Prayer room of Great Mosque of Algiers, beset by political wrangling and cost overruns, accommodates 120,000 people

Algeria has inaugurated a gigantic mosque on its Mediterranean coastline after years of political upheaval transformed the project from a symbol of state-sponsored strength and religiosity to one of delays and cost overruns.

Built by a Chinese construction firm throughout the 2010s, the Great Mosque of Algiers features the world’s tallest minaret, measuring 265 metres (869ft).

Muslim Council of Britain writes to Conservative chair over comments made by Liz Truss, Lee Anderson and Suella Braverman

Britain’s largest Muslim group has written to the Conservative party to call for an investigation into “structural Islamophobia” within the party’s ranks.

In a letter addressed to the Conservative chair, Richard Holden, the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) said Islamophobia in the party was “institutional, tolerated by the leadership and seen as acceptable by great swathes of the party membership”.

While this six-part drama is a step forward for representation of Muslims in Australia, it is spoiled by unrealistic moments and a creaky script

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As a Muslim invested in the politics of the Muslim community, it’s tempting to feel short-changed by the ABC’s new show, House of Gods.

The six-part drama centres on the family of a sheikh leading a mosque in Sydney, and brings to it a heady mix of power, politics and faith. The co-creators, Osamah Sami and Shahin Shafaei, have described it as “Succession set in a mosque”. But despite its great concept and fantastic production, House of Gods unfortunately falls short in its attempt at an authentic depiction of Muslim life in Australia.

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In the wake of the chaos of the Gaza debate, prominent Conservatives are trying to exploit fears of extremism for their own ends

It should have been a sober debate about what the UK and its allies can do to bring an end to the conflict between Israel and Gaza. Instead, the House of Commons descended into procedural chaos and angry recriminations last Wednesday after the speaker, Lindsay Hoyle, broke with parliamentary convention to allow MPs to vote on a Labour, as well as the government’s, amendment to the SNP’s opposition day motion on a ceasefire. Rather than focusing on the humanitarian crisis in Gaza that is escalating with each day that passes, the Commons drew itself into a pointless blame game that has led to days of speculation over Hoyle’s future.

Every party involved – the SNP, Labour and the Conservatives – claimed the moral high ground in Wednesday’s debate, while accusing the others of undermining a critical discussion in their own interests. And all three parties are complicit in the shameful row that followed. Hoyle explained that he selected the Labour amendment out of concern for the safety of MPs who have received threats over this conflict and did not want to support an SNP motion labelling Israel’s military offensive as collective punishment. These MPs not only wanted to express their support for a ceasefire, they feared the consequences if they could not.

New research into Brenton Tarrant’s posts on 4chan raises questions about why authorities did not detect them before the 2019 mosque shootings

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In March and August 2018, up to a year before he attacked two Christchurch mosques, Brenton Tarrant posted publicly online that he planned to do so. Until now, these statements have not been identified.

In fact, for four years before his attack, Tarrant had been posting anonymously but publicly on the online message board 4chan about the need to attack people of colour in locations of “significance”, including places of worship.

The individual claimed that he was not a frequent commenter on extreme rightwing sites and that YouTube was, for him, a far more significant source of information and inspiration. Although he did frequent extreme rightwing discussion boards such as those on 4chan and 8chan, the evidence we have seen is indicative of more substantial use of YouTube and is therefore consistent with what he told us.

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Controversy in West Bengal centres around Akbar and Sita, named for a Hindu deity, being placed in the same enclosure

An Indian Hindu nationalist organisation has launched a court petition to stop two lions named after a Hindu deity and a 16th-century Muslim emperor from sharing a zoo enclosure.

Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), a prominent rightwing Hindu organisation, went to court in the state of West Bengal after reports a lioness named Sita had been put with a lion called Akbar.

Bangladeshi residents and others in Monfalcone say decisions to prohibit worship at cultural centres and banning burkinis at the beach is part of anti-Islam agenda

The envelope containing two partially burned pages of the Qur’an came as a shock. Until then, Muslim residents in the Adriatic port town of Monfalcone had lived relatively peacefully for more than 20 years.

