The number of mosques has increased fivefold in the Balearic Islands in recent years. In 2005 there were only six mosques in the islands and is now accounted for 30, as shows the registration of religious communities in the Ministry of Justice. The most important municipalities of the Balearic Islands have already a temple to practice Islam and Islamic groups now want also to have cemeteries to bury their dead by Muslim rites. For this reason, they plan to apply for land to the municipalities.

The real expansion of mosques has occurred since 2006, being the year 2008 when opened more Islamic centers were opened in the islands, especially in Mallorca. In most cases the faithful themselves have decorated the places with Arab tapestries. The faithful have also chosen a magnet in order to fulfill their religious obligations every Friday, the day of worship.

The reasons that Islamic groups give for the significant increase of places of worship in the municipalities is that gradually and over the years, Muslims have settled and integrated, losing the fear of showing religious affiliation. Many of the faithful flocked to nearby towns or Palma to pray, but over the years they have decided to launch their own temples in the towns where they reside.

Francisco José Giménez, president of Mallorca's Lliga Musulmana and representative of the Islamic Platform states that "Muslim groups of municipalities were reluctant at first to set up their mosques, but once you have settled have changed their way of seeing things and even people of Mallorca has helped  offering some places". Islamic organizations complain that at a regional level there is no a group that unites the entire Muslim community.

In 2005, on the island of Mallorca, there were only two mosques in Palma, one in sa Pobla and another in Manacor. Now there are centers of Islamic worship in Inca, Lloseta, Pollença, Alcúdia, Felanitx, Maria de la Salut, Muro, Santa Margalida, Soller, Vilafranca, Ses Salines, Inca, Santanyi, Porreres or Campos.

The Lliga Musulmana and the Islamic Council of Islands, who is chaired by Lounis Meziani, think one step further. Since mosques are already implemented in most counties, they have decided to ask the councils to provide land for the construction of Islamic cemeteries. It turns out that the Police Act which governs Islands' Mortuaries prohibits the burial of the deceased without coffins. Muslims do not use them and their religion requires burial in contact with soil, incineration is considered an act of selfishness. Mallorca cemeteries are not eligible to meet this ritual.

At the moment, they only have an area within the municipal cemetery in Palma for about 40 corpses. The municipality of the capital and has informed them that it has no more land to expand this space. In this situation, they are thinking of going through the villages of the islands with the aim they are assigned to build enclaves where Muslim cemeteries.

Torrent's Islamic Center has agreed with the neighbors of Nicholas Andreu, at a meeting orchestrated by the Office of Mayor of the City, paralyzing the work being undertaken in a building on Calle San Ernesto to convert it into a mosque and find another location that satisfies all parties.

For seven years, Muslims have come to the headquarters of Torrent's Islamic center located in a room of just 120 square feet of Nicholas Andreu Street and had never had any problems with neighbors. However, the growing number of faithful forced many to stay in the street to pray at the designated days of the Muslim calendar.

Therefore, the Islamic Center sought and rented a closer and more extensive than could accommodate smoothly to 200 or 300 worshipers. This is a warehouse located in the basement of a building on Rue Saint Ernesto, in the same neighborhood. However, this new location seemed to disturb the neighbors who claimed, from their Association, that the street is very narrow, there are parking problems and that there are two schools close so that, at peak times, it can be to collapse.

The makers of the Islamic Center, meanwhile, do not understand the complaints recalling that during seven years there has been no notable incidents and that the relocation was done precisely to avoid nuisance to neighbors. But the desire to avoid a conflict with the neighbors has led to the Hall to mediate in the negotiation between both parties to reach a consensual solution.

Although the Muslim Association had already begun work on the ship rented by pulling some walls, has reached agreement with the neighbors to paralyze the work and find another location that would satisfy all parties.

The mayor of the municipality, Maria José Català, has acknowledged being "satisfied" with the outcome of the negotiations as "the reference of the government team has been at all times comply with current legislation and the welfare of neighbors."

"We had the cooperation of locals who have understood from the outset that the best option was to work with the government team for the proper resolution of this conflict," he said.

An Indian court has ruled that a disputed site sacred to Hindus and Muslims should be divided between the two faiths, in a bid to forge a compromise and end a historic battle that has triggered modern India’s most deadly religious clashes.

...In their ruling, the judges ordered the site – now controlled by the government – to be divided, with two thirds, including the spot where Hindu idols now stand, going to Hindu groups and one-third to the Muslim community.

