While Muslim countries are now criticized over education and expression, the Golden Age of Islam wasn't. So what was this prosperous period?

A NEW survey has found almost half of Australians support a ban on Muslim immigration. The Essential poll asked more than 1000 respondents whether they would support or oppose Pauline Hanson’s proposed ban on Muslim immigration. Sixty per cent of Liberal voters, 40 per cent of Labor voters and 34 per cent of Greens voters said they would support the ban.

Metropolitan Police have launched a hate crime probe after literature stating that those who insult Islam “must be killed” was reportedly handed out at a London mosque. The leaflets, said to be distributed at a holy gathering by the Dar-ul-Uloom Qadria Jilania mosque in Walthamstow, state that apostates “deserve to be assassinated” and point to a classic manual of Islamic law to justify such killings. 

As Ashura, the day of Imam Hussain’s martyrdom (10th Muharram or October 12) nears, Shia groups in the city have launched a campaign to present the sacrifice made by Imam Hussain and his family members in Karbala (Iraq) as a fight against terrorism. They have put posters, banners and pamphlets carrying the slogan “Imam Hussain inspires humanity to fight terror.” It is an initiative of city-based Channel Win, an Islamic television channel.

French president Francois Hollande has admitted the country 'has a problem with Islam' and warned France's national symbol will one day by a woman in a burka. Hollande also branded ethnic minority football stars as 'guys from the estates, without references, without values, who leave France too early', it emerged today. The words were all part of a more general attack on people from Muslim backgrounds whom the Socialist Mr Hollande views as a major difficulty for his country.

“O’ Bangla’s scholars, O’ Bangla’s Muslims, wake up. No son of a bastard will remain alive after swearing at my Prophet!” Mufti Shah Sadruddin ranted in a speech in London in 2013, a year before he stood for office. Mr. Sadruddin supported George Galloway before defecting to the Conservatives. He has previously attacked homosexuals, believes in the creation of an Islamic state, and campaigned for a “mega mosque” near Britain’s Olympic Stadium.

Olympic gymnast Louis Smith missed celebrations for Rio medallists in Trafalgar Square to visit mosques after saying sorry for the fact that he appeared to mock Islam in a video last week. The four-time medallist said he apologised to people in the Muslim community for the footage that showed him pretending to pray to Allah while laughing. In a message on his Facebook page on Tuesday evening, he said: “I accepted the offer to learn more about the Muslim community and Islam. I honestly can say it was actually a really good day.

A Pakistani court on Thursday ordered the closure of all liquor shops in the southern province of Sindh, officials said, cutting off one of the few legal alcohol sources in the Muslim-majority country. Although Pakistani Muslims are banned from drinking alcohol, the country's minorities, mainly Hindus and Christians, face no such prohibition. However, critics argue that the licensed liquor shops also sell to Muslims.

There is a general acceptance in the Muslim community that the mainstream media is institutionally Islamophobic, from its promotion of war against Muslim countries to its demonisation of Islam and Muslims at home. But we have yet to come up with an effective strategy to combat that Islamophobia. On the one hand, you have those who say we must engage as much as possible with the mainstream media to get our voices across.

Throughout his campaign for president of the United States, Republican nominee Donald Trump has time and time again denigrated Muslim communities living on American soil and abroad. Trump’s critics have underscored how promoting the prejudicial treatment of Muslims only helps to strengthen anti-American Islamist organizations. By targeting Muslims, the arguments go, Trump inadvertently validates claims made by groups such as Islamic State and al-Qaeda about the inevitable mistreatment of Muslims by the US, regardless of whether or not they are law-abiding citizens.

A massive demonstration by tens of thousands of Indonesian Muslims against Jakarta's governor turned ugly Friday as hardliners burned police cars and clashed with officers, who responded with tear gas and water cannon. The ugly scenes -- just metres from the presidential palace -- marred an otherwise peaceful rally against governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, a Christian accused of insulting Islam.

A Muslim police chaplain has faced criticism after he reportedly said women commit “a major sin” if they refuse to have sex with their husbands. Musleh Khan, the Toronto Police Force’s new chaplain, held a web seminar entitled ‘The Heart of The Home: The Rights and Responsibilities of A Wife’, in which he also implied getting married to 9-year-old girl is permitted in Islam.

Muslim-majority Bangladesh to drop Islam as the country’s state religion ‘when the time comes’, a report on Monday quoted a senior ruling Awami Leage leader as saying. “Islam has been kept as the state religion for strategic reasons,” the party’s Presidium Member and former minister Abdur Razzaq told the media on Sunday. “I have said it abroad and now I am saying it again that Islam will be dropped (as state religion) from Bangladesh’s Constitution when the time comes,” the former food minister added.

Wang Zuo'an, chief of the State Administration for Religious Affairs in China, asked Muslim citizens to stand against religious extremism. He also said the development of Islam in China should stick to socialism with Chinese characteristics, as per a Xinhua news report. Wang also asked for new mosques to exhibit Chinese features rather than copied foreign architectural styles.

Sometime in the middle of 2012, a friend of Neil Prakash asked the young Australian if he was religious. "I'm a Buddhist," said Prakash, "but I believe there is a god, a deity". "You are not a Buddhist then," replied the friend, "you are confused". The simple exchange marked the beginning of a journey, literal and spiritual, that took Prakash from his home town of Melbourne to the heartland of the so-called Islamic State.

If like me you’re female, Muslim and from an ethnic minority background, it sometimes feels like a one-way ticket into economic and social purgatory. Despite the fact that more British Muslim women than men are getting degrees, we are the most disenfranchised group in the country. Not only are we subject to high levels of unemployment and poverty, but discrimination on the basis of our faith, gender and ethnic background hinders our entry into the labour market.

Sometimes it’s hard to separate political cynicism from religious fanaticism—and often the two work together. So it is with Ahok’s ‘blasphemy’ trial in Indonesia.

And some experts fear intolerance among the British Muslim community has sent young gay Muslims into the arms of ISIS. The Times says the messages, uncovered by counter-terrorism experts, show the men have stronger feelings than what an expert dubbed "heterosexual bonding". If the men were caught having a gay relationship they would probably be put to death as jihadists consider homosexuality a sin.

The Islamic center's president, Shahid Hashmi, wouldn't speculate about whether it was arson, but he says the building was burglarized a week ago. The paper reports that in July 2013, a man admitted to painting "H8," a computer shorthand for "hate," on the outside of the building.

Jihadist groups on Sunday celebrated the Trump administration’s ban on travel from seven Muslim-majority countries, saying the new policy validates their claim that the United States is at war with Islam. Comments posted to pro-Islamic State social media accounts predicted that President Trump’s executive order would persuade American Muslims to side with the extremists. One posting hailed the U.S. president as “the best caller to Islam,” while others predicted that Trump would soon launch a new war in the Middle East.