by Raymond Ibrahim
Pajamas Media
June 3, 2009
During the pope's recent Mideast visit, the media reported that he has "deep respect for Islam." That exact phrase appeared in the Associated Press, AFP, BBC, Jerusalem Post, Washington Times, and Al-Jazeera.
Yet he said no such thing; instead, he mentioned his "deep respect for the Muslim community." There's a world of difference between respecting a religious group and respecting their religion, and the pontiff knows this.
As a Christian — indeed, as pope — by evoking his "deep respect" for Muslims, Benedict probably meant that Muslims, who believe in one God, pray, fast, and follow a strict set of moral principles, are, from a religious perspective, worthy of "deep respect."
Even the non-religious uphold this position. In fact, that is what makes the secular West unique: the right to follow any (or no) religion is guaranteed, is "respected."
Due to this, however, a subtle conflation has come to dominate our way of thinking: respect for people's right to believe any religion has somewhere along the line — and thanks to political correctness — morphed into respect for the religion itself (excluding, of course, cheek-turning Christianity, the secular West's "punching bag"). It was therefore only natural for the (increasingly sloppy) media to portray Benedict's respect for Muslims as respect for Islam.
But is this logical? Does respecting a person's right to believe necessarily lead to respecting what they believe?
Consider: billions of non-Muslims adhere to other religions or are simply atheistic; by default, this means they do not believe in the veracity of Islam. A Christian following Christian doctrine, such as the Trinity, cannot also believe that the Koran, which fiercely denounces the Trinity, is the word of God, while an atheist believes all religions and their scriptures are not divinely inspired (i.e., all euphemisms aside, are built on lies).
At the same time, however, Christians and atheists cannot "empirically" prove their position; faith is required — even for the atheist (accounting for the origins of the universe requires "faith"). As such, it is only logical that non-Muslims should respect Muslims' right to believe what they will — and, ideally, vice versa.
But short of truly believing Islam's first premise — that the Koran is the verbatim word of God and Muhammad his messenger — how can one "respect" Islam itself, considering it is entirely built around this assumption? In other words, if you yourself believe a particular system of belief is built atop lies, how can you personally respect it?
If the Koran was not dictated by an angel to Muhammad, what is it? If Muhammad was not sent by God, who was he? As with all who profess to be men of God, Muhammad must have been either who he said he was (prophet of God) or else the antithesis: a false prophet, a fraud. The first possibility is not a logical option for active non-Muslims. Nor are silly "postmodern" mantras — "just because I do not believe something does not necessarily mean it is not true, in its own existential way" — very meaningful.
Of course, this position applies to all religions and their founders. Without believing that the Bible is the inspired word of God, everything contained therein becomes suspect, including the person (and nature) of Jesus. As Christians themselves have long maintained, Jesus can only be viewed as lord, liar, or lunatic — nothing in between. Likewise, Muhammad was either messenger, mendacious, or moonstruck. Admittedly, most people are not comfortable thinking out such thoughts to their logical conclusions; they're happy to end it with an "it's not for me" attitude, without any further ado.
So why scrutinize Islam and its founder in the first place? Because unlike all other major religions, Islam is daily associated with violence, beheadings, misogyny, child marriage, and hostility for infidels and their ways. Pseudo-respect from non-Muslims shields it from open analysis.
Moreover, though non-Christians must ultimately conclude that either Jesus or (as Islam maintains) the Gospel writers were deceivers or delusional, the fact remains: As with most religions, Christianity revolves around the spiritual, the metaphysic; true or false, it does not intrinsically impose itself on politics. Islam, on the other hand — as embodied in Islamic law — is politics, indeed, dominates all aspects of human affairs.
As such, Islam's connection to "unpleasant" daily headlines becomes clear once non-Muslims allow their thoughts to develop logically and sequentially. Stripped of its hagiographic veneer, the history of Islam is the history of a warlord and his followers who conquered, subjugated, and plundered much of the old world, insisting that God told them to do it. For Muslims, it is only logical to rationalize this 1,400-year jihad as a means to an end — the establishment of Islamic law, from a Muslim perspective, the embodiment of all good. Non-Muslims do not have this luxury and must interpret the origins and essence of Islam a bit more cynically.
But why this philosophical exposition in the first place? To show that, while there have been countless talking heads, books, debates, seminars, and hearings dedicated to evaluating whether Islam is intrinsically at odds with the modern world, good old-fashioned common sense could have put the matter long to rest:
After all, do you really find it shocking that a comprehensive way of life, where right and wrong are meticulously based on the improvised "law" of a seventh-century warlord — who, according to your own inevitable conclusions, was an opportunistic liar or deluded megalomaniac — just so happens to be riddled with complications, especially vis-à-vis the 21st century?
This seemingly simple consideration has profound implications. Former Al-Azhar Muslim scholar and imam Mark Gabriel abandoned his faith by simply musing on such matters:
Did the true God of heaven give him Islam, or did Muhammad invent it? ... Did Muhammad express the heart of the true, merciful God, or did he merely express the dark corners of his own faulty human heart? The implication shook me to the core: If the true God never spoke to Muhammad, then I am a slave to the manipulative imagination of a desert tribesman from the seventh century! These were dangerous thoughts, and I had crossed a dangerous bridge in my mind that all Muslims are taught to walk away from.
In closing, let us respect everyone's right to believe what they will; however, let us at least be sincere to our own convictions. It's one thing to let political correctness stifle free speech; it's quite another to let it stifle the development of our very own thought processes, to the point that we fail to connect such clear dots in the privacy of our own minds.
And while we're at it, let's not distort the well-measured words of the pope, who most surely knows the distinction between respecting the Muslim community and respecting Islam.
Raymond Ibrahim is the associate director of the Middle East Forum and the author of The Al Qaeda Reader, translations of religious texts and propaganda.
Originally published at: http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/respecting-the-faithful-vs-respecting-the-faith/
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Friday, June 12, 2009
Will and can the reformation come to Islam?
A few weeks ago, Fehmi Koru/Taha Kivanc wrote about how he happened to sit next to "Islam expert" Reza Aslan at some gathering, as another lucky encounter.
While Koru was mentioning Aslan, he described him as someone a "little confused." I am not sure how much Koru is familiar with his writings, but his "little confused" remarks urged me to read his long overdue book. I know it seems as if I, somehow, suggest that if there is something Mr. Koru disdains, it becomes worth paying attention to because I will likely find some jewels. I do not mean that necessarily. What I mean is, I remembered the book again.
I know Reza Aslan from his writings in the Daily Beast, also from talk shows and news hours on American TV that he joins occasionally. His sharp-witted humor with quick and intellectually superb arguments and jokes made him kind of a star.
So as I started to read Aslan’s "No god but God" book from 2006, first it seemed the book was one of those books which talks about the miraculous history of Islam and the flawless life of the Prophet Mohammad that I have read over again. Though, at some point in my life, I realized that whenever I read about the Prophet’s life and his wonderful actions, I was usually getting disappointed, because he was always so faultless and perfect and that comparison usually crushed my faulty life.
Here, however, Aslan brings an authentic look to the Prophet Mohammed’s life. We see that Mohammad’s pre-Islamic life wasn’t watertight. For example, his participation in pagan rituals, something that unheard of, actually is not contrasting with Koranic verses. Aslan is also analyzing the political aspects of the Islamic movement, with many checks and balances that Prophet Mohammed was paying attention to while he was constructing his religion.
As the book flies by, one feels like reading a real history, rather than some fairy tales. However, Mr. Koru can be relaxed, Mr. Aslan is still making the case ’for’ Islam, though a new Islam that is clean from its new idolsÑbigotry and fanaticismsÑthat have replaced Mohammed’s original vision of tolerance, against hatred and discord.
