The tragic Paris terrorist attacks of November 13, 2015 sparked a massive global discussion on Twitter and other social media, with millions of tweets in the first few hours after the attacks. Most of these tweets were condemning the attacks and showing support for Parisians. One of the trending debates related to the attacks concerned possible association between Muslims and terrorism, which r...

In the post-Suharto Reformasi era, Chinese Indonesians are enjoying new freedom to express their culture. The ethnic Chinese number around three million, making up about 1.5% of the nation’s population (Suryadinata 2004c: vii). Chinese Muslims constitute a minority religious group within this minority ethnic group, and little research has been done on them. Jacobsen (2005) puts forward a pessim...

This article surveys the ethnobotany of Ziziphus spina-christi (L.) Desf. in the Middle East from various aspects: historical, religious, philological, literary, linguistic, as well as pharmacological, among Muslims, Jews, and Christians. It is suggested that this is the only tree species considered "holy" by Muslims (all the individuals of the species are sanctified by religion) in addition to...

Outlined below are selected results of a 5-year long national survey which investigated the knowledge, values and attitudes of 430 Year 11 and 12 Muslim students in eight Muslim High schools towards the mainstream Australia and Australians society. The findings reflect a wide spectrum of responses with a strong implication that much work is needed to bring about an appropriate degree of adjustm...

There are objections to the definition of Islamophobia as a form racism. Objections center around two main themes Islamophobia: “Islam” and “Muslims”. Some detractors argue that former should not be given protection against various debates criticisms considered legitimate within scope freedom expression. They assert statements such “Muhammad is pedophile married nine-year-old girl”, “Islam was ...