Addressed to the Darus Salaam Muslim cultural association on Via Duca d’Aosta, the envelope was received soon after Monfalcone’s far-right mayor, Anna Maria Cisint, banned prayers on the premises.

Yemeni cafes are intergenerational gathering places where - controversially - some young people go to check each other out

“It’s straight up fitna, bro.”

This outrageous statement sounds like a joke. How could a coffee shop be causing strife? But Yusuf Saleh, the manager of Qamaria Yemeni Coffee Co, is half-serious as he hovers over a hot plate of cardamom-infused mufawaar coffee in Grand Blanc, Michigan. He’s referring to the gossip surrounding Dearborn’s Qahwah House, a competitor Yemeni cafe chain spreading rapidly across the United States.

Row over religious cohesion charity’s appointment of trustee with links to Muslim Council of Britain

A charity that has worked for 37 years for greater cohesion between different UK faith communities is expected to close down next week after the government signalled it will scrap its funding.

The Inter Faith Network (IFN) is due to close after Michael Gove, the communities secretary, said he was “minded to withdraw” £155,000 of provisional funding over concerns about a trustee connected to the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB).

Actor admits she ‘mistakenly and inadvertently conflated Muslims with radical Islamists and fundamentalists’ in a now-deleted post

Actor Selma Blair has apologised for an Islamophobic comment on social media, saying it “resulted in hurting countless people I never meant to, and I deeply regret this”.

Blair posted a lengthy statement on Instagram following a now-deleted comment on another post attacking state representatives Cori Bush and Rashida Tlaib for voting against a bill banning Hamas members from the US. According to the Hollywood Reporter, Blair’s comment read in part: “Deport all these terrorist supporting goons. Islam has destroyed Muslim countries and then they come here and destroyed minds.”

Learning Arabic | Breadmaking and needlepoint | Pen friends | Idle thoughts | Modelling niksen

The possibility of Geert Wilders’ party heading the new government (Report, 8 February) was sufficient reason for me to take up Arabic. The Duolingo app is of great help in this act of symbolic resistance against Wilders’ anti-Islam stance. Learning Arabic is far from easy, but I am making good progress (in itself extremely gratifying for someone in her late 60s). I shall do my utmost to achieve my goal: better communication with Arabic-speaking compatriots and, indeed, non-compatriots beyond the borders of the Netherlands.
Hetty ter Haar
The Hague, Netherlands

• I hate to disabuse Stuart Harrington (Letters, 4 February), but both domestic breadmaking and needlepoint are alive and well. Our bread machine chunters away daily, and my son regularly makes sourdough. And there’s a subversive exhibition of needlepoint by me and my sister on in August in London.
Polly Mortimer
London

A year and a half ago, Hindus and Muslims clashed in the streets of one of Britain’s most diverse cities. What lay behind the violence?

On Saturday 17 September 2022, the weekend before the Queen’s funeral, 300 men marched through Leicester. Their faces were hidden by Covid masks and balaclavas as they made their way to Green Lane Road in Highfields, an area in east Leicester with a large Muslim population. On WhatsApp, it had been billed as a Hindu neighbourhood safety march. “It’s very important for every Hindu to attain [sic] this meeting,” an organiser wrote. “Otherwise in future, we will have to live in fear.”

It was early evening, and as the men passed rows of terrace houses, redbrick warehouses and the Piccadilly Cinemas, which was advertising a Hindi-language epic set during the British Raj, they chanted “Jai Shree Ram” (“Victory to Lord Rama”). This phrase has long been an innocuous declaration of religious faith, but in recent decades, it has become associated with the politics of Hindu nationalism in India, where militants use it as a rallying cry in campaigns of intimidation and violence against minorities, particularly Muslims. The men also shouted other slogans that have become associated with the Hindu right: “Bharat Mata Ki Jai” (“Victory to Mother India”) and “Vande Mataram” (“Praise Mother [India]”).

