A member of Islamic State opened fire on Sunday inside Mar Elias Church in the east of Damascus before blowing himself up, killing at least 22 people and injuring 63 others, Syria’s interior ministry said. Eyewitnesses inside the church reported a second gunman who did not blow himself up, but also shot at the 150 or so worshippers present. The attack on Sunday night was the first major IS operation and the first suicide bombing in Syria since former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad was toppled in December and replaced by an Islamist-led government

• Islamic State suicide bombing in Damascus church kills 22 and injures 63

Evening attack is first major atrocity by Islamist terror group in Syria since President al-Assad was deposed

A suicide bombing by Islamic State (IS) targeting a church in Damascus has killed 22 people and wounded 63, Syrian state media have said.

The attack on Sunday night was the first major IS operation and the first suicide bombing in Syria since former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad was toppled in December and replaced by an Islamist-led government.

There are fears the crackdown against ‘outsiders’ is driving widespread persecution as expelled Indians are returned by Bangladesh border guards

The Indian government has been accused of illegally deporting Indian Muslims to Bangladesh, prompting fears of an escalating campaign of persecution.

Thousands of people, largely Muslims suspected of being illegal immigrants from Bangladesh, have been rounded up by police across India in recent weeks, according to human rights groups, with many of them deprived of due legal process and sent over the border to neighbouring Muslim-majority Bangladesh.

In Muslim communities, naseeb is a word people often say when things don’t go to plan. But what does it really mean, and what can it teach us?

I still remember the day I left Germany for good. Four incredible years in the heart of Europe were behind me, and ahead of me was a return to Afghanistan – a country I never stopped loving, even from afar. But what should have felt like going home came with a weight of uncertainty.

I went back with hope. Real hope. Afghanistan, despite all its scars, was buzzing with young energy. More than two-thirds of the population is under 25. You could feel the hunger for change in the air – in the packed classrooms, in the cafes full of debate, in the crowded markets thick with the smell of naan and kebabs. There were snow-capped mountains and sunlit orchards but also a fragile kind of optimism holding everything together.

Surging demand for looser styles with high necklines comes amid politicians’ criticism of burqa and the hijab

Fashion influenced by Islam and other religions is expected to become “mainstream” globally, in spite of politicians singling out the burqa and the hijab, as the rise of “modest fashion” is powered by influencers, luxury brands and big tech.

The Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, has said employers should be able to ban staff from wearing face coverings, before adding that she was not in favour of a government ban.

Is working in big tech halal? Muslim workers are reckoning with the possibility that their jobs go against their religious obligations

Before Ibtihal Aboussad was fired by Microsoft for protesting the company’s work with the Israeli military during a celebration of the firm’s 50th anniversary, she sent two emails.

The first went to all of her colleagues. She appealed to their universal humanity and urged them to stand against Microsoft’s contracts to provide cloud computing software and artificial intelligence products to the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF).

Since the riots last summer British Muslims have felt a deep unease in our own country

Here we are again, debating the right of Muslim women to wear what they want. Last week, the Reform UK MP Sarah Pochin asked the prime minister, Keir Starmer, if he planned to follow other European countries and prohibit burqas.

Then the leader of the opposition, Kemi Badenoch, called for bosses to be able to ban the burqa in the workplace. Following the example of the former Labour minister Jack Straw, who in 2006 sparked the first burqa debate by asking constituents at his surgeries to remove their face coverings, she stated that she does not see constituents at her surgeries if they have their faces covered, “whether it’s a burqa or a balaclava”.

Nadeine Asbali is a secondary school teacher in London and the author of Veiled Threat: On Being Visibly Muslim in Britain

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My father, Arshad Ahmed, who has died aged 86, was a trailblazing British Pakistani businessman. He started out in Stockport at the age of 17, selling stockings on a market stall, and often slept there overnight to secure the best spot.

With much perseverance, he was able to buy his own premises, where he founded Ahmed’s of Stockport. It became the go-to place for affordable clothing and is still remembered fondly today by locals who described it as the Primark of its time. Building on this success, in 1960 Arshad created Jawaid Hosiery, one of Manchester’s most successful wholesalers in women’s fashion. By the time he stepped back from running the business in 2000, he had moved into importing and exporting clothing.

Arshad’s business success was rooted not only in hard work but in his remarkable ability to connect with people from all walks of life. He learned Yiddish to talk to his Jewish customers, conversed in Urdu, Hindi and Punjabi with all his south Asian shoppers, Arabic with his Arab customers, and mastered English as his main language.

A visionary in both commerce and community life, Arshad supported the re-establishment in 1971 of one of Manchester’s first mosques, Victoria Park. His greatest legacy, however, was forged in 1983, when he co-founded the Muslim Youth Foundation (MYF), operating from the fourth floor of his warehouse in the heart of Manchester.

Executive Council of Australian Jewry alleges Wissam Haddad breached section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act during lectures in which he quoted from the Qur’an

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A Sydney Islamic cleric being sued in the federal court for alleged racial discrimination of Jewish people has described his case as an existential battle “between Islam and unbelievers”.

Wissam Haddad, also known as Abu Ousayd, is being sued by Australia’s peak Jewish body over a series of lectures he gave in November 2023, in which he is alleged to have maligned Jewish people as “vile”, “treacherous” and cowardly.

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Tory leader says women can wear what they like, but that she asks people who attend her surgery to remove face coverings

Kemi Badenoch has said she will not speak to women wearing burqas in her constituency surgery, and argued that employers should be able to ban their staff from wearing face coverings.

The Conservative leader gave her views after the newest Reform MP, Sarah Pochin, triggered a debate over the subject by pressing the prime minister on whether he would follow the lead of other European countries such as France in banning the burqa.

