A Muslim at the Catholic Worker

Young Writer Tackles Race, Religion, American Identity – The Takeaway. Every year, the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards honor the best high school and middle school students in a variety of categories, including painting, journalism and fiction. Past winners include leaders and luminaries in their respective fields, including Joyce Carol Oates, Andy Warhol and Truman Capote. Some 185,000 pieces of art and writing submitted this year, and eighteen-year-old Haris Durrani was one of seven high school seniors to win a gold medal for a portfolio of writing, out of 3,000 portfolio entries.

Copy of Quran only book saved from Union’s 1865 burning of UA | TuscaloosaNews.com. A copy of the Quran dating from 1853, its spine missing, its pages browning and its front cover almost detached, sits today in a library at the University of Alabama.  While Islam’s holy book now appears safe from a Florida pastor’s plan for a bonfire, the Quran at UA had its own dramatic rescue from the flames. It was the only book saved from burning of the university library at the hands of Union troops in 1865.