Mr. Aslan claims Prophet Mohammed was a social reformer before anything else. The Prophet’s first message was simple: the Day of Judgment was coming and those who did not "free the slave" or "feed others in times of famine" would be surrounded in fire. Mohammed was demanding economic justice, and trying to attract plebs, before challenging the leadership of Mecca. The messages of social and economic reforms were coming before monotheistic teachings.
With the unprotected of Mecca, whose rights he first started to advocate, Mohammed was also going after the "elite young men," from "the most influential families in the most influential clans," who felt the same discontent with Meccan society as Mohammad did. And this majority of less than thirty-year-old was relatively an easy target.
Not directly challenging the leadership of the Meccan society, and bringing a new religion to the already crowded religious field of Mecca, Mohammad was not making the powerful angry. After all, religion was what Mecca was making money out of. Therefore the more religion there was, the more merrier/money for them.
One of the most courageous assertions of Aslan is his challenge of the history and of the seemingly "strong" hadiths, or Mohammed’s sayings. Many of the hadiths, Aslan explains, even the ones that have been narrated by the Muslim and Bukhari, the most trusted two books, contrast with Mohammed’s own behavior and actions. The egalitarian (male-female equality) face of the early Islamic teaching and rituals seem to have taken the biggest beating by the male-dominated Orthodox Islam hadith transmission exercise throughout Islamic history.
Although Mohammad’s biographers present him as repeatedly asking for and following the advice of his wives, even in military matters, many hadiths have been transmitted intentionally to enable men to be superior and care for women as if they, with much-celebrated Koranic commentator Fakhr ad-Din ar-razi’s words, "were created like animals and plants and other useful things [not for] worship and carrying the Divine commands."
The reason of the huge difference between Mohammad’s approach and orthodox Islam, Aslan says, is that for fourteen centuries, the science of Koranic commentary has been the exclusive domain of Muslim men. Even the "untouchable" Omar, the second Caliph, was evidently ready to destroy this equality of Prophetic view.
Omar’s misogynist tendencies were apparent from the moment he ascended to the leadership of the Muslim community. He tries (and fails) to confine women to their homes, and institutes segregated prayers and forces women to be taught by male religious leaders, which all are an apparent and direct violation of the Prophet’s exercise. Incredibly, Omar also instituted a series of severe penal ordinances aimed primarily at women; "chief of among these was the stoning to death of adulterers, a punishment that has absolutely no foundation in the Koran."
Today, it is clear that Islam needs a reformation with a daring and unyielding interpretation for the modern world.
Today’s Islam can be enough for many who live in their backyard and haven’t changed their environment for centuries; however Islam feels stretched and falls short for those who are struggling to merge their values and beliefs with contemporary life.
Like other religions, Islam has encountered many historical and social adaptations on the way, and it also needs a course of elucidation.
As Aslan claims, and I believe, the voice of moderation, contrary to the common belief, is winning against the voice of extremism. Though this is not sufficient. The voice of moderation also needs tools to prove Islam has answers to many of today’s challenges that it can participate and live together with modern life that desperately lacks currently. When can the reformation come to Islam and who will lead the charge to reinterpret it more courageously to make it open its arms all humanity? And can it really make this historic leap forward? These are the questions.
I am curiously following Fehmi Koru about what to read, who to follow and not. It has been very useful so far.
Source: ILHAN TANIR
While Koru was mentioning Aslan, he described him as someone a "little confused." I am not sure how much Koru is familiar with his writings, but his "little confused" remarks urged me to read his long overdue book. I know it seems as if I, somehow, suggest that if there is something Mr. Koru disdains, it becomes worth paying attention to because I will likely find some jewels. I do not mean that necessarily. What I mean is, I remembered the book again.
I know Reza Aslan from his writings in the Daily Beast, also from talk shows and news hours on American TV that he joins occasionally. His sharp-witted humor with quick and intellectually superb arguments and jokes made him kind of a star.
So as I started to read Aslan’s "No god but God" book from 2006, first it seemed the book was one of those books which talks about the miraculous history of Islam and the flawless life of the Prophet Mohammad that I have read over again. Though, at some point in my life, I realized that whenever I read about the Prophet’s life and his wonderful actions, I was usually getting disappointed, because he was always so faultless and perfect and that comparison usually crushed my faulty life.
Here, however, Aslan brings an authentic look to the Prophet Mohammed’s life. We see that Mohammad’s pre-Islamic life wasn’t watertight. For example, his participation in pagan rituals, something that unheard of, actually is not contrasting with Koranic verses. Aslan is also analyzing the political aspects of the Islamic movement, with many checks and balances that Prophet Mohammed was paying attention to while he was constructing his religion.
As the book flies by, one feels like reading a real history, rather than some fairy tales. However, Mr. Koru can be relaxed, Mr. Aslan is still making the case ’for’ Islam, though a new Islam that is clean from its new idolsÑbigotry and fanaticismsÑthat have replaced Mohammed’s original vision of tolerance, against hatred and discord.
Mr. Aslan claims Prophet Mohammed was a social reformer before anything else. The Prophet’s first message was simple: the Day of Judgment was coming and those who did not "free the slave" or "feed others in times of famine" would be surrounded in fire. Mohammed was demanding economic justice, and trying to attract plebs, before challenging the leadership of Mecca. The messages of social and economic reforms were coming before monotheistic teachings.
With the unprotected of Mecca, whose rights he first started to advocate, Mohammed was also going after the "elite young men," from "the most influential families in the most influential clans," who felt the same discontent with Meccan society as Mohammad did. And this majority of less than thirty-year-old was relatively an easy target.
Not directly challenging the leadership of the Meccan society, and bringing a new religion to the already crowded religious field of Mecca, Mohammad was not making the powerful angry. After all, religion was what Mecca was making money out of. Therefore the more religion there was, the more merrier/money for them.
One of the most courageous assertions of Aslan is his challenge of the history and of the seemingly "strong" hadiths, or Mohammed’s sayings. Many of the hadiths, Aslan explains, even the ones that have been narrated by the Muslim and Bukhari, the most trusted two books, contrast with Mohammed’s own behavior and actions. The egalitarian (male-female equality) face of the early Islamic teaching and rituals seem to have taken the biggest beating by the male-dominated Orthodox Islam hadith transmission exercise throughout Islamic history.
Although Mohammad’s biographers present him as repeatedly asking for and following the advice of his wives, even in military matters, many hadiths have been transmitted intentionally to enable men to be superior and care for women as if they, with much-celebrated Koranic commentator Fakhr ad-Din ar-razi’s words, "were created like animals and plants and other useful things [not for] worship and carrying the Divine commands."
The reason of the huge difference between Mohammad’s approach and orthodox Islam, Aslan says, is that for fourteen centuries, the science of Koranic commentary has been the exclusive domain of Muslim men. Even the "untouchable" Omar, the second Caliph, was evidently ready to destroy this equality of Prophetic view.
Omar’s misogynist tendencies were apparent from the moment he ascended to the leadership of the Muslim community. He tries (and fails) to confine women to their homes, and institutes segregated prayers and forces women to be taught by male religious leaders, which all are an apparent and direct violation of the Prophet’s exercise. Incredibly, Omar also instituted a series of severe penal ordinances aimed primarily at women; "chief of among these was the stoning to death of adulterers, a punishment that has absolutely no foundation in the Koran."
Today, it is clear that Islam needs a reformation with a daring and unyielding interpretation for the modern world.
