Halal or haram? Flirt to convert? Why didn’t he call? The comedian and matchmaker discusses a fraught Muslim dating scene and her new Hulu show

Does a hedonistic lifestyle prevent young Muslims from ever finding love? Should Muslims flirt to convert? What’s the right halal to haram ratio?

Like any dating demographic, the rules of romance for Muslims looking to meet other single Muslims are fraught. So Yasmin Elhady is stepping in as their nosy auntie, helping them navigate everything from lifestyles choices, which may include alcohol and sex, to spirituality and attachment styles, on Hulu’s new dating show Muslim Matchmaker.

Police sources raise alarm over cut as anti-Muslim hate incidents in Britain hit record high

The government is cutting all funding for the Islamophobia reporting service Tell Mama, leaving it facing closure weeks after it revealed a record number of anti-Muslim hate incidents in Britain.

Since its foundation in 2012, Tell Mama has been wholly funded by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to run its reporting service, which received almost 11,000 reports in 2023-4, and support victims of Islamophobia.

Amid claims that deportees may face torture, family of one man say he was forcibly repatriated and will never see his children again

The family of one of dozens of Uyghurs feared to have been forcibly deported from Thailand to China have condemned the decision as “shameful”. The deportations came despite a UN statement saying those being sent to China faced a “real risk of torture” on their return.

Thailand ignored protests by the UN refugee agency, EU and US in deporting 40 Uyghurs who had been detained in the country for a decade, claiming they had returned voluntarily “to their normal lives” with their families.

As the Institute for the Impact of Faith in Life study found Hindus are at the forefront of environmental activism, British Hindu, Muslim, and Christian participants discuss how they reconcile faith and the environment

Does belief in God make you more environmentally friendly? It depends on which God you believe in.

That’s the conclusion of new research by the Institute for the Impact of Faith in Life (IIFL), which found that British Hindus lead the way in environmental action compared with other faith groups.

City damaged during occupation by Islamic State group reopens 850-year-old mosque in time for Ramadan as reconstruction gathers pace

In the small courtyard of Sara’s grandmother’s house, children are running and playing as if time had never passed. “The house kept our memories,” Sara says, sitting on the sofa of the courtyard. “It seems like we never left. On the contrary, when we came back, we felt we belonged to this house.”

Located in the old Iraqi city of Mosul, right behind the Great Mosque of al-Nuri, their home is part of the local cultural heritage. It was heavily damaged during the occupation by Islamic State (IS) and the battle to reclaim the city by Iraqi armed forces, backed by US coalition airstrikes. Sara and her family were forcibly displaced during the fighting in 2017 and for many years feared they would never see their home intact again.

The city’s mayor, Sadiq Khan, led the celebrations to observe holy month of Ramadan, now in their third year

Piccadilly Circus has once again been lit up by an installation to mark Ramadan.

It is the third year of the annual display, which features 30,000 LED bulbs in the shape of Islamic geometric patterns and symbols hanging over the West End street.

The religious festival is a month of fasting, prayer and community – not consuming and comparing ourselves with one another

• Nadeine Asbali is the author of Veiled Threat: On being visibly Muslim in Britain

Supermarkets have wheeled out the 20kg bags of rice. High-street stores have popped hijabs on mannequins. Cosmetic companies are churning out products scented with pomegranate, cardamom, saffron and “sticky date” – at Lush you can buy Salam shower gel, Noor lip butter and a massage bar that apparently smells like a turmeric latte. All this can only mean one thing in our modern, consumerist world: Ramadan is upon us.

Ramadan, the holiest month in the Muslim calendar, begins this weekend. Like many Muslims, I find it is my favourite time of the year (and not because I can bulk-buy rice for the entire year in my local Tesco). It is a time of spiritual growth and reflection, of turning away from our own desires and egos to focus on God, and of letting go of the trappings of the earthly world – including food and drink in daylight hours.

Nadeine Asbali is the author of Veiled Threat: On being visibly Muslim in Britain, and a secondary school teacher in London

Brahim Aouissaoui claimed the fatal stabbings at a church in southern French city were revenge on westerners

A Tunisian man who fatally stabbed three people in a terrorist attack at a church in Nice, almost decapitating one victim, has been sentenced to life imprisonment in France.

