News Sources: Islam Overtakes Roman Catholics

Islam has overtaken Roman Catholicism to become the world's largest single religious denomination, according to L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper. Monsignor Vittorio Formenti, compilier of the Annuario Pontificio, the Vatican yearbook, figures for 2006 showed that Catholics accounted for 17.4 per cent of the world population while Muslims accounted for 19.2 per cent. Reporters looking for experts to interview on this topic can find them online at the collegenews.org database of news sources and subject matter experts from America's leading liberal arts colleges and universities, including (click on names for contact information):

Selva Raj - Professor of Religious Studies, Albion College - Raj is an expert on religious leaders and Eastern religions such as Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism, as well as a scholar of Christian religions. His book, Popular Christianity in India: Riting Between the Lines, is in production. A colleague of the late Mother Theresa, Raj pinpoints characteristics of religious leaders and their teachings and determines the attraction by devotees/disciples.

David O'Brien - Director of the Center for Religion, Ethics and Culture, College of the Holy Cross - O'Brien is among the nation's top historians on American Catholicism. He is the author of numerous books on the subject, including From the Heart of the American Church: Catholic Higher Education and American Culture and The Renewal of American Catholicism.

William C. Placher - Professor of Philosophy and Religion, Wabash College - Placher is recognized as one of the great contemporary theologians. He is the author of The Domestication of Transcendence: Where Modern Thinking About God Went Wrong and A History of Christian Theology.

News Sources: Muslim Charity Mistrial

A U.S. judge has dealt a stunning blow to the government's legal battle in the "war on terror," declaring a mistrial in the case of a Muslim charity accused of aiding Palestinian militants. U.S. district judge Joe Fish declared the mistrial after jurors failed to reach a unanimous verdict in the trial of the Texas-based Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development after 19 days of deliberations. Reporters looking for experts to intervivew on this topic can find them online at the collegenews.org database of news sources and subject matter experts from America's leading liberal arts colleges, including the following (click on names for contact information):

Fawaz Gerges - Professor of Middle East Studies, Sarah Lawrence College - A MacArthur Fellow, Gerges studies Arab politics, militant Islamic movements, the Arab-Israeli peace process and America's relations with the Arab world. Gerges is the author of America and Political Islam: Clash of Cultures or Clash of Interests? and The Far Enemy: Why Jihad Went Global. He has contributed to major foreign affairs publications and newspapers.

Bradford Dillman - Assistant Professor, International Political Economy - University of Puget Sound - Dillman teaches courses in Middle East politics and illicit global economies. He spent a number of years teaching in Turkey and Egypt. In addition, his research has taken him to Algeria and Morocco. Current research includes Middle East political economies and democratization. He's written and edited numerous publications.

Omid Safi -Asst. prof of philosophy and religion, Colgate University - Safi is co-founder of the Progressive Muslims.

News Sources: Ramadan, Rosh Hashana Coincide

This year, the Jewish High Holidays of Rosh ha'Shana coincide with Ramadan, the Muslim holy month of daylong fasts that mark the giving of the Qur'an to Mohammed. This rare overlap provides an opportunity to observe not only how the two religions differ in important ways, but also how much these two Abrahamic faiths also have in common. Reporters looking for experts to interview on this topic can find them online at the collegenews.org database of news sources and subject matter experts from America's leading liberal arts colleges, including the following (click on names for contact information):

Randall Balmer - Ann Whitney Olin Professor of American Religion, Barnard College - The author of several books on religion in America, Balmer has also produced three PBS documentaries, including the award-winning Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory, based on his book by the same title. He has appeared as commentator on The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, CNN, Fox News, ABC News and National Public Radio.

Everett Fox - Allen M. Glick Chair of Judaic and Biblical Studies, Clark University - Fox is an expert in the Hebrew Bible, Jewish ritual, folklore and thought. He has completed a widely-heralded new translation of the Five Books of Moses, published as The Schocken Bible. The translation is considered the most significant translation since the King James version and took Fox more than 25 years to write.

Shalahudin Kafrawi - Instructor of Islamic Studies, Moravian College - A native of Indonesia, Shalahudin is a scholar of the Qur’an and Islamic thought. He is the author of Fakhr Al-Din Al-Razi’s Methodology in Interpreting the Qur’an, a reworking of his master’s thesis at McGill University.

Study on Islam Earns ASA Award

For many westerners, Islamic law (the shari'a) is often associated with repressive regimes. But a DePauw University sociologist has co-authored a study that finds Islamic orthodoxy - measured as the desire to implement the shari'a - is associated in every country with support for such economic reforms as increasing the responsibility of government for the poor, reducing income inequality, and increasing government ownership of businesses and industries." For that study, Nancy J. Davis is the co-recipient of the 2007 Distinguished Article Award from the American Sociological Association's Sociology of Religion section.