Today’s Islam can be enough for many who live in their backyard and haven’t changed their environment for centuries; however Islam feels stretched and falls short for those who are struggling to merge their values and beliefs with contemporary life.
Like other religions, Islam has encountered many historical and social adaptations on the way, and it also needs a course of elucidation.
As Aslan claims, and I believe, the voice of moderation, contrary to the common belief, is winning against the voice of extremism. Though this is not sufficient. The voice of moderation also needs tools to prove Islam has answers to many of today’s challenges that it can participate and live together with modern life that desperately lacks currently. When can the reformation come to Islam and who will lead the charge to reinterpret it more courageously to make it open its arms all humanity? And can it really make this historic leap forward? These are the questions.
I am curiously following Fehmi Koru about what to read, who to follow and not. It has been very useful so far.
Source: ILHAN TANIR
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Court reinstates breastfeeding fatwa scholar at Al-Azhar University
CAIRO: The Administrative Court annulled Al-Azhar’s disciplinary committee’s decision to expel Ezzat Attiya, president of the hadith department at the university, after he issued a controversial fatwa concerning breastfeeding in 2007.
“No one can argue with a court order …we respect the Administrative Court and follow its orders without thinking twice,” said Sheikh Fawzy El-Zefzaf, head of the religions dialogue committee at Al-Azhar.
Attiya was expelled in 2007 when he suggested that symbolic breastfeeding could be a way around strict segregation of males and females. He had drawn on Islamic traditions which forbid sexual relations between a man and a woman who has breastfed him.
However, the court’s ruling did not come as a surprise to Sheikh Mahmoud Ashour, former deputy of Al-Azhar and member of the Islamic Research Center.
“This is only natural … I was sure that this was going to be the court’s decision,” Ashour said, “Attiya didn’t make anything up, it is stated in the fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) books and it’s a topic of debate among Islamic scholars with some supporting it and others opposing it,” he explained.
Both clerics agree that Attiya is an exceptional teacher and speaker. “Attiya is a great teacher and is well educated, informed and knowledgeable, plus he is a great speaker at lectures and discussions so he is always a plus to Al-Azhar University,” said Ashour.
In 2007 when the disciplinary committee had made its decision, both Islamic thinker Gamal El-Banna and Sheikh Khalid El-Gindy condemned the fatwa but maintained that Attiya shouldn’t have been expelled.
Attiya first made his statement regarding the issue on Al-Arabiya, a Dubai-based news channel, where he said that that after five breastfeeding sessions the man becomes a symbolic relative of the woman and the two were allowed to be alone together and the women could remove her headscarf in his presence.
The statement has caused a media frenzy and an uproar from Islamic scholars forcing Attiya to issue a retraction and apology. In his apology, Attiya stated that breastfeeding a male colleague at work is reserved only for a special situation and that only a minority of scholars had supported this position.
Source: thedailynewsegypt.com
“No one can argue with a court order …we respect the Administrative Court and follow its orders without thinking twice,” said Sheikh Fawzy El-Zefzaf, head of the religions dialogue committee at Al-Azhar.
Attiya was expelled in 2007 when he suggested that symbolic breastfeeding could be a way around strict segregation of males and females. He had drawn on Islamic traditions which forbid sexual relations between a man and a woman who has breastfed him.
However, the court’s ruling did not come as a surprise to Sheikh Mahmoud Ashour, former deputy of Al-Azhar and member of the Islamic Research Center.
“This is only natural … I was sure that this was going to be the court’s decision,” Ashour said, “Attiya didn’t make anything up, it is stated in the fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) books and it’s a topic of debate among Islamic scholars with some supporting it and others opposing it,” he explained.
Both clerics agree that Attiya is an exceptional teacher and speaker. “Attiya is a great teacher and is well educated, informed and knowledgeable, plus he is a great speaker at lectures and discussions so he is always a plus to Al-Azhar University,” said Ashour.
In 2007 when the disciplinary committee had made its decision, both Islamic thinker Gamal El-Banna and Sheikh Khalid El-Gindy condemned the fatwa but maintained that Attiya shouldn’t have been expelled.
Attiya first made his statement regarding the issue on Al-Arabiya, a Dubai-based news channel, where he said that that after five breastfeeding sessions the man becomes a symbolic relative of the woman and the two were allowed to be alone together and the women could remove her headscarf in his presence.
The statement has caused a media frenzy and an uproar from Islamic scholars forcing Attiya to issue a retraction and apology. In his apology, Attiya stated that breastfeeding a male colleague at work is reserved only for a special situation and that only a minority of scholars had supported this position.
Source: thedailynewsegypt.com
Controversy over the ’hadith reform’ (Turkey)
If you are well versed enough in the Turkish language to follow the Turkish media (and also happen to have the stomach for it), I strongly recommend reading Milli Gazete.
The daily newspaper of Milli Görüş, the Islamist movement of Necmeddin Erbakan, which is currently represented by the marginal Saadet, or Felicity, Party, Milli Gazete acts almost like a party organ. It often tries to convince its readers that the 82-year-old Erbakan’s victory over the forces of "global Zionism" is imminent. The writers of Milli Gazete dislike two groups in Turkey. The first, as you can guess, is the hard-line secularists. The second group, which you might not guess right away, is what the hard-line secularists themselves most despise: the "moderate Islamists," such as the incumbent Justice and Development Party, or AKP, and Islamic individuals or groups with "modernist" attitudes. For Milli Gazete, these misguided Muslims are the enemies within who dilute the Islamic cause and make it subservient to the demands of the Western infidels.
Reform or reinterpretation?
One of the heavyweights of Milli Gazete is Mehmet Şevket Eygi. To his credit, Eygi has some good insights about pious Muslims in Turkey, such as his critiques of their "lack of a sense of aesthetics." But on matters of theology and jurisprudence, he is way too conservative. Any deviation from the classical sources and norms of Sunni Islam is, for him, a dangerous heresy.
For some time, Eygi has been harshly criticizing the "hadith reform," as he, and the Western media, call it. This is a project initiated by Turkey’s official Directorate of Religious Affairs (also known as the Diyanet) and its aim is to revise, re-catalog and re-interpret the sayings, or hadiths, of Prophet Mohammed. Right after it began in 2006, the project made global headlines because it aimed to deal with some of the misogynistic statements in the classical hadith literature, spurring Western media, from the BBC to the Christian Science Monitor, to start talking about a "reform" in Islam.
In the Western sense, that wasn’t an incorrect statement. One of the project’s goals was to put some apparently misogynist hadiths into their rightful historical context and thus keep them from being used in the modern world to suppress women’s rights. But the term "reform" does not sound nice to Muslim ears. When they hear this word, most Muslims think that it is about excluding a fundamental part of their religion for some secular, if not completely wicked, agenda. Therefore, from the very beginning, Diyanet officials took great pains to emphasize, "This is not a reform at all."
But they could not persuade Eygi. He has been repeatedly writing about "this treacherous project carried out by Orientalists, free thinkers and even atheists," and calling on fellow Muslims to take a stand against it. "They are deleting our Prophet’s words simply to succumb to the Europeans," he argued in one of his articles, continuing:
"O Muslims! You are in deep sleep. You sleep in bed, you sleep when you are awake, you sleep when you talk. You sleep on land you sleep on the sea. But they are not sleeping! They are working day and night to delete the prophet’s hadiths!"
This ranting went on for a while, and led Diyanet Deputy President Prof. Mehmet Görmez to write a long response, which Eygi published in his column last Friday. Prof. Görmez took great pains to argue that devout Muslims (rather than "Orientalists and Jesuit priests") were carrying out the project and that its aim was not to delete the hadiths of the prophet, but to interpret them rightfully. If Eygi continued with his "unjust accusations," Prof Görmez warned, he might be held responsible for this in the eyes of "divine justice."