Brahim Aouissaoui, 25, had told the special court in Paris he had no recollection of the attack in October 2020. He later admitted he was taking revenge on “you [westerners] who kill Muslims every day”.

British Muslim Network aims to bring together experts to identify challenges the community faces to policymakers

Prominent British Muslims in politics, media, business and sport have come together to influence government policy on behalf of 4 million British Muslims.

The minister for faith Wajid Khan, the Tory MP and deputy speaker Nusrat Ghani, the former Conservative party chair Sayeeda Warsi, the broadcaster Mishal Husain, the ex-England cricketer Azeem Rafiq and the anti-racism group Hope Not Hate are backing the newly formed British Muslim Network (BMN).

How did Imam Muhsin change the lives of queer Muslims? Jamie Fullerton reports

“As a Muslim, you always question: ‘Have I pleased God, or have I angered him or her?’”

Imam Muhsin Hendricks of Cape Town, South Africa, was the world’s first openly gay imam. In early February, he was shot and killed and the identities and motives of those responsible are still unknown.

Israel’s war has left many Lebanese people contemplating what once seemed unimaginable: is Hezbollah finished? Michael Safi reports from Beirut

Michael Safi was in Lebanon in the summer, when it was on the brink of war between Israel and Hezbollah, the most powerful force in the country. Months later, in October, Israeli troops invaded Lebanon amid a wave of airstrikes and assassinations of top Hezbollah leaders and commanders.

Michael returned this month and visited destroyed villages in southern Lebanon as civilians were returning to their homes. On the ground, it appeared the Israeli military had a political strategy too: splintering Lebanese society by driving a wedge between the community that traditionally supports Hezbollah and everybody else.

This courageous, melancholy memoir, about the author’s struggle to reconcile his faith with his sexuality, argues that homophobia is a cultural phenomenon, not a religious edict

A few years ago I wanted to write about gay life in Algiers, where homosexuality is illegal and, if you’re not careful, can get you killed. There is, however, a busy, if well-hidden, gay underground in the city, as there is in most Arab countries. I found it relatively easy to make a few contacts, who all insisted that we meet in a “neutral” restaurant in the embassy district of Hydra, which is well guarded by government and foreign soldiers and a difficult place for hardline Islamists to penetrate. The watchwords for being gay in Algiers, I learned, were secrecy and discretion. There were no clubs or bars to go to, but rather invite-only private “parties”, along with the riskier, potentially lethal business of cruising the port area and main boulevards. Significantly, everyone I spoke to was upper-middle class, which ensured a certain immunity from suspicion and accusation, and they were diffident about their Islamic faith. To be working class and gay in Algiers, as well as a devout Muslim, is quite another matter.

Ludovic-Mohamed Zahed grew up in a working-class family in Algiers; from the earliest age he knew he was gay and had no idea what to do about it. It did not help that his father was a sometimes violent man – the very incarnation of “rajul”, the Algerian dialect word for a man and his machismo – who hated his son’s effeminacy. Zahed was also a pious Muslim, experiencing real spiritual feeling, which persists in him to this day. The first part of this book is a gripping description of living two realities at once: the life of a religious young man who is ever aware that his sexuality, as it develops, is anathema to his religion, his family, his friends and society at large. Zahed’s fears are deepened against the background of the civil war that took place in Algeria in the 1990s, when hundreds of thousand of people were killed and Islamist guerrillas massacred as many “miscreants” as they could, including homosexuals.

Language can ‘open eyes’, Salman Rushdie wrote, yet still ideas of profanity are being used to silence dissenting voices

‘Whatever the attack was about, it wasn’t about The Satanic Verses.” So insists Salman Rushdie in Knife, his “Meditations After an Attempted Murder”, written after he almost lost his life in a ferocious assault in Chautauqua, a small town in upstate New York, where he had gone to give a talk in August 2022.

As Rushdie rose to speak, a young man rushed towards him wielding a knife with which he inflicted terrible wounds “to my neck, to my chest, to my eye, everywhere”, excruciatingly severing the optic nerve of Rushdie’s right eye. The talk he never gave was to have been about “the importance of keeping writers safe from harm”.

