My Take: Burial at sea shows compassion of Islamic law

(CNN) — Countless streets across the Islamic world are currently alight with ornate festive lanterns. Part of a tradition dating back over 800 years, the Ramadan lanterns, or “fanoos,” have become one of the most popular and enduring symbols of the month-long festival. Believed to have originated in Egypt — where the lanterns are most prevalent — it is almost impossible to know how the tradition began. Legends are numerous and varied, but one of the most popular features Egyptian Al Hakim Bi-Amr Illah who ruled over the North African Shiite Moslem Fatimid dynasty in the 10th century. He was…

Mecca Development Veers to Kitsch – Critic’s Notebook – NYTimes.com. It is an architectural absurdity. Just south of the Grand Mosque in Mecca, the Muslim world’s holiest site, a kitsch rendition of London’s Big Ben is nearing completion. Called the Royal Mecca Clock Tower, it will be one of the tallest buildings in the world, the centerpiece of a complex that is housing a gargantuan shopping mall, an 800-room hotel and a prayer hall for several thousand people. Its muscular form, an unabashed knockoff of the original, blown up to a grotesque scale, will be decorated with Arabic inscriptions and…