Whether this will convince Eygi and other conservatives in the Muslim world remains uncertain. What is certain is their reaction to the idea of "reform." Since the 19th century, modernist Muslims have repeatedly faced this hostility: They have been accused of being paid agents of the West, crypto freemasons with sinister goals and apostates who sold their souls to the devil.
Two lessons
There are two lessons to be inferred from this. First, Muslim would-be reformers should be careful in how they frame their arguments. There are tools for change within the Islamic tradition, and using them is more legitimate and efficient than pushing for revolutionary steps.
The second lesson is for Westerners. They, too, should be careful with the language they use. And they should not engage in religion building that is really not their business. Their concern over extremely conservative, sometimes violent, interpretations of Islam is quite understandable. But they should also understand that they only empower those interpretations by appearing, at least in the eyes of oversensitive beholders, as the architects of reform in a religion they don’t subscribe to.
Source Hurriyet.com.tr
The daily newspaper of Milli Görüş, the Islamist movement of Necmeddin Erbakan, which is currently represented by the marginal Saadet, or Felicity, Party, Milli Gazete acts almost like a party organ. It often tries to convince its readers that the 82-year-old Erbakan’s victory over the forces of "global Zionism" is imminent. The writers of Milli Gazete dislike two groups in Turkey. The first, as you can guess, is the hard-line secularists. The second group, which you might not guess right away, is what the hard-line secularists themselves most despise: the "moderate Islamists," such as the incumbent Justice and Development Party, or AKP, and Islamic individuals or groups with "modernist" attitudes. For Milli Gazete, these misguided Muslims are the enemies within who dilute the Islamic cause and make it subservient to the demands of the Western infidels.
Reform or reinterpretation?
One of the heavyweights of Milli Gazete is Mehmet Şevket Eygi. To his credit, Eygi has some good insights about pious Muslims in Turkey, such as his critiques of their "lack of a sense of aesthetics." But on matters of theology and jurisprudence, he is way too conservative. Any deviation from the classical sources and norms of Sunni Islam is, for him, a dangerous heresy.
For some time, Eygi has been harshly criticizing the "hadith reform," as he, and the Western media, call it. This is a project initiated by Turkey’s official Directorate of Religious Affairs (also known as the Diyanet) and its aim is to revise, re-catalog and re-interpret the sayings, or hadiths, of Prophet Mohammed. Right after it began in 2006, the project made global headlines because it aimed to deal with some of the misogynistic statements in the classical hadith literature, spurring Western media, from the BBC to the Christian Science Monitor, to start talking about a "reform" in Islam.
In the Western sense, that wasn’t an incorrect statement. One of the project’s goals was to put some apparently misogynist hadiths into their rightful historical context and thus keep them from being used in the modern world to suppress women’s rights. But the term "reform" does not sound nice to Muslim ears. When they hear this word, most Muslims think that it is about excluding a fundamental part of their religion for some secular, if not completely wicked, agenda. Therefore, from the very beginning, Diyanet officials took great pains to emphasize, "This is not a reform at all."
But they could not persuade Eygi. He has been repeatedly writing about "this treacherous project carried out by Orientalists, free thinkers and even atheists," and calling on fellow Muslims to take a stand against it. "They are deleting our Prophet’s words simply to succumb to the Europeans," he argued in one of his articles, continuing:
"O Muslims! You are in deep sleep. You sleep in bed, you sleep when you are awake, you sleep when you talk. You sleep on land you sleep on the sea. But they are not sleeping! They are working day and night to delete the prophet’s hadiths!"
This ranting went on for a while, and led Diyanet Deputy President Prof. Mehmet Görmez to write a long response, which Eygi published in his column last Friday. Prof. Görmez took great pains to argue that devout Muslims (rather than "Orientalists and Jesuit priests") were carrying out the project and that its aim was not to delete the hadiths of the prophet, but to interpret them rightfully. If Eygi continued with his "unjust accusations," Prof Görmez warned, he might be held responsible for this in the eyes of "divine justice."
Whether this will convince Eygi and other conservatives in the Muslim world remains uncertain. What is certain is their reaction to the idea of "reform." Since the 19th century, modernist Muslims have repeatedly faced this hostility: They have been accused of being paid agents of the West, crypto freemasons with sinister goals and apostates who sold their souls to the devil.
Two lessons
There are two lessons to be inferred from this. First, Muslim would-be reformers should be careful in how they frame their arguments. There are tools for change within the Islamic tradition, and using them is more legitimate and efficient than pushing for revolutionary steps.
The second lesson is for Westerners. They, too, should be careful with the language they use. And they should not engage in religion building that is really not their business. Their concern over extremely conservative, sometimes violent, interpretations of Islam is quite understandable. But they should also understand that they only empower those interpretations by appearing, at least in the eyes of oversensitive beholders, as the architects of reform in a religion they don’t subscribe to.
Source Hurriyet.com.tr
Friday, May 22, 2009
BMI told stewardess to wear Muslim robe
A BRITISH air stewardess was sacked for refusing to fly to Saudi Arabia after she was ordered to wear a traditional Islamic robe and walk behind male colleagues.
Lisa Ashton, a £15,000-a-year stewardess with BMI, was told that in public areas in Saudi Arabia she was required to wear a black robe, known as an abaya. This covers everything but the face, feet and hands. She was told to follow her male colleagues, irrespective of rank.
Ashton, 37, who was worried about security in the country, refused to fly there, claiming the instructions were discriminatory. She was sacked last April.
“It’s not the law that you have to walk behind men in Saudi Arabia, or that you have to wear an abaya, and I’m not going to be treated as a second-class citizen,” Ashton said last week.
“It’s outrageous. I’m a proud Englishwoman and I don’t want these restrictions placed on myself.”
Saudi experts and companies that recruit women to work in the country say it is a “myth” that western women are required to walk behind men. There is no requirement for them to wear the abaya in public, though many do.
Earlier this year an employment tribunal in Manchester ruled that BMI was justified in imposing “rules of a different culture” on staff and cleared it of sexual discrimination. Ashton has consulted Liberty, the human rights organisation, and may seek a judicial review of the decision.
Ashton joined BMI in March 1996, flying to the Caribbean, the United States and India. Based in Manchester, she was told in the summer of 2005 that BMI was starting a service to Saudi Arabia and she might be required to work on it.
The Foreign Office was then advising visitors of a “threat of terrorism” in the country. Ashton did not want to travel there because of the security risks, and was offended by the rules for staff travelling to the region.
A BMI document circulated to staff who might travel to Saudi Arabia stated: “It is expected that female crew members will walk behind their male counterparts in public areas such as airports no matter what rank.”
Staff were also given abayas and were required to put them on when leaving the aircraft. Ashton, a practising Christian, was advised by union officials that it was considered a part of the uniform and she could face disciplinary action if she did not wear it.
Ashton said she did not want to fly to Saudi Arabia, but wished to continue flying long-haul routes. The firm said she could transfer to short-haul flights but that would have meant a pay cut of about 20%. She declined to switch to short-haul flights.
On June 13, 2007, she was told she was rostered for a flight from London to Saudi Arabia and refused to go. She was dismissed for refusing to fly and for making it clear she would not travel to Saudi Arabia.
Her letter of dismissal said it was “proportionate” to ask female employees to walk behind men out of respect for Saudi culture. BMI has also defended its decision to require female staff to wear abayas.
The Foreign Office advises women to dress “conservatively” but does not specifically advise wearing an abaya in public places. It also does not refer to any rule or convention that western women should walk behind men.
