr Salman Waqar, the general secretary of the British Islamic Medical Association, said the contribution of these doctors was “immeasurable”. “They were devoted family men, committed senior doctors, and dedicated decades of service to their communities and patients,” he said. “They gave the ultimate sacrifice while fighting this disease. We urge everyone to do their part and stop further deaths from happening – stay at home, protect the NHS, save lives.”

The NHS is the largest employer of Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) staff in the UK with 40.1 percent of medical workers from BME backgrounds. Priti Patel, the home secretary, announced on Tuesday that about 2,800 medical staff whose visas expire before October 1, will have their visas extended for a year “free of charge”.

Souce: Aljazeera