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Calling on Saints and Spiritual Guides, Activist Advocates for Armenia’s Vulnerable Women
YEREVAN, Armenia (RNS) — Home for Lara Aharonian is this capital city whose architecture still bears the heavy stamp of Soviet days. But when her work on behalf of women living on the margins of society becomes too risky, she heads 20 miles west to find solace in Armenia’s spiritual capital, Echmiadzin.
Modi Silent on Muslim Philanthropist’s Offer of Medical Supplies for India
NEW DELHI (RNS) — Only 30 miles from the northern Indian city of Amritsar, oxygen tanks that could help those caught up in India’s second COVID-19 onslaught lie unused. Across the Pakistan border, 44-year-old Sufi Muslim philanthropist Faisal Edhi is ready to move his fleet of 50 ambulances and medical supplies like oxygen to India…
(Photo courtesy of the Edhi Foundation)
Woman Sufi Saint Inspires Badr Baabou, an LGBTQ Activist in Tunisia
TUNIS, Tunisia (RNS) — Every month, 39-year-old Badr Baabou visits the whitewashed Sufi shrine of Aisha Al-Manoubya on the western side of Tunisia’s capital. With henna-smeared hands, Baabou circles the shrine to pay his respect to the 13th century Sufi saint whom many consider a pioneering feminist in Islam…
The Quiet Sufi Behind Morocco’s Push for Moderate Islam
MARRAKECH, Morocco — In the cavernous dining room of an artist-friend, Ahmed Toufiq quickly eats a fresh olive-speckled feta salad. But his pace slows as he peels the layers of an aromatic meat tagine slow-cooked in a clay pot. “You see, you have to be patient,” says 76-year-old Toufiq, Morocco’s Minister of Religious Endowments and Islamic Affairs.
The Moroccan School Training Women Imams to Combat Extremism
RABAT, Morocco — Wearing an embroidered loincloth (loincloth is usually worn by males, this is more like a sarong/long wrap skirt) with a matching head scarf, 31-year-old Kulibali Aminata from the Ivory Coast in West Africa says she is determined to champion girls’ education and fight misogyny…
Priyadarshini Sen 