In a legal case in 2002 Colonel Martha McSally launched a legal action over American military orders that female servicewomen should wear an abaya in public places in Saudi Arabia when American women diplomats and the wives of servicemen were not expected to wear the garment. The Senate subsequently passed legislation that prohibited defence officials from requiring female personnel to wear abayas.
In the employment tribunal decision over Ashton’s case it was ruled there was no evidence that women would regard BMI’s requirements on wearing the abaya, or walking behind men, as “placing them under any disadvantage”. Ashton’s case was dismissed.
The firm said last week the tribunal ruling was “self-explanatory” and would not comment.
Since leaving BMI, Ashton has embarked on a musical career. She said one of her first songs, Shame, Shame, Shame, performed by the band Looby, was inspired by the airline.
Source: Times on Line
Also a good comment made on the section 'Have your say'
If BMI had dimissed a black employee for refusing to walk behind white employees when they flew to pre-apartheid South Africa, would British unions and the Manchester government have argued that the black employee should accept South Africa's "different culture"? What utter rot.
Notadhimmi, USA,
Lisa Ashton, a £15,000-a-year stewardess with BMI, was told that in public areas in Saudi Arabia she was required to wear a black robe, known as an abaya. This covers everything but the face, feet and hands. She was told to follow her male colleagues, irrespective of rank.
Ashton, 37, who was worried about security in the country, refused to fly there, claiming the instructions were discriminatory. She was sacked last April.
“It’s not the law that you have to walk behind men in Saudi Arabia, or that you have to wear an abaya, and I’m not going to be treated as a second-class citizen,” Ashton said last week.
“It’s outrageous. I’m a proud Englishwoman and I don’t want these restrictions placed on myself.”
Saudi experts and companies that recruit women to work in the country say it is a “myth” that western women are required to walk behind men. There is no requirement for them to wear the abaya in public, though many do.
Earlier this year an employment tribunal in Manchester ruled that BMI was justified in imposing “rules of a different culture” on staff and cleared it of sexual discrimination. Ashton has consulted Liberty, the human rights organisation, and may seek a judicial review of the decision.
Ashton joined BMI in March 1996, flying to the Caribbean, the United States and India. Based in Manchester, she was told in the summer of 2005 that BMI was starting a service to Saudi Arabia and she might be required to work on it.
The Foreign Office was then advising visitors of a “threat of terrorism” in the country. Ashton did not want to travel there because of the security risks, and was offended by the rules for staff travelling to the region.
A BMI document circulated to staff who might travel to Saudi Arabia stated: “It is expected that female crew members will walk behind their male counterparts in public areas such as airports no matter what rank.”
Staff were also given abayas and were required to put them on when leaving the aircraft. Ashton, a practising Christian, was advised by union officials that it was considered a part of the uniform and she could face disciplinary action if she did not wear it.
Ashton said she did not want to fly to Saudi Arabia, but wished to continue flying long-haul routes. The firm said she could transfer to short-haul flights but that would have meant a pay cut of about 20%. She declined to switch to short-haul flights.
On June 13, 2007, she was told she was rostered for a flight from London to Saudi Arabia and refused to go. She was dismissed for refusing to fly and for making it clear she would not travel to Saudi Arabia.
Her letter of dismissal said it was “proportionate” to ask female employees to walk behind men out of respect for Saudi culture. BMI has also defended its decision to require female staff to wear abayas.
The Foreign Office advises women to dress “conservatively” but does not specifically advise wearing an abaya in public places. It also does not refer to any rule or convention that western women should walk behind men.
In a legal case in 2002 Colonel Martha McSally launched a legal action over American military orders that female servicewomen should wear an abaya in public places in Saudi Arabia when American women diplomats and the wives of servicemen were not expected to wear the garment. The Senate subsequently passed legislation that prohibited defence officials from requiring female personnel to wear abayas.
In the employment tribunal decision over Ashton’s case it was ruled there was no evidence that women would regard BMI’s requirements on wearing the abaya, or walking behind men, as “placing them under any disadvantage”. Ashton’s case was dismissed.
The firm said last week the tribunal ruling was “self-explanatory” and would not comment.
Since leaving BMI, Ashton has embarked on a musical career. She said one of her first songs, Shame, Shame, Shame, performed by the band Looby, was inspired by the airline.
Source: Times on Line
Also a good comment made on the section 'Have your say'
If BMI had dimissed a black employee for refusing to walk behind white employees when they flew to pre-apartheid South Africa, would British unions and the Manchester government have argued that the black employee should accept South Africa's "different culture"? What utter rot.
Notadhimmi, USA,
Friday, May 15, 2009
Taliban threatens politicians in troubled Swat, says report
ISTANBUL - Pakistani Taliban warned local politicians in the troubled Swat Valley that they and their families would be attacked unless they quit their posts protesting against the continuing army offensive in the region.
Speaking to Qatar-based Al Jazeera network yesterday, Muslim Khan, a Pakistani Taliban spokesman, gave members of the national and regional assemblies a three-day deadline to denounce the military assault on Taliban fighters.
The warning came hours after suspected Taliban militants stormed a depot in northwest Pakistan that handles supplied for NATO troops in neighboring Afghanistan and torched eight trucks. Also yesterday Pakistan’s embattled President Asif Ali Zardari called for global help to avert a humanitarian catastrophe. "The warning signalled a dark turn in the unfolding events in Swat where the Pakistani army is battling Taliban fighters. They [Taliban] can make these threats and people will take them very seriously," Al Jazeera’s correspondent said.
Trapped residents
Hundreds of thousands of civilians have escaped the punishing offensive in the Swat valley, fleeing Taliban fighters who have terrorized the population in a bloody campaign to enforce Islamic law, or Shariah, and expand their control. Residents trapped in Mingora, the district's main town, told Agence France-Presse by telephone that militants had planted mines and were digging trenches. "People are becoming mentally ill, our senses have shut down, children and woman are crying, please tell the government to pull us out of here," said one shopkeeper contacted by AFP who did not want to give his name. "Forget the lack of electricity and other problems, the Taliban are everywhere and heavy exchanges of fire are routine at night."
Airstrikes targeted Taliban bastions across Swat, which has sunk from a stunning ski resort favored by Westerners to a crucible of Taliban violence, where ground troops have yet to take control. Helicopter gunships also swung into action in the neighboring district of Lower Dir, where the military has been on the offensive since April 26 after Taliban fighters advanced to within 100 kilometres (60 miles) of Islamabad.
A military spokesman reported "heavy fighting" in Swat's northern mountains at Peochar, the suspected stronghold of firebrand Taliban commander Maulana Fazlullah, where airborne commandos on Tuesday opened a new front. Overall, the military says more than 750 militants and 33 troops have been killed in its operations.
Source: Hurriyet
Speaking to Qatar-based Al Jazeera network yesterday, Muslim Khan, a Pakistani Taliban spokesman, gave members of the national and regional assemblies a three-day deadline to denounce the military assault on Taliban fighters.
The warning came hours after suspected Taliban militants stormed a depot in northwest Pakistan that handles supplied for NATO troops in neighboring Afghanistan and torched eight trucks. Also yesterday Pakistan’s embattled President Asif Ali Zardari called for global help to avert a humanitarian catastrophe. "The warning signalled a dark turn in the unfolding events in Swat where the Pakistani army is battling Taliban fighters. They [Taliban] can make these threats and people will take them very seriously," Al Jazeera’s correspondent said.