Explaining the decision, one judge said the site was the birthplace of Lord Ram “as per the faith and belief of Hindus”, and another said it had an “almost unprecedented” tradition of Hindu worship inside the mosque compound.

Indian Muslim clerics and leaders rallied on Friday against a court ruling over a disputed religious site that largely favored Hindus, raising fears of further alienation of the minority community.

Muslim groups said reaction was also measured because they still hoped to appeal in Supreme Court and rebuild the mosque.

The Economist:

As they struggled from the wreckage, poor Muslim congregations came to depend on foreign charities for help rebuilding their mosques, whose numbers have risen tenfold to around 250 today, says Bjorn Blengsi, an anthropologist. They also became receptive to imported versions of Islam, which tend to be stricter than the traditionally relaxed local variety. Agnès de Féo, another anthropologist and author of “L’Islam au Cambodge et au Vietnam” says both Wahhabism from Saudi Arabia and Tablighi Jemaat from India are gaining adherents.

Nothing wrong with that, perhaps. Most Islamic charities teach the faith and help the poor. But not, alas, all. In one much-publicised incident in 2002, according to the American government, a local member of the Kuwaiti-based Revival of Islamic Heritage Society (RIHS) helped an Indonesian fugitive, Riduan Isamuddin (alias Hambali), the mastermind behind the nightclub bombings in Bali. Hambali, who is now in prison in Guantánamo Bay, reportedly said he had hoped to bomb the American and British embassies in Phnom Penh and to use Cambodia as a base for terrorist operations throughout South-East Asia. RIHS, which has been cleared of links with terrorism by Kuwait’s government, remains active in Cambodia. A local affiliate, the Kuwait-Cambodia Islamic Cultural Training Centre, recently met the president of parliament.

Everyone shoud take notice of three facts: the "Cordoba" mosque they want to set up at Ground Zero in New York, the requirement that the Spanish city and the entire Al Andalus are Muslim, and its relation to the Madrid bombings of March 11, 2004, planned before September 11th 2001.

The nearly 200 dead in Madrid massacres are not related to the Spanish participation in Afghanistan or Iraq, as noted in "El País" one of the most authoritative voices on global jihadism, Fernando Reinares, Dean of the University Rey Juan Carlos, and advisor to the Interior and the intelligence agencies of different countries.

Reinares just written with Ignacio Cembrero, a specialist in North Africa, that in early summer 2001, two months before the attack on the Twin Towers, Amer Azizi, a member of Al Qaeda training in Afghanistan turned to commit massive attacks in Spain, where he had residence, calling for an Islamic reconquest of Al Andalus.

Immediately after the police broke up the 11/S cell, but he fled first to Iran and then to Afghanistan. He was killed in 2005 by a U.S. missile.

The article surprisingly, as if it was from another context, misses the May 2002 bombing at the House of Spain in Casablanca, which resulted in 41 deaths, and the conflict of "the Perejil Island", two months later. Both cases occurred a year before sending Spanish troops to Iraq in summer 2003.

After the massacres of March 11, 2004, the victory of Zapatero and the erroneous attribution of the attack on the Spanish presence in Iraq took place.

Yes, pay attention: there is a growing Muslim dream related to Al Andalus. That dream is now supercharged by the installation in the triumph for Islamist imaginary, Ground Zero, of the Cordoba mosque.

And Cordoba, the Spanish city, is a false multiculturalist myth, terrible for the unfaithful in times of Islam. Much more bloody and brutal than any current Saudi city, whatever is said now by the actual Moorish and the current U.S. ambassador to Madrid, driven by the ignorance of Obama's Cairo speech fifteen months ago.

Tribune: Fernando Reinares and Ignacio Cembrero: Was Spain an AQ target before Sept. 11?

In early summer 2001, when Amer Azizi (left) returned to Spain from Afghanistan, the decision to attack our country had been taken. So, was really the participation in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq the trigger for the attack?

11/09/2010 - It's no wonder that the Spanish people, as Europeans generally, link the threat that international terrorism poses to Western society with the involvement of their governments in military interventions in countries whose populations are predominantly Muslim. But their countries maintain troops in these countries carrying on work of various kinds.

When assessing the inherent threat posed that global Islamist-inspired violence, the circumstances must be weighed. They are mixed national politics, with foreign affairs side, with typical dimensions of security and defense. But not necessarily those constitute the decisive factor -perhaps not even the most important one- of those which should be taken into account. There are other relevant factors, such as the underlying ideology to the phenomenon of terrorism or other certain issues which are best understood considering the domestic policy.