Exclusive: Party figure says it has work to do to retain support as poll shows drop in Starmer’s popularity

Labour has much work to do to retain support among Muslim voters, a senior party figure has said as a poll suggested the party had lost a portion of its Muslim voter base over its handling of the Israel-Gaza war.

Only 43% of British Muslims who backed Labour at the 2019 general election are willing to do so again at the next general election expected this year, the survey finds.

Fears decision on Gyanvapi mosque in Varanasi could increase religious tensions and inspire more claims

An Indian court has ruled that Hindus can worship inside a contested mosque, a verdict that it is feared will increase religious tensions and galvanise further claims against other Muslim places of worship.

Gyanvapi mosque, in the holy city of Varanasi, was built in the 17th century by the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb and has been in use by Muslims for prayer ever since.

Hundreds of women sentenced for practices such as studying the Qur’an, dating back as far back as 60s and 70s, analysis of Chinese police files shows

Hundreds of thousands of Uyghur female religious leaders are estimated to have been arrested and imprisoned in Xinjiang since 2014, with some elderly women detained for practices that took place decades ago, according to an analysis of leaked Chinese police files.

There is growing evidence of the abusive treatment of the Uyghur Muslim population of the north-west Chinese region of Xinjiang, with their traditions and religion seen as evidence of extremism and separatism.

Exclusive: Party launches outreach effort amid concerns it is losing support of normally loyal voters

• ‘Trust is lost’: Muslim voters turn against Labour

Keir Starmer’s office has begun polling British Muslim voters amid growing concern in senior Labour ranks about the damage done to their core vote by the row over the party’s position on the Middle East.

Labour sources have told the Guardian that the party is running polls and holding focus groups around the country after senior officials became concerned they were losing support among one of their staunchest bases of support.

Shop will be open only to non-Muslim diplomats – but some fear it is first step to wider availability of alcohol in teetotal kingdom

The news that Saudi Arabia will allow its first alcohol shop has citizens and foreigners alike mulling one question: is this a minor policy tweak, or a major upheaval?

Sources familiar with preparations for the store disclosed details of the plan on Wednesday, as a document circulated indicating just how carefully leaders of the teetotal Gulf kingdom will manage its operations.

Many who praise a headteacher for preventing Muslim prayers are oddly sanguine about the number of faith schools in Britain

Schools are too often the crucible in which social conflicts are fought out, with teachers expected to put right whatever we fail to fix in the world outside. Religion is one such battleground, where “values” are set by education secretaries, and of whom there have been 10 in the past 14 years.

The latest row blew up in Michaela Community school in Brent, north-west London, Katharine Birbalsingh’s notorious free school, regimented to her direction. The discrimination case brought by a Muslim girl last week stirred up rightwing commentators devoted to the headteacher, who made her name condemning education under Labour as “broken”.

India's prime minister inaugurated a new temple at the site of a demolished 16th-century mosque that was torn down by a mob of Hindu nationalists. Babri Masjid was destroyed in 1992 during a rampage that killed 17 people in the city of Ayodhya. The new Ram Mandir temple was built atop the ruins of the old mosque, where some Hindus believe Lord Ram, a popular deity, was born. The event on Monday drew 8,000 guests including celebrities but also forced members of the local Muslim community to relive old traumas

• Modi inaugurates Hindu temple on site of razed mosque in India

• As petals rained down and celebrities beamed, Modi unveiled his vision of a Hindu India

Hundreds follow route to Parliament Square in solidarity with people affected by Israel-Gaza conflict

Without flags, placards or chants, hundreds of people joined a silent multi-faith peace walk in London on Sunday in response to the Israel-Gaza war.

Muslims, Jews, Christians, Hindus and Buddhists walked side-by-side from Trafalgar Square to Parliament Square and back in solidarity with people affected by the conflict in the Middle East.