Trapped residents
Hundreds of thousands of civilians have escaped the punishing offensive in the Swat valley, fleeing Taliban fighters who have terrorized the population in a bloody campaign to enforce Islamic law, or Shariah, and expand their control. Residents trapped in Mingora, the district's main town, told Agence France-Presse by telephone that militants had planted mines and were digging trenches. "People are becoming mentally ill, our senses have shut down, children and woman are crying, please tell the government to pull us out of here," said one shopkeeper contacted by AFP who did not want to give his name. "Forget the lack of electricity and other problems, the Taliban are everywhere and heavy exchanges of fire are routine at night."
Airstrikes targeted Taliban bastions across Swat, which has sunk from a stunning ski resort favored by Westerners to a crucible of Taliban violence, where ground troops have yet to take control. Helicopter gunships also swung into action in the neighboring district of Lower Dir, where the military has been on the offensive since April 26 after Taliban fighters advanced to within 100 kilometres (60 miles) of Islamabad.
A military spokesman reported "heavy fighting" in Swat's northern mountains at Peochar, the suspected stronghold of firebrand Taliban commander Maulana Fazlullah, where airborne commandos on Tuesday opened a new front. Overall, the military says more than 750 militants and 33 troops have been killed in its operations.
Source: Hurriyet
All pigs must die because they descend from Jews
All pigs must die
because they descend from Jews:
According to Egyptian Islamic scholar
by Itamar Marcus & Barbara Crook, May 13, 2009
All pigs alive today are descendants of the Jews who were turned into pigs by Allah, according to a senior Egyptian religious leader. Since all pigs are descendants of Jews, it is obligatory to kill all pigs, says Sheikh Ahmed Ali Othman.
Presumably if pigs were merely animals, they would not face destruction. It is their Jewish ancestry that condemns them to death.
The Jordanian newspaper Al-Hakika al-Dawliya adds that this is not the only opinion. It cites Sheikh Ali Abu Al-Hassan, head of the Fatwa Committee at Al-Azhar [Sunni Islamic university], who believes that all the Jews who were turned into pigs by Allah died out without reproducing, and therefore there is no relationship between today's pigs and Jews.
The following is the transcript from Al-Moheet Arab News Network:
"CAIRO -- Sheikh Ahmed Ali Othman, supervisor of the Da'awa [Islamic Indoctrination] of the Egyptian Waqf [Islamic Holy places], has issued a Religious Ruling (Fatwa) that pigs in our time have their origins in Jews who angered Allah, such that He turned them into monkeys, pigs, and Satan-worshippers, and it is obligatory to kill and slaughter them [the pigs].
Othman based his ruling on the respected Quranic verse, 'Say [to the People of the Book - Jews and Christians], Come and I shall make known to you who receives the worst retribution of all from Allah: those whom Allah has cursed and upon whom He has poured His wrath, whom He has made into monkeys and pigs, and who have served abominations. Their place is worst of all, and their deviation is the greatest of all...' (Quran, sura 5, verse 60)
Sheikh Othman noted that this verse concerning the nation of the prophet Moses descended [from Allah to the Quran], and the books of commentary confirm this. There are two opinions among the Ulama [Islamic scholars] in this regard: The first is that the Jews, whom Allah transformed and turned into pigs, remained in that state until they died, without producing descendants. The other opinion is that the Jews who turned into pigs multiplied and produced descendants, and their line continues to this day. Sheikh Othman also cited Hadiths (traditions attributed to Muhammad) as support...
The Jordanian newspaper Al-Hakika al-Dawliya quoted Othman: "I personally tend towards the view that the pigs that exist now have their origins with the Jews, and therefore their consumption is forbidden in the words of Allah: 'A carcass, and blood, and the flesh of a pig are forbidden to you....' Moreover, our master Jesus, peace be unto him - one of the tasks that he will fulfill when he descends to earth is the killing of the pigs, and this is proof that their source is Jewish.
Sheikh Othman said that whoever eats pig, it's as if he ate meat of an impure person, and stressed that this Religious Ruling is backed by the Islamic Sages of Al Azhar, but they are afraid to say this publically... so the Sages won't be accused of Anti-Semitism.
Sheikh Ali Abu Al-Hassan, head of the Fatwa Committee at Al-Azhar [Sunni Islamic university], said that the first view is accurate, because when Allah punishes a group of people he punishes only them. When Allah grew angry with the nation of Moses, He turned them into pigs and monkeys as an extraordinary punishment... but they died out without leaving descendants."
[Al-Moheet Arab News Network, May 10, 2009]
[Al-Hakika al-Dawliya, May 9, 2009]
Source: Palestinian Media Watch
because they descend from Jews:
According to Egyptian Islamic scholar
by Itamar Marcus & Barbara Crook, May 13, 2009
All pigs alive today are descendants of the Jews who were turned into pigs by Allah, according to a senior Egyptian religious leader. Since all pigs are descendants of Jews, it is obligatory to kill all pigs, says Sheikh Ahmed Ali Othman.
Presumably if pigs were merely animals, they would not face destruction. It is their Jewish ancestry that condemns them to death.
The Jordanian newspaper Al-Hakika al-Dawliya adds that this is not the only opinion. It cites Sheikh Ali Abu Al-Hassan, head of the Fatwa Committee at Al-Azhar [Sunni Islamic university], who believes that all the Jews who were turned into pigs by Allah died out without reproducing, and therefore there is no relationship between today's pigs and Jews.
The following is the transcript from Al-Moheet Arab News Network:
"CAIRO -- Sheikh Ahmed Ali Othman, supervisor of the Da'awa [Islamic Indoctrination] of the Egyptian Waqf [Islamic Holy places], has issued a Religious Ruling (Fatwa) that pigs in our time have their origins in Jews who angered Allah, such that He turned them into monkeys, pigs, and Satan-worshippers, and it is obligatory to kill and slaughter them [the pigs].
Othman based his ruling on the respected Quranic verse, 'Say [to the People of the Book - Jews and Christians], Come and I shall make known to you who receives the worst retribution of all from Allah: those whom Allah has cursed and upon whom He has poured His wrath, whom He has made into monkeys and pigs, and who have served abominations. Their place is worst of all, and their deviation is the greatest of all...' (Quran, sura 5, verse 60)
Sheikh Othman noted that this verse concerning the nation of the prophet Moses descended [from Allah to the Quran], and the books of commentary confirm this. There are two opinions among the Ulama [Islamic scholars] in this regard: The first is that the Jews, whom Allah transformed and turned into pigs, remained in that state until they died, without producing descendants. The other opinion is that the Jews who turned into pigs multiplied and produced descendants, and their line continues to this day. Sheikh Othman also cited Hadiths (traditions attributed to Muhammad) as support...
The Jordanian newspaper Al-Hakika al-Dawliya quoted Othman: "I personally tend towards the view that the pigs that exist now have their origins with the Jews, and therefore their consumption is forbidden in the words of Allah: 'A carcass, and blood, and the flesh of a pig are forbidden to you....' Moreover, our master Jesus, peace be unto him - one of the tasks that he will fulfill when he descends to earth is the killing of the pigs, and this is proof that their source is Jewish.
Sheikh Othman said that whoever eats pig, it's as if he ate meat of an impure person, and stressed that this Religious Ruling is backed by the Islamic Sages of Al Azhar, but they are afraid to say this publically... so the Sages won't be accused of Anti-Semitism.
Sheikh Ali Abu Al-Hassan, head of the Fatwa Committee at Al-Azhar [Sunni Islamic university], said that the first view is accurate, because when Allah punishes a group of people he punishes only them. When Allah grew angry with the nation of Moses, He turned them into pigs and monkeys as an extraordinary punishment... but they died out without leaving descendants."