Mary Miller had first mistaken Giani Singh for a Muslim and said it was ‘deeply troubling’ he was allowed to lead prayer

A Republican congresswoman is facing widespread backlash after saying that a Sikh should not have conducted a prayer in the US House.

Mary Miller, an Illinois representative, on Friday published – then deleted – a post on X saying that Giani Singh, a Sikh Granthi from southern New Jersey, should not have delivered the House’s morning prayer.

Chorus of disapproval follows resignation of party chair Zia Yusuf over burqa ban row

Leading British Muslims are warning that Nigel Farage’s Reform UK is increasingly inflaming hostile sentiment towards Muslims after chair Zia Yusuf resigned over a row about banning the burqa.

His departure was described by the co-chair of the British Muslim Network, a new civil group representing the community, as a “stark illustration” that many in Reform do not view British Muslims as valued equal members of society.

Tory leader says lawmakers should have the ability to bring in such measures on ‘a country-specific basis’

As Jessica Elgot and Amelia Gentleman report, Downing Street is exploring new proposals for a digital ID card to crack down on illegal migration, rogue landlords and exploitative work, set out in a policy paper authored by a centre-left thinktank.

Steve Reed, the environment secretary, was the government voice on the media this morning and he confirmed that the government is interested in this idea. He told Times Radio:

It’s absolutely something that we are looking at, and that we should be looking at.

We know we need to look at all the actions we can take to stop the levels of illegal migration that we were seeing particularly under the last government.

Party’s deputy leader says discussion must not be ‘forced underground’ when it is policy in some European countries

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Reform UK was right to start a debate on banning the burqa even though it triggered the resignation of its chair, Richard Tice, the party’s deputy leader, has said.

Tice, who is one of five Reform MPs, said he was “enormously sad” that Zia Yusuf had quit as chair as he was partly responsible for the party’s strong performance in May’s local elections.

Party says ban is not its policy after Sarah Pochin called on the prime minister to introduce one

A row has broken out in Reform UK after its newest MP called on the prime minister to ban the burqa, with the party’s chair, Zia Yusuf, saying it was a “dumb” question given that was not party policy.

Sarah Pochin, who recently won the Runcorn and Helsby byelection, asked Keir Starmer in parliament on Wednesday: “Given the prime minister’s desire to strengthen strategic alignment with our European neighbours, will he in the interests of public safety follow the lead of France, Denmark, Belgium and others and ban the burqa?”

John Healey insists ‘we don’t have blasphemy laws’ after Tory leader says ‘de facto’ laws are setting the UK on ‘the road to ruin’

Severin Carrell is the Guardian’s Scotland editor.

Keir Starmer has artfully sidestepped accepting blame for Scottish Labour’s disastrous collapse in the polls and its anticipated defeat in the Hamilton byelection, by focusing instead on his government’s long-term strategy.

Anas Sarwar has turned Scottish Labour around and produced incredible results with us at the general election in 2024.

[I] always said that we would stay focused, and we’ll do that into 2026, but in the end the question at that election is, do we want another term of the SNP after all these years of failure? And that’s the central question next year.

That’s why I want to ensure more pensioners are eligible, but in terms of defence and security, obviously there is a huge defence spend. I acknowledge that, but we’re living in very dangerous times, and it is really important just to keep absolutely focused on the security and safety of Scotland.

And if - which is what we’re doing everything to avoid - we were drawn into a conflict of any sort, the impact on pensioners, on children, on everybody across Scotland would be profound. And I believe that to deter conflict, you have to prepare for it.

The year ending April 2025 had a greater number of red days (190) compared to the previous year (106), and 81% more red days than the average number of days in the years ending April 2022 to 2024. Additionally, January to April 2025 had more than double the number of red days (60) compared to the same period in 2024 (27). This coincides with small boat arrivals being 46% higher in January to April 2025 with 11,074 people arriving to the UK by small boat, compared to 7,567 arrivals during these months in 2024.

Hamit Coskun, found guilty of religiously aggravated public order offence, was ‘motivated at least in part by a hatred of Muslims’, judge says

A man has been fined after he set fire to a Qur’an outside the Turkish consulate in London, in an act that was deemed “motivated at least in part by a hatred of Muslims” by a judge.

Hamit Coskun, 50, who was found guilty of a religiously aggravated public order offence on Monday, called his prosecution “an assault on free speech”.

My friend Khurshid Ahmad, who has died aged 93, was a pioneering scholar admired for helping to develop the field of Islamic economics as an academic discipline.

In 1973 he founded the Islamic Foundation in Leicester, a centre dedicated to research, education and training that has published more than 400 books and papers. It is now housed at the Markfield Conference Centre in Markfield, Leicestershire.

President calls government meeting to address finding that Muslim Brotherhood poses ‘threat to national cohesion’

Emmanuel Macron’s centrist political party has suggested banning girls under 15 from wearing the Muslim headscarf in all public places, as the president chaired a high-level government meeting to discuss what it called “political Islamism” in France.

The French president’s office said he had asked ministers to come up with proposals before June to address the “serious” findings of a report that Macron commissioned last year into the presence of the Muslim Brotherhood in France.

Spiritual practices can induce a sense of being part of something that is bigger than oneself

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

When I was a kid, my sister’s favourite biblical passage was from the gospel according to Luke. “Suffer little children to come unto me,” Jesus told his disciples, “for of such is the Kingdom of God.”

My sister had been diagnosed with terminal cancer and she understood Jesus to be saying that children like her, who felt pain, would inherit paradise. Her favourite saints were the youthful martyrs – Angela of Fatima, Bernadette of Lourdes, Thérèse of Lisieux, the Little Flower. Every week my parish gathered to pray for my sister and the priest offered up her suffering, everyone’s suffering, all the suffering of the world, to God.