Islam

Farook Taylor, cyclist: "I pray everywhere. When I'm out riding my bike and it's time to pray, I go find a bathroom to wash up first. When you pray, you pray to Allah, and that's it. You block everything else out. Afterwards, you feel a whole lot better." Read the rest of his quote.

This month on Spotlight Audio: Beautiful Hawaii. Using numbers in English. Opera in British pubs. Talking about Halloween. Hunting season. Telephoning at work. And much more.

The home page of El Asira, which means "society" in Arabic, is a basic black and grey street with a line down the centre, inviting women to enter on the left and men on the right. Once inside, clients can browse in Dutch, Arabic or English.

Belly dancing has been made popular by Shakira, the Latin American superstar. Although she is Colombian, her Lebanese background has influenced her dancing. Other singers who perform belly dance moves include Beyoncé and Christina Aguilera.

Shah Rukh Khan says his latest film focuses on "the relationship between the Western world and Islam and how that has changed over the past few years." It is about "the journey of one family and how it changes because of 9/11", the Bollywood star says.

The place to go this year is Istanbul: along with the Ruhr Valley and Pécs, Hungary, it's one of the three European Capitals of Culture. Mike Pilewski takes us to the megacity on the Bosporus in a land caught between East and West, between tradition and modernity.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali teamed up with Dutch film director Theo van Gogh to make Submission, a film about the mistreatment of women in Islam. Van Gogh was murdered on an Amsterdam street in 2004 by an extremist. Hirsi Ali now lives in Washington, DC.