[Al-Moheet Arab News Network, May 10, 2009]
[Al-Hakika al-Dawliya, May 9, 2009]
Source: Palestinian Media Watch
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Islamist Terrorism, Terror and Iraq
A briefing by Shimshon Issaki
April 30, 2009
http://www.meforum.org/2136/islamist-terrorism-terror-and-iraq
Shimshon Issaki is a leading expert on Islamic terrorism. He served for 44 years in the IDF and other Israeli security agencies as an intelligence analyst and operations officer, retiring with a rank equivalent to brigadier general. His new book, Terror and Iraq: How We Can Better Combat Islamic Terrorism, evaluates al-Qaeda's strategies and tactics. On April 30, Mr. Issaki addressed the Middle East Forum via conference call.
Shimshon Issaki opened with a holistic overview of al-Qaeda, from its roots in the battle against the Soviets in Afghanistan to its far-reaching terrorist activities during the past two decades.
According to Mr. Issaki, al-Qaeda opposes Christians, Jews, and even other Muslims who do not subscribe to Osama bin Laden's Wahhabi ideology; it seeks to attack and "overthrow all regimes that are non-Muslim," or that adhere to an unacceptable brand of Islam. Its preferred instrument is terrorism.
Mr. Issaki claimed that 9/11 could have been averted "if things had been done in the right way," but he sees similar barriers hindering intelligence work seven years later. In particular, he stated that Barack Obama's release of documents on enhanced interrogation techniques has done "irreversible damage to security because [terrorists] are learning how to behave" during questioning.
Asked whether American-Israeli intelligence cooperation has changed since President Obama took office, Issaki reported that it remains "very good," since "the interests [of the U.S. and Israel] are the same interests, the targets are the same targets, and the experience is the same experience."
However, he noted that significant differences of opinion between the United States and Israel have emerged over Iran, Hamas, and other strategic issues. Mr. Issaki said that the Obama administration may be "correct to explore all the possibilities. But where is the time limit? For how long?" He lamented that nothing has been done to deal with Iran since the U.S. election.
Finally, Mr. Issaki warned that al-Qaeda's demise in Iraq has been greatly exaggerated. Recent events show that the organization still is capable of generating chaos there, to the undisputed benefit of Iran.
Summary account by David Rusin.
Source: The Middle East Forum
April 30, 2009
http://www.meforum.org/2136/islamist-terrorism-terror-and-iraq
Shimshon Issaki is a leading expert on Islamic terrorism. He served for 44 years in the IDF and other Israeli security agencies as an intelligence analyst and operations officer, retiring with a rank equivalent to brigadier general. His new book, Terror and Iraq: How We Can Better Combat Islamic Terrorism, evaluates al-Qaeda's strategies and tactics. On April 30, Mr. Issaki addressed the Middle East Forum via conference call.
Shimshon Issaki opened with a holistic overview of al-Qaeda, from its roots in the battle against the Soviets in Afghanistan to its far-reaching terrorist activities during the past two decades.
According to Mr. Issaki, al-Qaeda opposes Christians, Jews, and even other Muslims who do not subscribe to Osama bin Laden's Wahhabi ideology; it seeks to attack and "overthrow all regimes that are non-Muslim," or that adhere to an unacceptable brand of Islam. Its preferred instrument is terrorism.
Mr. Issaki claimed that 9/11 could have been averted "if things had been done in the right way," but he sees similar barriers hindering intelligence work seven years later. In particular, he stated that Barack Obama's release of documents on enhanced interrogation techniques has done "irreversible damage to security because [terrorists] are learning how to behave" during questioning.
Asked whether American-Israeli intelligence cooperation has changed since President Obama took office, Issaki reported that it remains "very good," since "the interests [of the U.S. and Israel] are the same interests, the targets are the same targets, and the experience is the same experience."
However, he noted that significant differences of opinion between the United States and Israel have emerged over Iran, Hamas, and other strategic issues. Mr. Issaki said that the Obama administration may be "correct to explore all the possibilities. But where is the time limit? For how long?" He lamented that nothing has been done to deal with Iran since the U.S. election.
Finally, Mr. Issaki warned that al-Qaeda's demise in Iraq has been greatly exaggerated. Recent events show that the organization still is capable of generating chaos there, to the undisputed benefit of Iran.
Summary account by David Rusin.
Source: The Middle East Forum
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Porn dominates Saudi mobile use
Up to 70% of files exchanged between Saudi teenagers' mobile phones contain pornography, according to a study in the ultra-conservative Muslim kingdom.
The study quoted in Arab News focussed on the phones of teenagers detained by religious police for harassing girls.
The same researcher also found that 88% of girls say they have been victims of harassment using Bluetooth technology.
Saudi Arabia has toughened penalties for misuse of mobile phones which challenge its strict social traditions.
"The flash memory of mobile phones taken from teenagers showed 69.7% of 1,470 files saved in them were pornographic and 8.6% were related to violence," said report author Professor Abdullah al-Rasheed.
He presented his study at a seminar organised by the King Fahd Security Academy, Arab News reports.
Social contact between genders is banned in public in Saudi Arabia, which enforces a strict interpretation of Islamic law and morality.
But the spread of Bluetooth technology, allowing wireless connection between mobile phones, has allowed for increased opportunities of communication as well as abuse by predatory young men.
Source: BBC
The study quoted in Arab News focussed on the phones of teenagers detained by religious police for harassing girls.
The same researcher also found that 88% of girls say they have been victims of harassment using Bluetooth technology.
Saudi Arabia has toughened penalties for misuse of mobile phones which challenge its strict social traditions.
"The flash memory of mobile phones taken from teenagers showed 69.7% of 1,470 files saved in them were pornographic and 8.6% were related to violence," said report author Professor Abdullah al-Rasheed.
He presented his study at a seminar organised by the King Fahd Security Academy, Arab News reports.
Social contact between genders is banned in public in Saudi Arabia, which enforces a strict interpretation of Islamic law and morality.
But the spread of Bluetooth technology, allowing wireless connection between mobile phones, has allowed for increased opportunities of communication as well as abuse by predatory young men.
Source: BBC
Cairo youth break sex taboos
As part of a series about young people in the Middle East, the BBC News website explores relationships in Cairo where sex outside wedlock is taboo - but some say not uncommon.
Fatima and her boyfriend had been together for about two years when she discovered she was pregnant.
"I had to have an abortion. I didn't want to do it, but in this society I didn't have any choice," she says, now an outspoken 27 year-old.
"I hate it when I remember it, because it was a very, very bad experience." Her family know nothing of her ordeal.
Mido, 28, has had four serious girlfriends. He has had sex several times and feels no guilt, but would never tell his parents.
"I don't have the courage to shake their beliefs - especially my father's," he says.
Niveen, 24, has been seeing her boyfriend for four months. They plan to move in together without their parents finding out.
"Whenever you have a relationship here you have to take risks, and this is the risk I'm taking," she says.
Spending the night together is difficult as both live at home with their families. Even going to a hotel means checking into different rooms and sneaking between them.
Hidden lives
With their secret lifestyles, these three young people from Cairo's liberal, intellectual elite are pushing at the limits set by a society dominated by traditional views.
Even among educated urbanites, the concept of an unmarried mother simply does not exist. A bride's virginity is so highly prized that doctors charge up to 1000 Egyptian pounds (US$173) to reconstruct a young woman's hymen.
But there are perceptions that in general, at least in Cairo, sex before marriage is widespread and increasing as spiralling costs and high unemployment push marriage ages up.
On any summer evening along Cairo's 6th October Bridge, veiled figures nestle up to young men. The couples gaze down into the Nile, engaged in intimate conversation amid the blaring horns and traffic fumes.
