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Out of Control
When the Holy Father recently (in fact, immediately before the so-called Holocaust Memorial Day on January 27) rehabilitated and welcomed back into the Roman Catholic Church the confessing holocaust...
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Pope Benedict
Pope Bededict’s remark on his first Apostolic Journey to Africa (Cameroon and Angola) that the continent’s fight against HIV/AIDS is a problem that “cannot be solved by the distribution of condoms: on...
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Swine Flu
Egypt had experienced several deaths caused by the highly virulent H5N1 (“birds’ flu”) virus. However, culling pigs might be the most stupid action in fighting the developing pandemic. No pig has so...
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Interreligious Incompetence
Celebrated German-Iranian scholar of Islamic Sciences, novelist, essayist and journalist Navid Kermani was denied Hesse’s highest cultural award, the Kulturpreis. As he tells us, he was second choice...
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The Farewell Sermon of the Prophet of Islam (S.A.W.)
I was sitting in an airplane of Saudi Arabian Airline. It had turned out to be extremely difficult for me, the infidel, to get the visa for the, at least for foreigners, isolated country of Islam....
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On Going Astray
Tilman Nagel. Mohammed – Leben und Legende. Oldenbourg, Munich 2008, 1052 pages Operating on the premise that all Monotheism derives from the collective unconscious one may be able to describe and...
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The Night Journey
When recently having read German Orientalist Tilman Nagel’s voluminous opus maximum on life and legend of the prophet of Islam, I became once more interested in the different versions of Muhammad’s...
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Judas’ Kiss
On yesterday’s Good Friday, I stumbled across Ukrainian Artist Andriy Dutka’s almost iconic “Judas’ Kiss” of 1990. It can be viewed at Wurzburg’s “Museum am Dom”. When earnestly considering Judas’...
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Three Thousand Years
Two years ago, I had written a brief essay on Prophet Muhammad’s (PBUH) mystic Night Journey to Jerusalem and then further into Heaven which is commemorated by many Muslims today, 27 Rajab, al-’Isrā’...
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The Guilt of Pope Benedict
When Benedict XVI resigned from his papacy in February last year it was clear that it was not soley due to advanced age and overall frailty. Today, the Vatican admitted that the former pope had...
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Qur’an in Context
Early 14th century image in an illuminated Ilkhanid manuscript of کتاب الآثار الباقية عن القرون الخالية (The Remaining Signs of Past Centuries) by Abu Rayhan al-Biruni (completed about 1000 AD) The...
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Martin Luther and Islam
Germany is celebrating 500 years of Reformation of Christianity these days. On 31 October 1517 it is said that monk Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to Wittenberg’s church calling for some change....
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Ascension Day
The gorgeous glas window in Tromø’s Arctic Cathedral displays actually the Return of Jesus, not Ascension Day. I had visited the church for the first time, shortly after my arrival in the Arctic, on...
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