Islam

(Newser) - Iran's Supreme Court has exonerated a group of Islamic hardliners earlier convicted of the vigilante killing of Iranians they considered "morally corrupt,"  the Times reports. Six members of the Basiji force, an elite paramilitary group, were originally convicted of murdering five people, including an engaged couple walking...

(Newser) - The Iraq war may be unforgiveable, but America has given Islam a priceless gift: a haven for Muslim scholarship, says a professor at the University of Deleware. "Muslim scholars have always maintained that true happiness comes from the pursuit and dissemination of knowledge," writes M. A. Muqtedar Khan....

(Newser) - A Pakistani novelist who's seen many benefits from Musharraf's rule concludes that it's time for the embattled leader to go. "By prolonging his rule, the general risks taking Pakistan backward and undermining much of the considerable good that he has been able to achieve," writes Mohsin Hamid. 

(Newser) - Baghdad's Sunni neighborhoods are in collapse, lacking food, fuel,  electricity and health care even as their Shiite neighbors have regained basic services, Alissa Rubin reports. In Shiite areas, the Mahdi Army fills in for the government by keeping order and organizing resources, but Sunnis now find themselves under attack...