Jumilla’s ban on gatherings in public sports centres breaches right to religious freedom, says Madrid

Spain’s central government has ordered officials in a Spanish town to scrap a ban on religious gatherings in public sports centres, describing it as a “discriminatory” measure that breaches the right to religious freedom as it will mainly impact Muslims.

“There can be no half-measures when it comes to intolerance,” Ángel Víctor Torres, the minister for territorial policy, wrote on social media on Monday. Rightwing opposition parties, he added, “cannot decide who has freedom of worship and who does not”.

Poetry allows our hearts to hover in that mysterious realm that lies between life and death, to catch glimpses of our soul

• Making sense of it is a column about spirituality and how it can be used to navigate everyday life

I have been well-acquainted with grief. As a Shiʿi Muslim, it permeates my religious consciousness and finds expression through annual mourning rituals. I find nourishment in mourning: from a young age I have lent my ears to lamentations and shed tears for martyrs felled in far-off lands.

Recently though, grief, paid a more personal visit when news reached me of my grandmother’s passing. In response, I turned to my favourite poem, Lord Tennyson’s In Memoriam A. H. H., which ranks among the most profound and poignant elegies ever penned, in any language.

I sometimes hold it half a sin

To put in words the grief I feel;

Ali Hammoud is a PhD candidate at Western Sydney University. He is broadly interested in Shīʿīsm and Islamicate intellectual history. More of his writings can be found on his Substack page

Blaze at heritage site, built as a mosque in the 8th century before being turned into a church, quickly contained

A fire broke out in the historic mosque-turned-cathedral in Córdoba on Friday but the monument was saved as firefighters quickly contained the blaze, the Spanish city’s mayor has said.

Widely shared videos had shown flames and smoke billowing from inside the tourist attraction visited by 2 million people a year.

Conservative People’s party in Jumilla votes to stop civic centres and gyms being used for activities ‘alien to our identity’

A local authority in south-east Spain has banned Muslims from using public facilities such as civic centres and gyms to celebrate the religious festivals Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of Ramadan, and Eid al-Adha.

The ban in Jumilla, in Murcia, is a first in Spain. It was introduced by the conservative People’s party (PP) and passed with the abstention of the far-right Vox party and the opposition of local leftwing parties.

Ministers have accused us of ‘infiltration’ and posing ‘a threat to national cohesion’. They’re old racist tropes given a dangerous new life

Being a Muslim in a country with a long colonial history, which has also had to deal with terrorist attacks carried out in the name of Islam, is an everyday challenge.

In January 2015, for example, I was as profoundly shocked as everyone else in France by the massacre of the Charlie Hebdo journalists in Paris. As the country mourned, I was invited by a major radio station to comment, but was first asked, live on air, to “dissociate” myself from the attackers.

Rokhaya Diallo is a Guardian Europe columnist

The face of independent schools is changing, led by more affordable Christian, Islamic and Anglican schools

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When the Australian Christian College (ACC) in north-west Sydney began receiving a surge of enrolments after the pandemic lockdowns, its principal, Brendan Corr, was not surprised.

ACC is located in Marsden Park, a major growth corridor of Sydney identified by the state government as an area where a failure to factor in the pace and scale of development has left families without access to local public schools.

Most people believe Muslim values are incompatible with British ones, a new poll has found. It makes for bleak reading

According to YouGov, more than half of people do not believe Islam to be compatible with British values. I’m often dispirited by these polls, as much by the timbre of the questions as by the responses (how many times do we need to ask one another whether we can afford to avert a climate catastrophe, for instance?) But I can’t remember the last time I was stunned.

This latest poll found that 41% of the British public believe that Muslim immigrants have had a negative impact on the UK. Nearly half (49%) think that Muslim women are pressured into wearing the hijab. And almost a third (31%) think that Islam promotes violence. Farhad Ahmad, a spokesperson for the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, which commissioned the poll, was surprised that I was so surprised. Things had been really bad for ages, he said, directing me to not dissimilar numbers in 2016 and 2019.

Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist

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The British Muslim Trust is expected to begin monitoring incidents from early autumn, the government says

The UK government has appointed a new partner to monitor anti-Muslim hatred, months after its relationship with the Islamophobia reporting service Tell Mama broke down.

The British Muslim Trust (BMT) – a new organisation – is expected to begin receiving reports and monitoring incidents from early autumn, after being “selected as the recipient of the government’s new combatting hate against Muslims fund”, a statement from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government said on Monday.

The New York mayoral candidate has piqued the interest of South Asian Americans and Muslims – not only because of his identity, but his platform, too

Zohran Mamdani’s victory in New York City’s Democratic primary for mayor has a group of Pakistani American aunties and uncles so excited that they are wondering if they should have given their own children more freedom in choosing their careers. “What if we let our kids become politicians, and not just doctors and engineers?” a member of the grassroots political organizing group, DRUM Beats, asked at a small celebration held at an Islamic school last month in south Brooklyn.

DRUM Beats, which represents New York City’s working class South Asian and Indo-Caribbean populations, was one of the first grassroots groups to endorse Mamdani, when he launched his campaign in October – long before he became a household name. More than 300 volunteers, who spoke near a dozen languages, knocked on at least 10,000 doors to support him. DRUM Beats says these efforts helped increase voter turnout by almost 90% among Indo Caribbean and South Asians in some neighborhoods.

Islamophobic attacks on Zohran Mamdani are a reminder of the difference between individual and structural prejudice

My only interaction with the FBI came soon after 11 September 2001. A man and woman visited my family’s home in Philadelphia – we had recently moved from Palestine – showed their credentials and asked to enter. My parents invited them in and a conversation about political views followed. They left soon afterwards but I knew we were suspect, and I understood why.

At the time, I was in high school. Two or three years later, one of my sisters, who wore the hijab then, was confronted by an elderly white man at a department store. “What’s the significance of the trash you’re wearing on your head?” he asked.

Ahmed Moor is a writer and fellow at the Foundation for Middle East Peace

Three decades on, as leaders deny what happened, remains of the thousands killed continue to be identified and buried

Three decades after genocide was committed in the middle of Europe, memories in the rest of world are beginning to fade, helped along by a relentless effort by the perpetrators and their allies to cover up evidence. But the sprawling murder scene in the hills and fields around Srebrenica continues to cough up its bones.

In the town of Bratunac, 6 miles (10km) north of Srebrenica town, a group burial was performed recently of victims’ remains that had been identified over the course of the preceding year. Imams gathered from across the country to pray before a line of six coffins draped in the blue and gold Bosnian flag.

Judges praised the Sudanese author for centring Muslim women, describing her writing as “a balm, a shelter, and an inspiration”

Leila Aboulela has won this year’s PEN Pinter prize for her writing on migration, faith and the lives of women.

The prize is awarded to a writer who, in the words of the late British playwright Harold Pinter, casts an “unflinching, unswerving” gaze on the world, and shows a “fierce intellectual determination … to define the real truth of our lives and our societies”.

Exclusive: Former Met officer Neil Basu says there is link between UK foreign policy and radicalisation, and atrocity did lasting damage to race relations

Foreign policy was a driver behind the 7 July 2005 attacks on London , with the atrocity leaving a “soul-destroying” legacy of a rise in hate, a former head of counter-terrorism has said.

Neil Basu said governments needed to accept that foreign policy, such as Britain’s stance on the Israel-Gaza war, could have a direct effect on domestic security.

Many feel counter-terrorism policies and brazen Islamophobia have increased hostility and isolation experience by community

For many in the British Muslim community, the tragedy of 7 July 2005 lives long in the memory. The bombings sent shockwaves through the nation but also marked a turning point that left many grappling with grief, fear and a new scrutiny of their identity.