People continue to take for granted that what really put Spain in sight of Al Qaeda were two factors. First, the highly visible alignment of La Moncloa (NOTE: the Government) with the White House and Downing Street in the decision to invade Iraq, which is reflected graphically in the well known photo of the Azores. Second, the deployment of Spanish soldiers in Iraq from August 2003, just five months after U.S. and British troops begin military actions that concluded, provisionally, with the capture of Baghdad.

The Spanish mission lasted until shortly after the attacks of March 11, 2004 in Madrid and the subsequent change of party in government after the general elections held three days after that infamous date. In fact, March 11 bombings have been and continue to be interpreted primarily as a result of pre-positioning of the Popular Party Executive on the issue of Iraq and the military involvement in this protracted conflict.

However, it is also reasonable to think that Spain was already the target of the wrath of Osama Bin Laden and his followers prior to the invasion of Iraq and the dispatch of Spanish troops there. Maybe we were AQ's target since 2002, when a contingent of our army began its participation in the peacekeeping mission carried out by NATO in Afghanistan within the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).

In some of his communications, the March 11th terrorists themselves alluded to it and justified the decision attacking again when they saw that a withdrawal from Afghanistan was not contemplated. Police foiled the plan to locate the apartment rented by the jihadist cell in Leganes in which seven of its members blew themselves up on 3 April 2004, trying to cause maximum damage.

Nearly four years later, a Pakistani Taliban organization associated with al Qaeda named Therik-e-Taliban (NOTE: among other leaders, we can name Baitullah Mehsud, killed by a US drone last year, and Hakimullah Mehsud, who was also reported killed thanks to another US drone. It seems its leader now is Malik Noor Jamal, alias Maulana Toofan) acknowledged being behind the failed suicide attack on the subway in Barcelona in January 2008 after preparing a number of individuals convicted by the High Court. The Pakistani Taliban then referred to Spain's role in Afghanistan.

There are, however, reasons to believe that Spain became a prime target for al Qaeda before 2002, when our troops were deployed in Afghanistan. More specifically, it is possible that the desire to perpetrate a major attack on Spanish territory goes back no less than the fall of 2001. It was then that an Al Qaeda cell had been established in Spain since the mid-nineties, cell which was dismantled by the police. Most of its members, including the then leader of it, known by his nickname Abu Dahdah (photo), was jailed.

It is no coincidence that among the individuals who played key roles in the terrorist network of March 11th bombings, there were some who were closely related to that core jihadist, but for one reason or another were not arrested in the operation which disrupted the said cell. That operation was precipitated by the links the Spanish cell maintained with Hamburg, ie with the Sept 11's terrorists. Abu Dahdah and his followers had already long been the subject of police and judicial investigations by Spanish authorities as well as by those of other European countries and worldwide.

But now there are new reasons to suspect that Al Qaeda put Spain in sight and not before the invasion of Iraq occurred in 2003 or by sending Spanish troops to Afghanistan in 2002, but before cell that had formed in our country are substantially dismantled by police in the fall of 2001, two months after the attacks on New York and Washington. Moreover, even before the same Sept 11.

This information comes from a revealing document prepared by the Fajr Center for News Production, document which was reported during the last quarter of last year by Tauhid Press through various Jihadist Internet portals. The document, written in Arabic language by a reporter allowed Al Qaeda using his nickname Abu Ubayd al Maqdisi, is part of a series on the "Maghreb martyrs in the distant land of the Hindu Kush", referring to the prominent al-Qaeda militants from Morocco who have died in Afghanistan or Pakistan.

This is the fifth installment of the aforementioned series, devoted entirely to Amer Azizi, a Moroccan who was a prominent member of al-Qaeda cell in Spain, the one who had Abu Dahdah as lieutenant. This guy dodged the police operation that dismantled the cell in November 2001 and fled to Afghanistan after passing through Iran.

El País exclusively published on December, 17, 2009, that Amer Azizi died on the morning of December 1, 2005, as a result of a missile from an unmanned U.S. aircraft against an enclave near the administrative capital of Waziristan North (right. He noted also that he was then serving as number two of Hamza Rabia, responsible for the actions of Al Qaeda in Europe and North America, who was killed in the attack which was the main objective. However, this document, whose existence El País has also published on May 8, 2010, not only confirmed that Amer Azizi was Hamza Rabia's deputy when March 11th bombings took place. It also tells us that this former member of the al-Qaeda's cell in Spain did and wanted to do before Sept 11.

