On April 5, the final Friday in the Islamic holy month of Ramadan this year — a special time for Muslims worldwide — more than 3,500 Israeli police were deployed at the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. Here, an estimated 57,000 Muslims attended Friday prayers.
On Jan. 22, a temple of Lord Ram will open its doors in Ayodhya, in northern India. The temple stands where the Babri mosque once existed, before it was torn down by a Hindu mob. The occasion marks a victory for Hindus and a sorrowful reminder for Muslims of the ongoing tensions between the two groups in a Hindu-majority country.
In the United Kingdom, 7 in 10 people under the age of 30 say they don’t identify with any particular religion. The World met with clergy members, pagans, atheists, Muslims and others to hear about how they look at religion today in the UK.
Al-Iraqiya news recently started a Syriac-language broadcast in an attempt to preserve the ancient language, which derives from Aramaic, the original language of the Bible and Jesus. They are based in Baghdad. People at the network and in the Iraqi Christian community talk about what this means for them.