Its an interesting question IMO and one born out of another topic that was discussing where "stop evil with your hands" ends and where "there is no compulsion in religion" starts.

We have 30 odd years of the application of Islamic law we can look back on that we all will agree with and not call the application in these circumstances into question...

So... during the Khitafat Rashidah, were Non Muslims allowed to drink alcohol?

Anyone read about it being banned for Christians/Jews/Others from drinking alcohol?

I would assume that if there is no recording of it being banned, it must have been a non issue and thus allowed.

Monday's Quit Facebook Day turned out to be something of a damp squib.

Just 34,100 of Facebook's more than 450 million members pledged to quit over privacy concerns. The low number is probably more a reflection of how hard it is to break the Facebook habit, rather than signifying acceptance of the simplified privacy controls introduced by the social network last week after much criticism, as QuitFacebookDay explains.

Read more @ The Register

A Utah woman is suing the search engine Google, claiming its maps function gave her walking directions that led her onto a major highway, where she was struck by a car.

The lawsuit seeks more than $100,000 in damages.

Lauren Rosenberg sought directions between two addresses in Utah about 3 kilometres apart. The top result suggested that Rosenberg follow a busy rural highway for several hundred metres. The highway does not have sidewalks. One stretch is blocked by a noise barrier that pushes pedestrians closer to the roadside.

After walking on to the highway, Rosenberg was struck by a car. The driver, Patrick Harwood, is also named in the suit.

An interesting article/comment on the Times websote that is a good read I think - accounts from a few people who have converted to Islam. What they have in common is that they are young, free thinking and female - the article mentions how 2/3rd of converts to Islam in the UK are female.

The conversion of people to Islam really does challenge those prejudiced against it, but at the same time their hatred of Islam may even help promote Islam - if you are confronted with something you are more likely to research it and sometimes even if you are researching a matter in order to refute it the innate beauty of Islam can still win out and overcome the prejudice with actual fact and knowledge.