Although this information is now among other documents in the preliminary proceedings by the High Court due to the dismantling of that cell, the text signed by Abu Ubayd al Maqdisi confirms that before the Sept 11, Amer Azizi was in training camps in Afghanistan. But what those documents don't tell but appears among the Jihadist writings, is that after a few months "with those who were in charge of training camps where he stayed", he returned to Spain "with the hope of carrying out a jihadist action in the usurped the land", referring to al-Andalus, the islamized Spain.

Moreover, "once in the Crusader Spain, he began preparing, along with other companions of jihad, targets of the Crusaders to hit". But, as related in the document, "Spanish intelligence services soon arrested most members of the jihadist cell, which coincided with the blessed (¡!) attacks in New York and Washington". It is clear, then, that Spain was the target of Al Qaeda before Sept 11th. In early summer 2001, when Amer Azizi returned to Spain from Afghanistan, the decision to prepare an attack on Spanish soil had been taken.

Fernando Reinares is Professor of Political Science at the Universidad Rey Juan Carlos and Ignacio Cembrero is a reporter for El País.

West Norwalk residents are protesting construction of the town's first official mosque, which they say will create neighborhood parking and traffic problems.

The Al Madany Islamic Center of Norwalk, which now worships in a private residence on Elton Court, has outgrown the space and wants to move to a bigger prayer hall. The congregation purchased a 1.5-acre property at 127 Fillow St. in 2008 and submitted a proposal in June to the Planning and Zoning Commission for construction of a mosque and community center.

Neighbors are concerned that streets are too narrow to accommodate overflow parking from the mosque and that the roads are already busy with the numerous school and city buses. Residents plan to voice their opposition to the proposal at a Wednesday public hearing.

"We are trying to prevent them from building a very large building on the corner here that happens to be a mosque," said Ray Mosser, who lives in the Fillow Ridge Townhouses. "Our biggest concern is the traffic and safety. We all have to pass by here."

People protest against the construction of a mosque in south-eastern district of Moscow

Increasingly sharp disputes in many cities of the Russian Federation over whether Muslims should be allowed to build a mosque, disputes that have already spilled over into violence in Syktyvkar and Moscow this week, threaten to unleash “a religious war” across the country, experts say.

The number of people now directly involved in these disputes is small and “real tensions” at the societal level” are not intense, but Aleksey Levinson, a sociologist at Moscow’s Levada Center, argues that the situation could easily get out of control because of the way the media is playing up these disagreements (www.svpressa.ru/society/article/30919/).

Mosques in Italy will not receive a share of income tax revenue the Italian government allocates to religious faiths each year. Hindu and Buddhist temples, Greek Orthodox churches and Jehovah's Witnesses will be eligible for the funds, according to a bill approved by the Italian cabinet in May and still must be approved by parliament.

Until now, the government had earmarked 8 percent of income tax revenue for Italy's established churches. The great majority of these funds go to the Catholic Church, although if they wish, individual tax payers may elect to give the money to charities and cultural projects instead.

The head of COREIS, one of Italy's largest Muslim groups, Yahya Pallavicini, said he was bitter that Islam had been denied the revenue from Italian income tax.

"Work should be begun on legally recognising those moderate Muslims who have for years shown themselves to be reliable interlocutors who are free of and fundamentalist ideology," he said.

Islam is not an established religion in Italy and there is only one official mosque in the country, Rome's Grand Mosque (photo). Politicians from the ruling coalition cite radical imams, polygamy and failure to uphold women's rights by Muslims immigrants as obstacles to recognising Islam as an official religion in Italy.

“For years we have deluded ourselves on this subject”, Merkel said, but “mosques, among other things, will become an ever more present feature of our landscape”.

She added that immigrants who did not make enough of an effort to integrate in the country should expect to be treated “firmly” and would “suffer the consequences”.

“We cannot accept a parallel society in which fundamental rights such as equality between men and women would not be the rule”, she said.

“Only the Constitution can serve as a basis for us to live together in tolerance and respect. Whoever wants to live here must accept that.”

