Three of the world’s oldest mosques are about to be demolished in Medina as Saudi Arabia embarks on a multi-billion-dollar expansion of Islam’s second holiest site. Work on the Masjid an-Nabawi in Medina, where the prophet Mohammed is buried, will start once the annual Hajj pilgrimage ends next month. When complete, the development will turn the mosque into the world’s largest building, able to take in 1.6 million worshippers.The spot that marks the Prophet’s tomb is covered by a famous green dome and forms the centerpiece of the current mosque. Under the new plans, it will become the east wing of a building eight times its current size with a new pulpit.There are fears that the redevelopment of the Masjid an-Nabawi is “part of a wider drive to shift focus away from the place where Mohammed is buried,” the newspaper states.

The 36-year-old, university educated Asma Assad is the British-born wife of Syrian President Bashar Assad. She was born to a prominent Syrian family and grew up in the affluent west London suburbs. Before the uprising that erupted in Syria last year, her image as an attractive and sophisticated woman helped boost Assad’s own as a modernizer. An article in Vogue in March, 2011, published just as protests began, hailed her as a “Rose in the Desert.” EU foreign ministers have since slapped sanctions on her, and she has been criticized for standing by Assad.

Qatar:

Sheikha Moza Bint Nasser is the most prominent of the three wives of the Emir of Qatar. The university educated Sheikha Moza has been ranked by Forbes magazine among the world’s 100 most powerful women. She is believed to have influenced policies through the Qatar Foundation, which she heads. The 52-year-old is mother of seven children. Rated in Vanity Fair’s International Best Dressed List last year, Sheikha Moza is widely known for her elegance and expensive custom-made designer clothes. While she covers her hair with a turban in line with Islamic custom, her form-hugging dresses and lavish jewels stand out among the black robes worn by many women in Gulf Arab countries.

Jordan:

Queen Rania, born to Palestinian parents in Kuwait and educated at the American University in Cairo, is mother of four children with King Abdullah II of Jordan. She is active on Twitter and has her own YouTube channel to raise awareness about education and other social issues. She has written a children’s book to promote cross-cultural dialogue. The 42-year-old is considered one of the world’s most attractive women, according to Harper’s and Queens magazine. Her Western, high-end style has landed her among the world’s best dressed women.

Egypt:

The 50-year-old, bespectacled Naglaa Ali Mahmoud, also known as Umm Ahmed, is a longtime Muslim Brotherhood member along with her husband, Egypt’s newly elected Islamist president, Mohammed Morsi. She has a high school diploma and once worked in the United States as translator. The mother of five does not dress in the coiffed and polished style of Egyptian first ladies before her, instead donning a long, traditional headscarf and black abaya, or robe, worn by many women in Egypt’s impoverished villages and towns. She told The Associated Press she does not want to be called “first lady,” rather Egypt’s “first servant.”

Yildirim was the head of IHH in 2010 when the group funded a “flotilla” aimed at breaking Israel’s naval blockade of Hamas-controlled Gaza. Dozens of far-left American and European activists joined the cause. One of the boats in the flotilla, the Mavi Marmara, refused to turn aside when ordered to, attempting instead to break the blockade by force. When IDF soldiers boarded the ship they were violently attacked, IDF soldiers opened fire in response, killing 9 activists.

The UN office ordered Hamas to halt planned execution’s by firing squad. At least 18 men have been executed in Gaza since Hamas seized power in the coastal enclave in 2007. Human rights activists in Gaza state those numbers only represent official executions, not the full range of human rights violations perpetrated by Hamas.The men did not have regular access to lawyers and were tried by a military court despite being civilians.

After Hamas seized control of Gaza, several members of the rival Fatah faction were dragged from their homes and shot in both legs. Hamas has routinely incarcerated, kidnapped, maimed and tortured dissidents and political rivals in Gaza over the past five years.

Hejazi was a prominent figure in the popular uprising against ousted Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak.  Hejazi added that his anti-Assad fatwa [religious edict] has been echoed by many Muslim clerics.

UN Human Rights officials allege some 230,000 Syrians have been displaced in the ongoing unrest, many of whom have made their way to Egypt. The London-based Observatory for Human Rights has said that a total of 9,114, have been killed since the outbreak of the uprising in the country.  The civilian death toll, they stated, stands at 6,645. UN Human Rights officials, however, have stated the civilian death toll is “at least 7,500.”

Reports of war crimes by forces loyal to Assad have become prevalent as the oppression in Syria intensifies, including sustained artillery and sniper fire on neighborhoods the government claims is “harboring terrorists.” Local residents and human rights activists have reported operations in retaken rebel strongholds include mass executions and the systemic rape and torture of survivors.

Six-members of the Gulf Cooperation Council closed their embassies in Syria. Saudi Arabia and Bahrain had previously recalled their ambassadors. Last month, Egypt recalled its ambassador for Damascus, which prompted the aforementioned to withdraw its own envoy in protest.

“The Sheikh based his proclamation on the famous tradition, or hadith, wherein the prophet of Islam declared on his deathbed that  ‘There are not to be two religions in the [Arabian] Peninsula,’ which has always been interpreted to mean that only Islam can be practiced in the region.”

