FaithWorld

(Muslim pilgrims make their way to Hera Cave on Mount al-Nour during the annual haj pilgrimage in the holy city of Mecca October 21, 2012. REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh)

Millions of Muslim pilgrims congregate in Mecca for the haj every year. The come from all corners of the globe, carrying with them their own versions and interpretations of Islam, but some things unite them: their simple white robes and rituals such as circling the Kaaba, a cube-shaped structure that Muslims believe was built by the Prophet Abraham, standing at Mount Arafat and the hurling pebbles at a wall in an act of ritual stoning.

But in the shadow of these sacred rituals lurk some practices that Saudi Arabia’s austere Wahhabi clerics describe as sinful or “innovative”.

One of those innovated rites is visiting Mount al-Nour, which Muslims believe is the place where the Koran was first revealed to Prophet Mohammad as he was praying in a small cave tucked between slabs of rock near the top of the mountain. Its name is Hera Cave.

The mountain is in the outskirts of Mecca and, upon arrival at the area, pilgrims are greeted with a sign that tells them visiting the cave is not a part of the pilgrimage.

Despite the American obsession with voting differences between men and women - the famed U.S. election "gender gap" - there is a far bigger "gap" dividing likely voters in 2012 - the yawning divide between marrieds and unmarrieds.

Fifty-seven percent of likely voters who are unmarried support Democratic President Barack Obama in the Nov. 6 general election, including those who have never been married, live with a partner or are widowed, divorced or separated.

Thirty-three percent of those unmarried likely voters back Republican challenger Mitt Romney, giving Obama a 24-point edge among the 910 respondents, according to Reuters/Ipsos polling data for the week ended Oct. 21.

(A student shout slogans as he marches with others during a protest rally against an anti-Islam film made in the U.S. which they say mocks the Prophet Mohammad, in Gilgit September 19, 2012. Picture taken September 19, 2012. REUTERS/Akhtar Soomro )

About 20 men dressed as Pakistani soldiers boarded a bus bound for a Muslim festival outside this mountain town and checked the identification cards of the passengers. They singled out 19 Shi’ites, drew weapons and slaughtered them, most with a bullet to the head.

The shooters weren’t soldiers. They were a hit squad linked to the Sunni Muslim extremist group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, or LeJ. They had trekked in along a high Himalayan pass that hot August morning to waylay a convoy of pilgrims.

(British-born Roman Catholic Bishop Richard Williamson (2nd L) is escorted by police on his arrival at Heathrow Airport in London February 25, 2009. A Roman Catholic bishop who caused an international uproar by denying the scale of the Holocaust arrived back in his native Britain on Wednesday after the Argentine government ordered him out. REUTERS/Luke MacGregor)

A rebel Catholic traditionalist group has expelled British-born Bishop Richard Williamson who deeply embarrassed the Vatican by denying the Holocaust shortly before he was readmitted to the Church three years ago.

The Swiss-based Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX), whose four bishops were excommunicated from 1988 to 2009, said on Wednesday it took the step because Williamson had disobeyed his superiors.

By Damir Sagolj

In front of me stood what must have been the most beautiful “god’s” body in the whole of Phuket. Her gentle pink robe swayed above bare feet as she made her way in a trance through the crowd of devotees at the Chinese Jui Tui shrine. And her pretty face was pierced with a long spike, a piece of fruit stuck on its end.

This woman was a “mah song”, roughly translated from the Thai language as “entranced horse” or “one whose body is used by gods as a vehicle”. She was the centre of attention for a good reason. For the day, she represented a god whose powers would help purify members of the community and wash away any bad karma.

GALLERY: Extreme vegetarian festival

“The god has to hurt itself, for cleaning us from our bad deeds”, the brother of a mah song told a confused journalist, who was practically from another universe.

(A man shovels mud from the flood waters of the River Gave outside the Roman Catholic shrine of the Grotto of Lourdes, southwestern France, October 21, 2012. REUTERS/Caroline Blumberg )

The Roman Catholic shrine at Lourdes struggled to return to its usual rhythm of prayers and pilgrimages on Tuesday after weekend flash floods inundated the site and caused damages of about two million euros ($2.6 million).

Small groups of pilgrims visited the hillside grotto where the Virgin Mary was said to have appeared to a peasant girl in 1858 after workers cleared away a thick carpet of mud the nearby Gave river deposited when it overflowed its banks on Saturday.

(Paul Kurtz, 19 October 2006/Center for Inquiry)

Paul Kurtz, a leading U.S. philosopher who devoted his life to fighting prejudice against people who reject belief in a god and promoting a non-religious stance in life, has died at the age of 86.

The secular humanist Center for Inquiry (CFI), which he founded in 1991, said the one-time SUNY Buffalo university professor – who as a young soldier helped liberate the Dachau concentration camp in 1945 – died in Amherst, New York, at the weekend.

“He was one of the most influential figures in the humanist and skeptical movements from the late 1960s through the first decade of the 21st century,” said an obituary issued by CFI -which he had left over a succession dispute in 2010.

(Gethsemane olive trees,14 April 2009/Aiv Deror)

Olive trees in the Jerusalem garden revered by Christians as the place where Jesus Christ prayed before he was crucified have been dated to at least 900 years old, a study showed.

The results of tests on trees in the Garden of Gethsemane have not settled the question of whether the gnarled trees are the very same which sheltered Jesus, where the Bible says he prayed and was later betrayed by Judas, because olive trees can grow back from roots after being cut down, researchers said.

“We cannot rule out the possibility that there was an intervention to rejuvenate them when they stopped being productive or dried out,” Chief Researcher Professor Antonio Cimato said at a presentation of the results in Rome on Friday.

(People take part in the annual Gay Pride march in Paris, June 30, 2012. The sign at rear reads “Marriage for All”. REUTERS/Mal Langsdon)

Plans by France’s Socialist government to legalize same-sex marriage are proving harder to enact than first thought after faith leaders and conservatives mobilized against it even as left-wing deputies try to expand it.

With a solid majority it won last spring, the government originally only planned short parliamentary hearings and a debate early next year before voting on one of President Francois Hollande’s most divisive campaign promises and something he has framed as a trademark reform.

(Devotees of the Chinese Yokkekeng shrine carry a statue during a street procession at the annual vegetarian festival in central Phuket October 22, 2012. The festival, featuring face-piercing, spirit mediums, and strict vegetarianism, celebrates the local Chinese community’s belief that abstinence from meat and various stimulants during the ninth lunar month of the Chinese calendar will help them obtain good health and peace of mind. REUTERS/Damir Sagolj )

Thailand is not an easy country in which to be vegetarian. But once a year the country’s avid meat eaters lay down their spicy meat stir-fries in favour of vegetables and meat substitutes.

During the annual ten-day “Tesagin Kin Pak” vegetarian festival, yellow flags representing Buddhism and good moral conduct flutter in the wind above entire neighbourhoods, while tiny mobile street carts with a lone yellow flag advertise vegetarian-friendly food.