Muslims in Moscow may be forced to pray in Orthodox churches because of a lack of mosques, though they would prefer not arrive at such an "extreme" decision. The warning comes from the imam of the main mosque in the Russian capital Ildar Ayautdinov, responding to citizens' protests against the planned construction of a place of Islamic worship in the district of Tekstilschiki. The Orthodox Church says it is ready to accept the Muslim faithful, but scholars of Islam argue that Muslim religious leaders are magnifying the situation which in reality is not so dramatic.

"Moscow is the only place in the world where over one million Muslims are served in only four mosques. We lack premises for praying. Muslims are allowed to conduct their religious ceremonies in Orthodox churches, but we would rather avoid this extreme measure, "he said yesterday in an interview with Russian daily Ayautdinov Metro. On Sept. 11, residents of Tekstilschiki took to the streets, along the Volga road, to say no to the plans to build a mosque in a green area, the only one for several kilometres. According to locals, who are gathering signatures for a petition, the mosque "would create parking problems and would represent a threat to the owners of dogs”, animals considered incarnation of the devil by the faithful of Islam. Previously, the residents themselves had asked to have an Orthodox chapel in the area, but permission was denied. For their part, supporters of the construction of the mosque, such as Arthur Urmanshin, ensure that originally there were more mosques in Moscow.

... According to the expert on Islam Roman Silantyev, interviewed by Interfax, the demand for new mosques by Muslims in Moscow is baseless. "It 's time to end any speculation about discrimination against Muslims in the capital," he said. He corrects the mufti Ayautdinov, adding that the actual number of Muslims is estimated "around 400 thousand and there are not four mosques available, but six." Besides these, he continues, there are dozens of other small mosques and prayer rooms, which are sufficient for the entire community.

Raising a center of worship in a place away from the city center can give wings to the fanatics. "A community can sometimes accept a self-exclusion principle to pass unnoticed. But it can also accept the will to hide or not to attract attention," says sociologist expert in the Islamic world Jordi Moreras, who points out that industrial sites can give shelter to militants. "The Salafi-inspired communities [they defend the purity of Islam] are supporting openly the relocation on this sites because they want discretion", he says.

A judicial report released on Monday warned of the danger of "segregation" which involves placing a mosque in the suburbs, referring to the intention to raise one in an industrial area of Lleida.

In Catalonia, between 15 and 20 places of worship of the approximately 200 existing sites are located on industrial areas, according to researcher Mr. Moreras.An investigation by the Catalan police in June warned of the spread of radical Salafi mosques through small mosques located throughout Tarragona. Of those five places of worship which cultivate a fanatical religious side, four are located in industrial estates: Tarragona, Reus Roda de Barà Torredembarra. Only the mosque in Valls is located in the center of the city.

Milan, the northern Italian city famed for finance and fashion, is home to about 100,000 Muslims, mostly migrant workers from North African countries. But within city limits, there isn't a single mosque.

Local Muslims say they have been unsuccessfully seeking permission to build one for years, perhaps due to growing Islamophobia, which is particularly strong in Northern Italy, where the anti-immigration Northern League has its stronghold.

Now, the Catholic Church is backing the Milan Muslims' quest.

"A Muslim leader in Florence will present plans to authorities in coming weeks to build a mosque in the style of the city's classic architecture with minarets that resemble the cathedral bell tower designed by Giotto.

The project plans, unveiled in local and national papers this week, met with mixed reactions in local communities around Florence, where roughly 30,000 Muslims live.

'Islamic history shows that Muslims seek to embrace the architecture of of the places where they go,' local imam Izzedin Elzir, who will present the plans, told Reuters on Thursday.

"what Rauf wrote in the Huffington Post, soon after the rigged Iranian elections of June 12, 2009, is evidence that he is an admirer of the tyrannical theocracy in that country. After endorsing the 'official results,' Rauf praised the 1979 revolution: 'The Iranian Revolution of 1979 was in part to depose the shah, who had come to power in 1953 after a CIA-sponsored coup overthrew democratically-elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mossaddeq. And in part it was an opportunity to craft an Islamic state with a legitimate ruler according to Shia political theory. . . . After the revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini took the Shiite concept of the Rightly Guided Imam and created the idea of Vilayet-i-faqih, which means the rule of the jurisprudent. This institutionalizes the Islamic rule of law. The Council of Guardians serves to ensure these principles.'"

"the trend towards Islamic law and justice begins in religious movements, because secularism has failed to deliver what the Muslim wants, which is life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. . . .The only law that the Muslim needs exists already in the Koran and the Hadith.”