Throughout history, solar eclipses have had profound impact on adherents of various religions around the world. They were viewed as messages from God or spiritual forces, inducing emotions ranging from dread to wonder.

Ahead of the total solar eclipse that will follow a long path over North America on Monday, here’s a look at how several of the world’s major religions have responded...

New York City has agreed to pay $17.5 million to settle a lawsuit filed by two women who said their rights were violated when they were forced to remove their hijabs before the police took their arrest photographs.

The financial settlement filed on Friday, which still requires approval by Judge Analisa Torres of U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, is the latest development in the class-action lawsuit filed in 2018 by Jamilla Clark and Arwa Aziz, two Muslim women who said they felt shamed and exposed by the police officers’ actions.

“When they...

Muslims are currently observing Ramadan, a holy month when people fast by abstaining from certain activities, including eating and drinking, during the day. Many Christians, Jews and adherents of other religions also practice some form of fasting at certain times of the year. Many Catholics, for example, recently fasted for Lent by abstaining from meat on Fridays, among other things.

In the United States, 21% of adults overall say they fast for certain periods during holy times, according to a Pew Research Center survey from February. Muslim Americans are by far the most...

NEW YORK -- Inmates in New York are suing the state corrections department over the decision to lock down prisons during next Monday's total solar eclipse.

The suit filed Friday in federal court in upstate New York argues that the April 8 lockdown violates inmates' constitutional rights to practice their faiths by preventing them from taking part in a religiously significant event.

The plaintiffs are six men with varying religious backgrounds who are incarcerated at the Woodbourne Correctional Facility in Woodbourne. They include a Baptist, a Muslim, a Seventh-...

NEW YORK (AP) — Above a bodega in New York City’s Harlem neighborhood, a mosque congregation hosts iftar, the traditional Islamic end of fast meal, for hundreds of hungry migrants every night during this holy month of Ramadan.

Up north in the Bronx, an imam has turned the two-story brick residence that houses his mosque into a makeshift overnight shelter for migrants, many of them men from his native Senegal.

Islamic institutions in the Big Apple are struggling to keep up with the needs of the city’s migrant population as an increasing number of asylum seekers come...

PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) -- As Muslims mark the holy month of Ramadan, several schools and workplaces have made accommodations for those who are participating in religious practices.

But some Philadelphia parents say their children's schools are making it difficult to openly practice their Muslim faith.

Source: https://6abc.com/ramadan-muslim-family-philadelphia-schools-religious-accommodations/14521018/

In Michigan, a state with a sizable Muslim population, there's a push to increase the number of licensed Muslim foster care families.

For the first time since their church burned in a fire on Easter Sunday, some of those who attended Faith Lutheran Church in Cambridge, Massachusetts, came together Wednesday night to pray.

Only this time, they congregated at a different house of worship: A nearby mosque.

The churchgoers were welcomed at the Islamic Society of Boston in Cambridge.

"This is the first time that our church, since the building...

When Nabeela Elsayed was speaking at a corporate conference several years ago and explained that she would miss the group dinner because she was fasting for Ramadan, she recalls, her manager responded: “Just don’t fast.” Ms. Elsayed, an executive coach who was previously chief operating officer for Walmart Canada, said she had heard many such slights when stepping away during the workday to pray.

For years, she told business leaders that their diversity, equity and inclusion programming should teach workers about anti-Muslim hate, antisemitism and other...

in places like Passaic County, which boasts a significant concentration of Palestinian Americans and has long been a hub in New Jersey for the more Conservative and Orthodox followers of Judaism, the bewildering events in the Middle East are being acutely monitored — and exposing the delicate divisions among neighbors that resurfaced this past summer, prior to the war.

While residents stand firm that violence and bias are not welcome here, charged language on social media and the bloodshed overseas are exposing stark differences but also mutual concerns among Palestinian...

Like the U.S. public as a whole, a growing percentage of Asian Americans are not affiliated with any religion, and the share who identify as Christian has declined, according to a new Pew Research Center survey exploring religion among Asian American adults.

But the survey also shows that 40% of Asian Americans say they feel close to some religious tradition for reasons aside from religion. For example, just 11% of Asian American...

Although Sri Lanka suffered decades of violent ethnic conflict, Sri Lankans seem to have positive attitudes toward people of other religions – despite the fact that most see religion as key to their Sri Lankan identity.

A new Pew Research Center report titled “Buddhism, Islam and Religious Pluralism in South and Southeast Asia” found that 62 percent of Sri Lankans surveyed...

NEW YORK (AP) — The Muslim call to prayer will ring out more freely in New York City under guidelines announced Tuesday by Mayor Eric Adams, which he said should foster a spirit of inclusivity.

Under the new rules, Adams said, mosques will not need a special permit to publicly broadcast the Islamic call to prayer, or adhan, on Fridays and at sundown during the holy month of Ramadan. Friday is the traditional Islamic holy day, and Muslims break their fast at sunset during Ramadan.

Source: ...

On her TikTok, Maham Ayaz, also known as @eggdelivery, regularly tests the water permeability of halal nail polish. In a video that received 27,000 likes, Ayaz lay small portions of nail polish film on a paper towel before applying six to seven drops of water to each.

After a five-minute wait, she announced the verdict: The paper towel remained dry. None of these products let water seep through despite advertising to the contrary.

The flow of disappointed users in the comment section revealed the stakes: Making sure water can reach the surface of the nail tip at any...

The Senate... confirmed Nusrat Choudhury, a longtime civil rights attorney, to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, making her the nation's first female Muslim federal judge.

Choudhury, a former American Civil Liberties Union attorney, was confirmed 50-49 on a mostly party-line vote. West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, a Democrat, joined Republicans in opposing her.

Choudhury has served as the legal director...