Snapchat may be the next ‘big thing’ in the era of connectivity. Launched four years ago, getting to know 'the ghost' was simple for the hip tribe of digital natives. And while Arab millennials rave about the concept of snapping-and-sharing, their parents and older brothers have tuned to the social media platform to make their businesses hit a home run! Last July, Snapchat mesmerized the Muslim community by streaming riveting online images from the holy city and portraying for the very first time the rituals of worship and pilgrimage to ...

Sunday morning’s attack on a popular LGBT nightclub in Orlando, Florida rocked world headlines. Pundits quickly categorized it as a uniquely Islamic incident, casting the late shooter's religion as the defining characteristic of the crime. Gunman Omar Mateen’s Muslim heritage and possible link to Daesh clearly color this story, but to view the shooting through the single lens of Islamophia is to ignore a long history of Christiain, Jewish, and Islam-inspired violence against the LGBT community that is ever-present today. LGBT individuals face hatred from nearly every religion, tradition, culture ...

The Muslim holy month of Ramadan is finally upon us, with over a billion Muslims having started their sun-up to sun-down fast from food and drink. Over the next month, practicing Muslims will obey the customs and traditions of Ramadan, which involves not only abstaining from food and drink during daylight hours, but also prayer, reflection, and giving charity to those in need. Though the central tenets of Ramadan are the same as they’ve always been, 21st century technology and the forces of globalization have irreversibly changed how Muslims observe ...

Football fans across the globe are looking forward to Euro 2016, set to kickoff tomorrow, June 10. And fans are anticipating several fierce matches as many teams appear to be dead evenly matched. Euro 2016 will also feature several Muslim players representing their national teams including France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, Turkey, Albania and others. Moreover, the Islamic holy month of Ramadan coincides with Euro 2016, thus raising the question of how fasting will affect the Muslim players’ performances. This is reminiscent of the 2014 FIFA World Cup, also held during ...

Ramadan is in full swing and competition is already heating up between Arab actors and producers over whose TV drama is set to steal the region’s silver screens during the holy month. Though certainly not as old a Ramadan tradition as sunset’s iftar meal , the month-long dramas we’ve gathered here have in recent years become almost as central to the month of fasting as, well, fasting. This year’s batch of Holy Month soaps range from historical dramas to romances to cross-cultural collaborations, as well as the escapist, cheap laugh-mill ...

A policeman stands guard as Switzerland's national football team leaves Montpellier's airport by bus, on June 6, 2016, four days ahead of the start of the Euro 2016 European football championships. PASCAL GUYOT / AFP

Tanks, fighter jets, bouncy castles, and festival food: this is the celebration marking the 100th anniversary of the Great Arab Revolt, Jordan style. Thousands flocked to Amman's King Hussein Park for a day of festivities and patriotism. This particular anniversary is very much alive in Jordan: 100 years ago the Hashemites - now the royal family of Jordan, then the rulers of Hijaz in present-day Saudi Arabia - began a rebellion against the Ottoman Empire . Assisted by the British and French, the rebellion eventually spread all the way up ...

With Ramadan 2016 upon us, we cast our Middle East imaginations on London’s cityscape, and - inspired by new Muslim Mayor Sadiq Khan - draped the UK capital in a fictional Muslim veil. Mind the Facts: with his newly announced all-night Underground train service (perfectly suited for late night suhurs!) and iconic double decker buses sporting Holy Month messages , the question is: Just how Muslim could London get? You Khan-not be serious! (We're not!) but let’s forget Brexit for a moment, and instead mess around with a make-believe Muslim ...

Last week, the Israeli government led by prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his right-wing Likud party reached a deal to add fellow right-wing party Yisrael Beiteinu (Israel is our home) to its coalition. Yisrael Beiteinu’s leader - the boisterous and controversial Avigdor Lieberman - was named as new defense minister , moving a government which previous defense minister Moshe Yaalon called “extremist and dangerous” further to the right. His first day in office was May 31. So who is this onetime nightclub bouncer and immigrant from the former Soviet Union ...

How can switching the language change your online experience? In other words, whose Google is it anyway? A cursory image search with selected key words throws into relief some differences between the Arabic and English speaking online worlds. For example, what are the "most relevant images" (Google's words - not ours!) for innocent terms like "Dance" and "Magic" to the more controversal "Terrorism" or " Gay". Consider how culture seeps into search engines. We may 'share' Facebook, but do we use different Google Glasses? As it turns out, Arabic speakers ...

If you're reading this, you're probably already interested in the Jordan business-scape . The region's 'safe' Kingdom has long since been billed as the Silicone Valley of the Middle East. Young, dynamic and almost-as-trendy-as-Beirut, Jordan's startup culture has proliferated over the past few years with a stream of problem-solving apps and time-saving services likely already part of your daily routine. Startup accelerators and innovation hubs like Oasis 500 are the main engines for growth, serving as incubators for success. One of them, Berlin-based nonprofit enpact, has recently selected 10 emerging ...