quran

  • A Quick Lesson About Ramadan, The Muslim Month Of Fasting

    Your questions, answered.

  • 9 Things You Probably Didn't Know About Ramadan

    There's more to it than the fasting.

  • The Bible And Quran Are More Similar Than You May Think

    Can you tell the difference?

  • How ISIS Is An Apocalyptic Cult, And What That Means

    “They stir messianic fervor rather than suppress it."

  • 8 Banned Books To Celebrate Blasphemy Day

    For millennia, governments and societies have used legal and commercial means to censor ideas and expressions that challenge established beliefs. It quashes freedom of expression in order to maintain an illiberal peace. Across Central Asia, publishing, importing and distributing religious literature is restricted to prevent “extremism.” In Malaysia, Malay-language Bibles are prohibited outside the confines of churches to protect “national security.” In North Korea, possessing a Bible is illegal because, well, pretty much everything is banned there.

  • Fragments Of Ancient Quran Could Be Older Than Muhammad

    "This would radically alter the edifice of Islamic tradition."

  • Student Finds Old Parchment In University Library, Turns Out It's Probably The World's Oldest Quran

    Talk about a lucky find.

  • Lindsay Lohan Photographed Carrying A Quran

    Lindsay Lohan was spotted on Wednesday carrying a Quran as she left court-ordered community service at a children's center in Brooklyn. The actress has upcoming projects in the Middle East, the spokesperson added, and has been studying Arabic. Become a founding member of HuffPost Plus today.

  • Woman Arrested For Tweet Showing Red Stilettos On The Quran

    A woman was arrested in Turkey this week after she posted a photo on Twitter of red-stilettoed feet standing on the Quran. The unnamed woman in her mid-30s was taken into custody in Istanbul on Tuesday on suspicion of blasphemy and inciting religious hatred, Agence France Presse reported. She was released after questioning. Police launched the investigation after the firebrand mayor of Ankara, Melih Gokcek, filed a legal complaint against her, according to Turkey's Dogan News Agency.

  • Two Women Found Guilty Of Ripping Up Quran At Football Game

    Julie Phillips, age 50, and Gemma Parkin, age 18, have been found guilty of a "religiously-aggravated public order offence" after they ripped up pages from the Quran at an away game for the Middleborough football team, reports the Hartlepool Mail. During the trial, Phillips claimed that she was simply creating confetti, while Parkin said that she had gotten the book at a market in Birmingham without realizing that it was a religious text, according to the Press Association.

  • Is Madonna Practicing Islam?

    Madonna made waves in the mid-1990s when she began studying the Kabbalah, a Jewish esoteric tradition that draws from the mystical and prophetic visions described throughout the Torah. Now she's causing uproar with the news that she's begun studying the Koran, the sacred text of Islam, joining celebs like Janet Jackson, Dave Chappelle, and Yasiin Bey (Mos Def), who reportedly also practice Islam. Is this a Madonna-worthy publicity stunt or an earnest attempt to deepen her spirituality?

  • Why We Should Ignore The Quran-Burnings

    The self-ordained pastor of an unknown Florida church threatened to burn a Quran. Now that nobody is back, threatening to burn 3,000 Qurans on Wednesday (Sept. 11) as a “memorial” to the victims of the 9/11 attacks. This year he’s bringing his 10th annual “Unity Day USA” to the same Florida town where the pastor has threatened to burn the Qurans.

  • Guantanamo Quran Search Story Disputed By Top Prison Official

    The man in charge of the Guantanamo Bay prison told reporters here Tuesday that nothing was out of the ordinary when interpreters searched detainees’ Qurans in February, the event which purportedly set off a months-long hunger strike. Detainees have told their lawyers that a primary impetus for the hunger strike was the search of the Qurans during a shakedown in early February. Bogdan told reporters “nothing” was different about the February search, and that Korans are inspected during every shakedown.

  • Ramadan 2012: A HuffPost Community Observation Of The Islamic Month Of Fasting

    Ramadan is a month of fasting observed by Muslims, and is considered to be one of the holiest times of the year. The sacred time of year is upon us, and starting today HuffPost Religion will update this page daily with prayers, reflections, verses from the Qur'an, poetry, songs and blogs, to help you growth spiritually during this time, and highlight the diversity of the Muslim community. HuffPost Religion invites you to share your reflections and experience during Ramadan with us.

  • Indiana Congressman: US Schools Should Be Modeled After Quran-Founded Islamic Schools

    André Carson, the U.S. Representative for Indiana's 7th Congressional District, created controversy when he told an Islamic Circle of North America convention that American schools should be modeled after Madrassas, or Islamic schools that are built on the foundations of the Quran, WND reports. “America will never tap into educational innovation and ingenuity without looking at the model that we have in our madrassas, in our schools, where innovation is encouraged, where the foundation is the Quran. Back in April, Arizona passed a bill creating a high school curriculum for public and charter schools that teaches the Bible and excludes all other religious texts, such as the Quran and the Torah.

  • Rick Santorum: Obama's Apology For Quran Burning 'Shows Weakness'

    Republican presidential contender Rick Santorum accused President Barack Obama of "weakness" on Sunday for apologizing to the Islamic world over the U.S. military's recent burning of Qurans in Afghanistan. The destruction of copies of the Muslim holy book has outraged much of the international Islamic community, and Obama apologized for what the American government has described as the inadvertent disposal of Qurans in a fire. During a Sunday appearance on ABC News, Santorum said that Obama should not have apologized for the holy book destruction because the U.S. military had only accidentally burned Qurans.

  • PHOTOS: Illustrating Islam: The Spiritual Beauty Of Islamic Manuscript Painting

    The Morgan Library & Museum’s collection of Islamic manuscripts was the offspring of a love affair. When Pierpont Morgan’s librarian, Belle da Costa Greene, met art historian Bernard Berenson in 1908, the pair instantly fell in love. After traveling together to an exhibition of Islamic art in Munich in 1910, they also fell in love with Islamic manuscripts.

  • Quran Gets The Twitter Treatment For Ramadan

    In 2009, Hussein Rashid, a professor of Islamic Studies at Virginia Theological Seminary, noticed rabbis using Twitter to highlight snippets of Torah text to celebrate Shavuot, when Jews say Moses received God's word at Mount Sinai. "I saw they were creating a virtual way to pray and study together, and I thought it would be fun to invite a few friends to tweet the Quran for Ramadan. By the next year we had hundreds posting at #Quran and it will be even bigger this year," he says.

  • British Man Sentenced To 70 days For Burning Quran

    Andrew Ryan was sentenced to 70 days for setting fire to the Islamic holy book on Jan. 19 in Carlisle with a cigarette lighter after his first attempt with matches failed. Ryan was referring to a Muslim extremist who was convicted and fined for setting fire to a poppy -- a symbol of Britain's admiration for its war dead -- during an Armistice Day observance in November 2010.

  • Religious Groups Condemn U.N. Violence And Quran Burning

    The Florida pastor who presided over the recent burning of a Quran said the United Nations must protect Afghans from deadly riots, even as he denied responsibility for inspiring them. At least eight U.N. aid workers and four others were killed Friday (April 1) at a compound in the city of Mazar-e Sharif. Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, quickly pointed the finger at Gainesville pastor Terry Jones, who presided at a March 20 mock trial during which the Quran was set ablaze.