p. Samir Khalil Samir sj

Muhammad, 30, is a student at Beirut's Lebanese University. He attended mass for the first time last Christmas. On Easter, he will be baptised. Here is a preview of his story which will appear in its entirety in the February 2005 issue of Mondo e Missione, PIME*'s monthly magazine.

Tomorrow in France discussion and voting gets underway concerning the law which would ban the Islamic veil, or headscarf, in schools. French bishops have already noticed that the law risks becoming a statement of "secularism" against religious expression (it prohibits not only headscarves, but also crosses, kippahs and turbans). The February issue of the monthly magazine, "Mondo e Mission", offers the opinion of a Jesuit priest, Fr. Samir Khalil Samir. According to Fr. Samir, a well respected Islamic studies scholar, the battle over the headscarf is part of an "Islamicist" plan that risks crumbling Europe's socio-political identity. Below we report Fr. Samir's analysis.