Author Archives

Zia H Shah

He is a physician practicing in Upstate New York. He is the Chief Editor of the Muslim Times, which has more than 43,000 followers in Twitter. He is also Chair of Religion and Science for the Muslim Sunrise, the oldest Muslim publication in North America. He has authored more than 400 articles on Islam, Christianity, Secularism and Religion & Science. Follow in Twitter: @The_MuslimTimes

Punishment for Apostasy and Islam

It is extremely unfortunate that there are many people and scholars, including, some Muslims, who believe that the punishment for apostasy in Islam is a death penalty. In some Muslim countries they practise this and punish the apostate with killing. As I have mentioned above that Islam declares that “There […]

First mosque in modern Spain

The Basharat Mosque (span.: Mezquita Basharat; the name means “good news”) was inaugurated on September 10, 1982 in Pedro Abad, in the Spanish comarca of Alto Guadalquivir, province of Córdoba by Mirza Tahir Ahmad (late), fourth Caliph of Ahmadiyya Muslim Community (currently fifth Caliph Mirza Masroor Ahmad heads the Community). The mosque is the center of Ahmadiyya-Movement in […]

The golden age of Jewish Culture in Spain.

The Golden age of Jewish culture in Spain, also known as the Golden Age of Arab (or Moorish) Rule in Iberia, refers to a period of history during the Muslim rule of the Iberian Peninsula (the former Roman and Visigothic Hispania) in which Jews were generally accepted in society and […]

Testing genes for athletic prowess

IN AN era of helicopter parents eager to exploit every competitive edge for their children, at least two companies have begun selling tests that claim to help match youngsters with the sports they are genetically programmed to play best.   The DNA scans, the first of an expected wave of […]

Stephen Hawking, science and sharia

I remember reading the book (A Brief History of Time) when it was first published in 1988 and I found it fascinating and even enthralling. It inspired in me an awe towards the immenseness of the cosmos and the insignificance of human knowledge at the same time it awakened in […]

Calls for sharia law in Australia under fire

Deep divisions over the future of Islam in Australia have emerged after calls for the adoption of sharia law in submissions to a federal parliamentary inquiry into multiculturalism. Citing existing Government support for Islamic banking and laws governing halal meat – and backing from the Archbishop of Canterbury – Muslim […]

Partnership for the whole of life

In the past, the word family referred exclusively and solely to a married man and woman who preferably had a couple of children. Today, the word family carries with it far more connotations; a single parent and his or her child is a family; two people of the same gender […]

Hot, cold and warm in Baghdad

On Easter Monday, I was sent to Iraq to monitor the progress being made. I did not quite have in mind to report on the sophisticated improvement in terror. Assassination, in Baghdad, is the new fashion in violence. Apparently, variety is not only the spice of life. Once I was […]

Indonesia’s Islamic Vigilantes

CIREBON, INDONESIA — Before he strapped on his suicide vest, walked into a crowded police station mosque and blew himself up last month, Muhammad Syarif was typical of the scores of angry young men who pass their days at fundamentalist mosques in this coastal Javanese city. Enlarge This Image The authorities […]

Saudis call Obama speech meaningless drivel

By SIRAJ WAHAB, MAHER ABBAS & GHAZANFAR ALI KHAN | ARAB NEWS RIYADH/DAMMAM: Saudis dismissed US President Barrack Obama’s much-anticipated “Arab Spring address” as meaningless, predictable drivel while Egyptians and other Arabs, to whom Obama offered some sops, also did not find anything new in the speech, which according to […]