Getting around can be a difficult situation when you're Muslim, thanks to rules that dictate that men and women ride separately.

It is a shame that many of the Pakistani people I have been interacting have bought the government-fed idea that Ahmadiyya Muslims are not Muslims.

PHOENIX, Ariz. -- In the light of the Orme Lewis Gallery in Phoenix Art Museum, the brilliantly illustrated pages of the 18th century Chinese Quran seem to glimmer, saturated and gilded. It is a far cry from the stark white glow of the text’s utilitarian counterpart, a free, online version hosted as part of a faith-based movement to connect believers with what is still an impactful, powerful, and influential text on the lives of millions today as it was three centuries ago.

Over the years Commissioner Raymond Kelly's leadership of the New York Police Department has demonstrated a record of inclusion and outreach towards the Muslim community; that is why recent revelations about training videos offensive to Muslims comes as such a surprise. Commissioner Kelly now has a choice to make -- he can take clear and decisive action that is consistent with his track record, or; he can allow speculation to eat away at his years of hard work and outreach towards the Muslim community.

We no doubt acknowledge that the nation is going through religious challenges. Unfortunately, this is consequent upon the seeming intractable horror being inflicted on it by unscrupulous Boko Haram Islamic sect. In the midst of this religious intolerance is a glimpse of hope that all is, after all, not lost.

"In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue..." So we were taught in primary school. But, did you know that the captains of two of the three small Spanish ships comprising Columbus's fleet were in fact Muslim?

New York, NY - Reflecting the public gesture of the Egyptian blogger Aliaa Magda Elmahdy, who posted naked pictures of herself late last year on her blog by way of a protest "against a society of violence, racism, sexism, sexual harassment and hypocrisy", a young Iranian actress now living in France, Golshifteh Farahani, has recently created a sensation in and out of her homeland, especially in the social networking cyber society, by posing half naked for Madame Le Figaro, and also appearing topless in a short black-and-white video clip. It's called "Corps et Ame/Bodies and Souls" and is produced by the prominent French fashion photographer and music video director Jean-Baptiste Mondino.

Arriving at a Guangzhou construction site on assignment for a Chinese newspaper in the summer of 2010, I was surprised to find a ruby-red mosque that looked more like a palatial Buddhist pagoda than anything I'd seen in the Middle East. Islam has deep roots in Chinese history, and is believed to have arrived in China with Saad ibn Abi Waqqas, the Prophet Mohamed's uncle, whom locals say was entombed in 664 AD in a dimly lit, musky hut not far from the newly constructed Chinese mosque.