Police say motive for killing of Hendricks, who ran a mosque for LGBTQ+ Muslims near Cape Town, is unknown

Muhsin Hendricks, considered the world’s “first openly gay imam”, has been shot dead near the southern city of Gqeberha, South African police have said.

The imam, who ran a mosque intended as a safe haven for gay and other marginalised Muslims, was in a car with another person on Saturday when a vehicle stopped in front of them and blocked their exit, police said.

The UK is now a secular nation and the Church of England should no longer be one of the central pillars of state

The national church “of England” has been meeting this week in London and is in turmoil. Does it matter, other than to the 1.7% of the population of England who still worship under its roofs? Since the Church of England continues with an “established” role in the life of the nation, the answer is yes.

The argument within the C of E over safeguarding seems endless. It has brought the downfall of one archbishop and is vexing his successor. The church is divided over how to police abuse in future, whether through an independent agency or through internal discipline. This in turn reflects whether it sees itself as a dignified institution of state or just another religious sect.

Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist

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Spiritual leader of Ismaili Muslims and billionaire businessman who enjoyed a jet-setting lifestyle

Fast cars, yachts and racehorses are not the usual accoutrements of religious leaders, but they fitted the lifestyle of the Aga Khan, the spiritual leader of the world’s 12 million Ismaili Muslims, who has died aged 88.

Prince Karim Aga Khan IV, the 49th hereditary imam of the Shia Ismaili Muslims, claimed direct descent from the Prophet Muhammad through his daughter Hazrat Bibi Fatima and his son-in-law Hazrat Ali, the fourth rightly guided caliph of Islam.

A poetic inscription on a miniature gold tableau reminds me of what I should be striving for and, thankfully, has become far more than a decoration

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

On my latest visit to Iran, I purchased a delightful, handcrafted artwork: a miniature gold tableau adorned with elegant flowers, upon which is inscribed a famous line of Persian poetry. The verse speaks of the destitution one embodies before God, pleading for a shred of mercy. Powerful though it is, at the time I did not think of locating the source of the verse. It sufficed merely as a decoration.

Months later, I stumbled upon the entire poem from which the line is found. Two verses resonated with me: the verse inscribed on the tableau, and the verse that immediately precedes it:

Fasten a goblet to my shroud

So that upon that Day

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

Prince becomes spiritual leader of the world’s millions of Ismaili Muslims after death of Karim Al-Hussaini aged 88

Rahim al-Hussaini, 53, has been named the new Aga Khan, the spiritual leader of millions of Ismaili Muslims, after the death of his father, the Ismaili community has announced.

The Aga Khan V, the 50th hereditary imam of the Shia Ismaili Muslims, was designated in his father’s will “in accordance with historical Shia Imami Ismaili Muslim tradition and practice”, the community said on its website.

His father, Prince Karim Al-Hussaini, the Aga Khan IV, known for his fabulous wealth and development work around the world, died on Tuesday in Lisbon at the age of 88.

The Aga Khan is considered by his followers to be a direct descendant of the prophet Muhammad and is treated as a head of state and accorded nearly divine status by the Ismaili community, whose website says it numbers 12 to 15 million people.

Considered a direct descendant of the prophet Muhammad, the Aga Khan spent billions on homes, hospitals and schools in developing countries

The Aga Khan, who became the spiritual leader of the world’s millions of Ismaili Muslims at the age of 20 as a Harvard undergraduate, and who poured a material empire built on billions of dollars in tithes into building homes, hospitals and schools in developing countries, has died. He was 88.

His Aga Khan Foundation and the Ismaili religious community announced on their websites that His Highness Prince Karim al-Hussaini, the Aga Khan IV and 49th hereditary imam of the Shia Ismaili Muslims, died on Tuesday in Portugal surrounded by his family.

Stockholm court gives Salwan Najem, whose co-defendant was shot dead last week, suspended sentence and fine

A man who participated in several Qur’an burnings in Stockholm that contributed to a diplomatic crisis between Sweden and the Muslim world has been convicted of incitement against an ethnic group.

Stockholm district court gave Salwan Najem a suspended sentence and a fine on Monday morning, saying his actions and behaviour in summer 2023 exceeded what could be described as engaging in objective debate and criticism of religion.