Jerusalem mosque burnt in 'price tag' attack || Al Jazeera English

Vandals have set fire to a disused mosque in Jerusalem, daubing inflammatory graffiti in Hebrew on the walls in an apparent anti-Palestinian “price tag” attack.

Israeli police said on Wednesday they were investigating the overnight incident which took place near the busy shopping district around Jaffa Street.

Slogans insulting the Prophet Mohammad and other graffiti reading “A good Arab is a dead Arab” and “price tag” were spray-painted on the exterior walls of the building, the AFP news agency reported.

The “Price tag” slogan is generally associated with attacks on Palestinian property, often mosques, by Jewish settlers in the illegally occupied West Bank. Attacks on mosques beyond the West Bank are less common.

Some of the building’s exterior walls were burnt and there was a strong smell of petrol, although it appeared the fire had not caught, AFP reported.

Nir Barkat, Jerusalem’s mayor, condemned the attack and called for calm.

“We must show zero tolerance toward violence in any shape or form and continue to maintain co-existence in the city,” news website Ynet quoted him as saying.

The incident came just 24 hours after extremist settlers attacked an Israeli military base in the northern West Bank and sabotaged vehicles there, prompting angry denounciations from Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister and other top officials.

Sweden's Ice Hotel Plans Ice Mosque Near Arctic Circle

Every year the Ice Hotel in Jukkasjärvi, Sweden sculpts a church out of pure ice and snow from the Torne River. But now an ‘ice mosque’ is the latest project for the iconic hotel, reports The Local.

Located just 125 miles north of the Arctic Circle, the famous Ice Hotel in Sweden’s Lapland hosts 80 to 90 nationalities annually.

“We are open to everything and we practice freedom of religion here in Jukkasjärvi,” said Yngve Bergqvist, CEO of Ice Hotel, to local Swedish paper Norrländska Socialdemokraten.

“We have visitors from all over the world and many come from places like London or Saudi Arabia. We thought it might be a fun idea, seeing as we already have an ice church,” Bergqvist added.

But there’s no exact time frame for the ice mosque’s construction yet. “It’s definitely not happening this winter. We are still looking at the ice plans and we’re only in the pre-planning phase of the mosque,” said Camilla Bondareva, the hotel’s spokesperson in a phone interview with The Huffington Post.

Imam Mahmoud Aldebe, head of the Swedish Muslim Association, said the idea has been well received reports the Telegraph.

“It would be a new way of seeking dialogue between different cultures and religions. Perhaps an imam could be there and tell tourists and other visitors what it means to be Muslim,” Aldebe told Norrländska Socialdemokraten.

Canada’s model mosque - Alt Muslim

Imagine a mosque that left gender segregation at its door, allowed women in leadership positions, and adapted to the culture of its host community. Then consider that Canada’s first mosque, the Al-Rashid mosque in Edmonton, Alberta, did all these things and more over seven decades ago.

A century of service - emel

Very few Islamic institutions in the UK can commemorate a centenary. East London Mosque is one of them. It was founded on pluralistic ideals and had prominent non-Muslims amongst its founders. Jamil Hussein plots the history of the mosque and looks at whether it has lived up to its ideals.

It is one of the biggest mosques in the UK and - despite being just an adhan away from London’s financial district - in one of the poorest parts of the country. But Whitechapel’s iconic mosque was actually conceived in a glitzier part of town: the Ritz Hotel in Mayfair to be exact. On 9th November 1910, Right Honourable Syed Ameer Ali, Aga Khan III and writer Sir Theodore Morrison met at the hotel to lay the foundations of what is now known as the East London Mosque (ELM). The meeting concluded with the participants creating a fund – The London Mosque Fund – to build a mosque in the capital. The founders hoped the mosque would create harmony between the faiths and be a symbolic gesture to Muslims in the Empire. Syed Ali was the main instigator. He was a keen supporter of the Empire and the first Muslim privy councillor in British history - the second being Sadiq Khan a century later in 2009. “The inspiration to build a mosque came from Syed Ali, who wanted to bring Muslims and non-Muslims together. But there was a collective vision amongst the founders, which included non-Muslims, to work together and build a mosque at the heart of the British Empire,” says Shaynul Islam, ELM’s assistant executive director.