Photos of the Week: Sama dancers and Prophet Muhammad’s birthday

By Kit Doyle · October 22, 2021

(RNS) - Each week Religion News Service presents a gallery of photos of religious expression around the world. This week’s photo gallery includes Sama dancers in Iran, the anniversary of the Prophet Muhammad's birth and more.

Khishtan art group performs the Sama dance at a theater in downtown Tehran, Iran, Friday, Oct. 15, 2021. Sama is a popular form of worship in the Sufi sect of Islam. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)

Khishtan art group performs the Sama dance at a theater hall in downtown Tehran, Iran, Friday, Oct. 15, 2021. Sama is a popular form of worship in the Sufi sect of Islam. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)

Newly ordained bishops Andres Gabriel Ferrada Moreira, bottom right, and Guido Marini lie prostrate on a carpet as Pope Francis celebrates their ordination Mass in St. Peter's Basilica, at the Vatican, Sunday, Oct. 17, 2021. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)

For the first time since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, Muslim pilgrims pray shoulder-to-shoulder in front of the Kaaba, the cubic building at the Grand Mosque in the Muslim holy city of Mecca, Saudi Arabia, Sunday, Oct. 17, 2021. The Ministry of Interior announced Friday that, due to a significant nationwide decline in COVID-19 cases and the kingdom's high vaccination rates, a number of restrictions will be relaxed starting Sunday. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil)

On Oct. 16, 2021, three years after 11 people were killed at Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh's Squirrel Hill neighborhood, a man jogs along the fencing outside the dormant building decorated with artwork submitted by Pittsburgh area school students. Renowned architect Daniel Libeskind is among those working to transform the site to share space with the Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh. Work on the solemn memorial, also intended to be a place of daily activity, is underway. (AP Photo/Keith Srakocic)

Palestinian scouts play music during celebrations marking the birthday of the Muslim Prophet Muhammad, at the Dome of the Rock Mosque in the Al Aqsa Mosque compound in the Old City of Jerusalem, Tuesday, Oct. 19, 2021. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)

Muslims participate in a procession to mark Eid-e-Milad, the anniversary of Prophet Muhammad's birth, in Hyderabad, India, Tuesday, Oct. 19, 2021. (AP Photo/Mahesh Kumar A.)

Hundreds of Hindus protesting against attacks on temples and the killing of two Hindu devotees in another district shout slogans in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Monday, Oct.18, 2021. A viral social media image perceived as insulting to the country's Muslim majority last week triggered protests and incidents of vandalism at Hindu temples across Bangladesh. About 9% of Bangladesh’s 160 million are Hindus. (AP Photo/Mahmud Hossain Opu)

An employee looks through an office window riddled with bullet holes after the deadly clashes that erupted last Thursday along the former front lines of a 1975-90 civil war between Muslim Shiite and Christian areas, in Ain el-Rumaneh neighborhood, Beirut, Lebanon, Tuesday, Oct. 19, 2021. The shootout on the streets of Beirut between rival Christian and Muslim groups has revived memories of the country's 1975-90 civil war and fired up sectarian passions in a country that never dealt with the causes of its violent past. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)

Reader Photos

Fred Martin of RAWtools uses his blacksmith tools to beat a gun into a garden tool at a Churchnet event in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, on Oct. 21, 2021. RAWtools does this work as a modern version of the biblical prophets' vision that people would “beat their swords into plowshares.” Photo by Brian Kaylor

Mike Martin of RAWtools disables a gun with a saw outside St. Louis Mennonite Fellowship on Oct. 22, 2021, in St. Louis, Missouri. RAWtools will transform the former guns into garden tools as a modern version of the biblical prophets' vision that people would “beat their swords into plowshares.” Photo by Brian Kaylor

Archival Photos

Led by a six-year-old "Cardinal" Johnny Comerford, children wearing miniature attire from a variety of Roman Catholic religious orders march in a procession to St. Patrick's Cathedral during the annual Mission Sunday Pageant, Oct. 23, 1955, in New York City. 350 parochial school pupils, all between 5- and 10-years-old, participated in the pageant. RNS archive photo. Photo courtesy of the Presbyterian Historical Society.

A squad of British Army troops rushes to break up an attack by Protestant supporters on Catholic marchers during a parade on Oct. 8, 1978, in Londonderry, Northern Ireland. The Catholic group was observing the 10th anniversary of the civil rights march that sparked a decade of violence in the country. RNS archive photo. Photo courtesy of the Presbyterian Historical Society.