Perceptions of Islam

Today there was a man­ag­er at the office who has recent­ly spent a lot of time in Nige­ria. The con­ver­sa­tion turned to the sit­u­a­tion in the north­east of the coun­try. Boko Haram is over­tak­ing more and more cities, leav­ing a trail of destruc­tion. In April last year, there was the abduc­tion of 276 school­girls, which …

Moon, Mandela, Muslims

Today the moon is round again — we have been liv­ing in Gilling­ham for three months. I have not exact­ly expe­ri­enced them very con­cious­ly. Espe­cial­ly since I work in the office, my life is a bit lim­it­ed and not very excit­ing. An overview of the high­lights: Fred­dy and I sang in a gospel choir during …

Let’s stick together

In The Nether­lands, a mem­ber of par­lia­ment, Wilders, has intro­duced a stick­er with a text that insults the Islam, espe­cial­ly the prophet Muham­mad and the Quran. After a peri­od abroad, my tol­er­ance lev­el for Wilders may be a bit low. It makes me sad that some­one can hurt believ­ers in such a cru­el way. I …

The ninth month

As soon as the cres­cent of the new moon, announc­ing the ninth month, can be seen, the month Ramadan starts; the time of fast­ing for Mus­lims. These weeks, a small table has appeared in the news­pa­per, with sun posi­tions for the may­or cities in Kenya. Accord­ing to tra­di­tion, in this month the Quran was first …