Dating in the Muslim world is a relatively new phenomenon. The Koran effectively outlaws the practice by frowning upon meetings between single men and women; traditionally, Muslim communities have relied on arranged marriages.

But in recent years, in parallel with an explosion of online dating agencies and "singles' nights", dating has begun to make serious inroads into Muslim society, especially in the West. Shabana Mir, author of the excellent Koonj blog, argues that Muslim women need to date and discusses the impact of dating on expatriate Muslim culture in America.

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Why have many Muslims in the UK resisted full integration into British society?

The British government has been trying to address this issue for the last decade, mostly by using the discourse of "multiculturalism." According to that line of thinking, solutions to alienation among Muslims include community outreach and empowerment programs, funding for youth groups and social networking sites, and large inter-faith conferences.

British Muslim leaders have largely supported these initiatives and helped generate the impression, at least in government circles, that everyone is working together to separate rogue extremists from the religious establishment. But Monday night, the Dispatches documentary series revealed a very different picture of what goes on in some of the UK's flagship Muslim institutions.

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Continuing yesterday's discussion on the role of Saudi funding in British mosques, Nina Shea of the Center for Religious Freedom sets Saudi Arabia's program of Wahhabi indoctrination into a global context following the Center's pioneering work examining the Kingdom's textbooks. Among the tens of thousands of schools using these textbooks worldwide is the Islamic Saudi Academy, run by the Saudi Embassy, in Fairfax, VA.

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Rape is an endemic problem in Afghanistan. Whether women are forced into arranged marriages as child brides, or attacked by family members or local warlords, they are often held responsible for their own victimization. Afghan culture views a woman's virginity as sacrosanct, but Afghan law rarely gives her the chance to defend herself. Many women are thrown out of their families following, or even jailed.

Instead the case has been widely reported throughout the local and national media. Women's rights groups, activists and politicians are up in arms at the injustice. Some might argue that with an election approaching, Mr. Karzai's many enemies are simply using the subject to undermine him - but that does not change the fact that a rape case, and the issues of women's abuse, has taken center stage.

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For many, Iran conjures up images of angry ayatollahs and scientist bent on acquiring nuclear weapons. But physics professor and author Jim Khalili sees another side to Iran, one where Islamic teachings and science have propelled the country to the forefront of stem cell research. Islamic science - often seen at odds with Islam despite the religion's history of medieval innovation - is making a come-back.

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The Muslim republics of Central Asia may be far from the currents of mainstream Islam and the Islamist revival, but as James Pickett argues here, fundamentalist doctrines have found their way to the high peaks and plateaus of the region some affectionately refer to as The 'Stans. Pickett, a contributor at the excellent neweurasia.net website, explains how the region's traditional brand of Sufi and Buddhist-influenced Islam, already railroaded once by the Soviets, is now facing a new and more pervasive challenge...

The plot of David Ignatius's Cold War thriller Siro revolves around a group of CIA agents determined to overthrow the Soviet Union by striking at a vital weak spot: masses of restless Central Asian Muslims just waiting for the opportunity to throw off their atheist oppressors. In reality, the Soviet assault on religion in Central Asia was to a great extent successful: they eliminated the region's entire Islamic judicial and theological infrastructure, which dated back centuries and played a central role in governing daily life.

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