WHEN Jonathan Shapiro, aka Zapiro, drew a cartoon in the Mail and Guardian of the beloved Prophet (s) on a therapist’s couch complaining that his ummah didn’t have a sense of humour, I winced – or as I wrote – “dug myself a trench”. As a journalist and talk-show[…]

  When I saw Zapiro’s cartoon in the Mail and Guardian depicting an image of the noble Prophet Muhammad, I started digging myself a trench.   Zapiro’s drawing was a response to calls on Facebook for people to celebrate, of all bizarre things, a “draw Muhammad day” in response to[…]

I’M a non-smoker, but when I read the Cape Argus headline that the South African National Halal Authority had banned smoking, I laughed like a drain. SANHA is one of the four Halal certification bodies in South Africa which certifies that foodstuffs are permissible under Shari’ah, or Sacred Law. Halal[…]

THE other day I had the privilege of examining the fossilised skeleton of Australopithicus Sediba, a 12-year old male who had passed away nearly 2 million years ago. Unearthed by Professor Lee Burger of Wits University in a cave at the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage site near Johannesburg, this[…]

  “WHY are you wearing the veil?”   There is a shocked silence in the class-room.   “The niqab (the face-veil) is a cultural tradition. It has nothing to do with Islam,” continues the speaker, an old man with an imposing demeanour.   A teacher tries to explain something, but[…]