YORK—There were times after Yasmeen Amer began wearing a hijab that she felt conflicted and even self-conscious. She wondered how her Tabb High classmates would react to the scarf and attire traditionally worn by practicing Muslim women as a form of modesty.

One of the Arab world's best known Egyptian actors has been sentenced to three months in jail for offending Islam, in the latest such case against a high-profile figure, underlining concerns about freedom of expression in Egypt. 

The actor, 59, admitted that Islamic prayer "got into his spirit" while filming in Istanbul.

He told The Sun, "The call to prayer happens five times a day, and for the first week, it drives you crazy, and then it just gets into your spirit, and it's the most beautiful, beautiful thing."

He added, "There are 4000 mosques in the city. Some are just stunning, and it really makes me think about becoming a Muslim."

Neeson was raised in Northern Ireland as a devout Roman Catholic and was named after the local priest.

But the star - whose wife, Natasha Richardson, died aged 45 in a skiing accident in 2009 - has spoken about challenges to his faith.

He said, "I was reared a Catholic, but I think every day we ask ourselves, not consciously, what are we doing on this planet? What's it all about? I'm constantly reading books on God or the absence of God and atheism."

His latest movie, The Grey, about an oil-drilling team that crashes in freezing Alaska, is released in the US and the UK on Friday.

Read more at The Sun.

Source: Herald Sun

Exhibitions do not just happen. They are the product of enormous amounts of effort, coordination, and in the case of the Haj exhibition in particular, trust. Exhibits may have large commercial value but in the case of the Haj exhibition, this was secondary to the considerations of spiritual and cultural value. The curators knew they were dealing with articles of exceptional value to over 1.6 billion Muslims, and getting the slightest thing wrong would cause repercussions at many levels, not least to the high reputation of the 260-year-old British Museum.

(CBS) "American Idol" runner-up Clay Aiken will be competing in the coming season of "Celebrity Apprentice" to raise money for his National Inclusion Project, a charity he started to help kids with disabilities be mainstreamed in programs for children.

Ryan Seacrest has revealed that he wants to produce shows that have a positive impact on the world.

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Is there hope for Oprah Winfrey's floundering OWN yet?

The two-hour premiere of Winfrey's new series "Oprah's Next Chapter" gave OWN its highest ratings for a Sunday premiere since the network's January 2011 launch weekend, scoring a 1.1 rating in the network's target women 25-54 demographic and 1.1 million total viewers.

In "The Light In Her Eyes," Houda al-Habash opens up the mosque and school she runs where hundreds of teenage girls, sent there by their parents, spend the summer learning to memorize the Qu'ran and take religious study classes that conclude with most of them taking to the hijab, or Muslim headscarf.