Twenty years on, feelings of suspicion, isolation and hostility experienced in the aftermath of the attacks have, for some, only worsened after decades of UK counter-terrorism policies, and a political landscape they say has allowed Islamophobia to flourish.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan condemned as a 'vile provocation' a cartoon in a satirical magazine that appeared to depict Prophets Mohammad and Moses, amplifying an outcry by religious conservatives after the arrest of four cartoonists. In a statement on X, LeMan said: 'The work does not refer to the Prophet Muhammad in any way'

• Turkish police arrest cartoonists over drawing ‘showing prophet Muhammad’

• Clashes and arrests in Turkey over magazine cartoon allegedly depicting prophet Muhammad

Followers of the Ahmadi Religion of Peace and Light urged to sell possessions and donate their salaries to the cause

A religious sect, whose leader claims to be the new pope and whose followers say he can make the moon disappear, is operating out of a former orphanage in Crewe, Cheshire, where at least a dozen children are being home schooled.

The Ahmadi Religion of Peace and Light (AROPL) was founded by Abdullah Hashem, a former documentary maker turned self-proclaimed “saviour of mankind” who uses YouTube and TikTok to proselytise to potential recruits.

Four artists held over magazine illustration alleged by critics to depict Muhammad and Moses shaking hands

The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has condemned a cartoon in a satirical magazine as a “vile provocation” for appearing to depict the prophets Muhammad and Moses, amplifying an outcry by religious conservatives.

The cartoon, published a few days after the end of a 12-day conflict between Israel and Iran, appears to show Muhammad, Islam’s chief prophet, and Moses, one of Judaism’s most important prophets, shaking hands in the sky while missiles fly below in a wartime scene. Four cartoonists were arrested on Monday over the illustration.

Turkey police face demonstrators after prosecutor orders arrests at LeMan magazine, whose editor-in-chief denies allegation and says image has been deliberately misinterpreted

Clashes erupted in Istanbul with police firing rubber bullets and teargas to disperse a mob on Monday after allegations that a satirical magazine had published a cartoon of the prophet Muhammad.

The clashes occurred after Istanbul’s chief prosecutor ordered the arrest of the editors at LeMan magazine on grounds it had published a cartoon that “publicly insulted religious values”.

Despite the dryly informational tone, this documentary guide to the prophet Muhammad’s final resting place features breathtaking footage

Here is a tour guide of the Islamic holy city best known in the UK as Medina in Saudi Arabia, a major destination for religious tourism, second only to Mecca. It is home to Islam’s first mosque, and the prophet Muhammad’s final resting place. For anyone planning a visit, this documentary about the city’s sacred sites is well worth a watch. Non-Muslims may find themselves reaching for their phones to look up terms and historical events.

There is an antiquated, mildly academic feel to the voiceover, like a BBC documentary from the 1970s. It begins with a brief overview of the prophet’s migration from Mecca to Medina in 622AD, marking the start of the Islamic calendar. In the present day, the faces of pilgrims are a window into the significance of this spiritual journey for those with faith – but none are actually interviewed.

The vicious reaction to his New York mayoral success tells us this: the establishment will not countenance mainstream voters making common cause with Muslims

Zohran Mamdani’s stunning win in New York’s mayoral primary has been a tale of two cities, and two Americas. In one, a young man with hopeful, progressive politics went up against the decaying gods of the establishment, with their giant funding and networks and endorsements from Democratic scions, and won. In another, in an appalling paroxysm of racism and Islamophobia, a Muslim antisemite has taken over the most important city in the US, with an aim to impose some socialist/Islamist regime. Like effluent, pungent and smearing, anti-Muslim hate spread unchecked and unchallenged after Mamdani’s win. It takes a lot from the US to shock these days, but Mamdani has managed to stir, or expose, an obscene degree of mainstreamed prejudice.

Politicians, public figures, members of Donald Trump’s administration and the cesspit of social media clout-chasers all combined to produce what can only be described as a collective self-induced hallucination; an image of a burqa swathed over the Statue of Liberty; the White House deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller, stating that Mamdani’s win is what happens when a country fails to control immigration. Republican congressman Andy Ogles has decided to call Mamdani “little muhammad” and is petitioning to have him denaturalised and deported. He has been called a “Hamas terrorist sympathiser”, and a “jihadist terrorist”.