The Mufti’s proclamation to obliterate Christian Churches was made immediately following his recent calls to silence and suppress dissenting views, namely those of the former columnist Hazma Kashgari, whom he insisted be tried in a religious court for a series of ‘blasphemous’ tweets.

While the Mufti asserted that the “justice system in Saudi Arabia is fair,” he nonetheless went on to state that, “all matters related to justice should be reviewed by Shariah courts as written in the Holy Quran.”

In an article he published in the Wall Street Journal, Micheal Oren, Ambassador to the United States, affirmed that Arab discrimination against Christian minorities is becoming an increasingly prevalent phenomenon throughout the Arab world. “In Egypt, 200,000 Coptic Christians fled their homes last year after beatings and massacres by Muslim extremist mobs,” Oren stated. “Since 2003, 70 Iraqi churches have been burned and nearly a thousand Christians killed in Baghdad alone, causing more than half of this million-member community to flee.”

He went on to state that “conversion to Christianity is a capital offense in Iran, where last month Pastor Yousef Nadarkhani was sentenced to death” and that “Saudi Arabia outlaws private Christian prayer.” Oren asserted, the “only place in the Middle East where Christians aren’t endanged is in the Jewish state of Israel.”

Raymond Ibrahim of Jihad Watch noted the inherent hypocrisy in the Grand Mufti quoting the hadith as reason to destroy Christian churches, whereas, when non-Muslims do so “they are accused of being ‘Islamophobes,’ of intentionally slandering and misrepresenting Islam, of being obstacles on the road to ‘dialogue.” The facts seem to speak for themselves. Yet, as Ibrahim notes, “the West, with all its institutions of higher learning, including governmental agencies dealing with cultural and religious questions is still thoroughly ‘confused’ as to what Islam teaches.”
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A phone call between al-Zawahiri and Bin Laden’s older Saudi wife, Khairia, allegedly led the US Navy SEALs to carry out the targeted killing of the world’s most wanted terrorist at his safe-house in Abbottabad, Pakistan on May 2, 2011.

Al-Zawahiri and other senior al-Qaeda commanders were reportedly concerned that Bin Laden’s deteriorating health had turned him into a liability. Khairia apparently arrived in Abbottabad in March 2011, shortly after the phone call and just two months before her husband Osama Bin Laden’s death. The last time she had seen her husband was prior to the September 11th attacks of 2011.

Pakistan’s Interior Minister Rehman Malik who announced the charges did not indicate when their trial would begin. “The case has been registered only against the adults. They can have a lawyer and they have full liberty to go to court and defend themselves,” Malik stated. Malik further stated Nin Laden’s children were being kept in a five-bedroom house “with proper facilities.” The children were “free to return to their native countries” if their mothers agreed.

The wives two from Saudi Arabia and one from Yemen and 10 of their children were taken into custody shortly after he was killed. A commission probing how Bin Laden lived undetected for years in Pakistan investigated his widows and daughters and took statements from them last year. The revelation that bin Laden was in Pakistan ajacent to Pakistan’s military academy was an embarrassment for Islamabad.

April 2012 Update: The widows and daughters were sentenced to 45 days in prison and have been deported to Saudi Arabia.

The Islamic Supreme Council of Canada says the fatwa aims to clarify any possible confusion over the teachings of the Qur’an.

The ruling comes after a verdict was delivered in the Shafia murder trial, in which a Montreal couple and their son were convicted of killing four female relatives.

The Crown alleged the three Shafia sisters and their father’s first wife in a polygamous marriage were killed in an effort to restore the family’s honour.

The trial captured worldwide attention and cast a shadow over Canada’s Islamic community, prompting many to speak out against domestic violence.

Syed Soharwardy, a Calgary-based imam who founded the council, stated religious leaders are taking a stronger stand in issuing a fatwa, which is “morally binding” for Muslims.

Dr. Mahmoud Jame’ stated Sadat was briefed on the deal, according to the Jordanian-based Albawaba website. Jame’, a member of the first Consultative Council in Egypt, stated, “One morning Sadat took me with him in private and without a guard to the (Syrian part of the) Golan Heights, and I swear by the Almighty G-d that he put his hand on my shoulder and as we were standing on the Golan Heights, he told me literally, ‘Look, Mahmoud, this is the Golan. Can any power seize it so easily, even if it is Israel?”

Sadat’s friend replied, “This is impossible,” and Sadat replied, “I will tell you a dangerous secret, the Golan Heights were purchased by Israel for $100 million. The check was received by both Hafez and Rifa’at al-Assad and deposited in their accounts in a Swiss bank.” In return, Hafez Assad, order the Syrian forces to withdraw immediately from the Golan Heights in the June 1967 war without firing a single shot and handing it over to Israel, Jame’ continued.

“This story and my testimony of this event, has been kept secret for many years until 1999, when I alluded in the book ‘I Knew Sadat’ to the incident without revealing the full details.

“In 2006, when I was hosted by Almihwar channel, I provided the full details frankly, to the extent that even Moataz was stunned. “The next day, Almihwar hosted Mr. Amin Gemayel, Lebanon’s former president, and the subject was raised with him. He supported my words. Then the Beirut-based Future channel tried to invite me to Beirut to discuss the subject, but I apologized, and refused.”