Islam

… Although support for the hijab appear to be waning in the region, especially among the young, the perception that it is inseparable from Muslim identity has become entrenched far and wide.

So much so that whenever any government – especially in Europe – introduces restrictions on wearing it in public institutions, that is usually denounced as a war on Islam itself.

Merely criticising the hijab in Western democracies has also become almost synonymous with “Islamophobia” or attacks on minority rights.

But in Muslim-majority societies it is still regarded as part of a legitimate campaign for the liberation of women from stifling tradition.

Justin is crying.

Today in history, on July 16, 1212, an epic battle — which the Islamic State still vows vengeance for — took place between Christians and Muslims, and presaged the demise of Islam in Spain, five hundred years after Muhammad’s followers first invaded and subjugated that nation beginning in 711.

Alarmed by the threat, U.S. officials launched a 2015 operation to kill a key weapons expert with the terrorist group

In the summer of 2014, as his followers were ravaging the cities of northern Iraq, Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi convened a secret meeting with a weapons expert whose unusual skills the terrorist chief was anxious to acquire.

His guest was a small man, barely above 5 feet tall, and he had only recently been freed from a years-long stint in U.S. and Iraqi prisons. But before that, Salih al-Sabawi had been an Iraqi official of some renown: a Russian-trained engineer who had once helped President Saddam Hussein build his extensive arsenal of chemical weapons.

Baghdadi had summoned Sabawi, 52, to offer him a job. If supplied with the right equipment and resources, could he produce the same weapons for the Islamic State? Sabawi’s reply, according to a later intelligence report about the meeting, was yes. He could do that and more.