Locals will tell you this is increasing as it becomes more socially acceptable, and that many of these couples are from Cairo's poorer areas.
But there is debate over whether this new openness about courtship is resulting in more premarital sex.
Gynaecologist Rima Khofash works among both rich and poor in Cairo and estimates that about 50% of young people have pre-marital sex.
"I think now there is a revolution in sex between young people - they do it haphazardly - often in short-term relationships."
Abortion is illegal in Egypt in all but a few cases. Approximately one woman a month comes to her clinic with complications resulting from a backstreet termination, she says.
Dr Khofash is certain that the number of abortions is increasing: "All gynaecologists know this, but we don't know how much it is increasing by."
'Not widespread'
But Dr Sahar Tawila of Cairo University, who co-ordinated one of the most comprehensive studies ever of young people in Egypt, believes the prevalence of sex before marriage has been dramatically overblown in the Egyptian media.
"It is not widespread. Sexual relationships do exist, but they should be put in proportion."
In the 2001 nationwide study, 21% of young men with higher education said they knew someone who had had pre-marital sex - and this dropped to 1.4% among the uneducated.
Dr Tawila says young people, particularly girls, are highly aware of the risks of pre-marital sex.
For example, Shaymaa, 20, is in love with Ashraf, her boyfriend of 18 months. But she refuses anything more intimate than holding hands.
If she has sex with him, she explains, she may end up being forced to marry him, which she is not yet sure she wants to do. "Virginity is your whole life," she says.
Ashraf, 26, says he has been pushing her towards intimacy: "I just have to stop at a point when I am sure she will refuse to sleep with me - that means she is a good girl."
Many more young women say they plan to stay virgins until they marry. Several point out that girls face more pressure to do so than boys.
"Boys I know have many girlfriends, even at the same time. One of my best friends told me he made love with his girlfriend and then said 'I won't ever marry her - she's not a virgin'," one 19-year-old female student said.
Illegal operation
This pressure drives the demand for hymen reconstruction operations, which can even involve stitching a small capsule of red fluid into the vagina to ensure wedding night "bleeding".
Gynaecologist Ahdy Wahid Rizk says that each week, two or three young women visit his central Cairo clinic to ask about hymen reconstruction, despite the fact that he has always refused to carry out the illegal operation.
But even so, those having premarital sex may well still be a small minority. For those who would like to, there are still many barriers.
Mona, 27, was with her boyfriend for two years: "We didn't have full sex. We didn't have a place to do it. If it was easier, yes, I think I would have liked to. But it's also our traditions that stopped me. I felt guilty about what we did."
And many others simply believe it is wrong, like Cairo University student Mohammed Esmat, 20: "I'm a Muslim and in Islam sex before marriage is forbidden, so I am against it."
Some names have been changed to protect the identities of interviewees.
Source: BBC
Fatima and her boyfriend had been together for about two years when she discovered she was pregnant.
"I had to have an abortion. I didn't want to do it, but in this society I didn't have any choice," she says, now an outspoken 27 year-old.
"I hate it when I remember it, because it was a very, very bad experience." Her family know nothing of her ordeal.
Mido, 28, has had four serious girlfriends. He has had sex several times and feels no guilt, but would never tell his parents.
"I don't have the courage to shake their beliefs - especially my father's," he says.
Niveen, 24, has been seeing her boyfriend for four months. They plan to move in together without their parents finding out.
"Whenever you have a relationship here you have to take risks, and this is the risk I'm taking," she says.
Spending the night together is difficult as both live at home with their families. Even going to a hotel means checking into different rooms and sneaking between them.
Hidden lives
With their secret lifestyles, these three young people from Cairo's liberal, intellectual elite are pushing at the limits set by a society dominated by traditional views.
Even among educated urbanites, the concept of an unmarried mother simply does not exist. A bride's virginity is so highly prized that doctors charge up to 1000 Egyptian pounds (US$173) to reconstruct a young woman's hymen.
But there are perceptions that in general, at least in Cairo, sex before marriage is widespread and increasing as spiralling costs and high unemployment push marriage ages up.
On any summer evening along Cairo's 6th October Bridge, veiled figures nestle up to young men. The couples gaze down into the Nile, engaged in intimate conversation amid the blaring horns and traffic fumes.
Locals will tell you this is increasing as it becomes more socially acceptable, and that many of these couples are from Cairo's poorer areas.
But there is debate over whether this new openness about courtship is resulting in more premarital sex.
Gynaecologist Rima Khofash works among both rich and poor in Cairo and estimates that about 50% of young people have pre-marital sex.
"I think now there is a revolution in sex between young people - they do it haphazardly - often in short-term relationships."
Abortion is illegal in Egypt in all but a few cases. Approximately one woman a month comes to her clinic with complications resulting from a backstreet termination, she says.
Dr Khofash is certain that the number of abortions is increasing: "All gynaecologists know this, but we don't know how much it is increasing by."
'Not widespread'
But Dr Sahar Tawila of Cairo University, who co-ordinated one of the most comprehensive studies ever of young people in Egypt, believes the prevalence of sex before marriage has been dramatically overblown in the Egyptian media.
"It is not widespread. Sexual relationships do exist, but they should be put in proportion."
In the 2001 nationwide study, 21% of young men with higher education said they knew someone who had had pre-marital sex - and this dropped to 1.4% among the uneducated.
Dr Tawila says young people, particularly girls, are highly aware of the risks of pre-marital sex.
For example, Shaymaa, 20, is in love with Ashraf, her boyfriend of 18 months. But she refuses anything more intimate than holding hands.
If she has sex with him, she explains, she may end up being forced to marry him, which she is not yet sure she wants to do. "Virginity is your whole life," she says.
Ashraf, 26, says he has been pushing her towards intimacy: "I just have to stop at a point when I am sure she will refuse to sleep with me - that means she is a good girl."
Many more young women say they plan to stay virgins until they marry. Several point out that girls face more pressure to do so than boys.
"Boys I know have many girlfriends, even at the same time. One of my best friends told me he made love with his girlfriend and then said 'I won't ever marry her - she's not a virgin'," one 19-year-old female student said.
Illegal operation
This pressure drives the demand for hymen reconstruction operations, which can even involve stitching a small capsule of red fluid into the vagina to ensure wedding night "bleeding".
Gynaecologist Ahdy Wahid Rizk says that each week, two or three young women visit his central Cairo clinic to ask about hymen reconstruction, despite the fact that he has always refused to carry out the illegal operation.
But even so, those having premarital sex may well still be a small minority. For those who would like to, there are still many barriers.
Mona, 27, was with her boyfriend for two years: "We didn't have full sex. We didn't have a place to do it. If it was easier, yes, I think I would have liked to. But it's also our traditions that stopped me. I felt guilty about what we did."
And many others simply believe it is wrong, like Cairo University student Mohammed Esmat, 20: "I'm a Muslim and in Islam sex before marriage is forbidden, so I am against it."
Some names have been changed to protect the identities of interviewees.
Source: BBC
Egypt arrests 'wife swap' couple
Egyptian police have arrested a senior civil servant and his wife accusing them of swapping sex partners with other couples, local media reports say.
The pair are said to have held at least three "swinger" parties at their home in Cairo, after soliciting other married couples over the internet.
Extra-marital sex is illegal in Egypt, where the constitution says Islamic law is the main source of legislation.
Police say they are looking for others who participated in the sex acts.
The couple, who media reports say have children and used the aliases Magdy and Samira, face up to three years in prison if convicted of facilitating prostitution.
'Snooping'
Egyptian media reported that the main suspect - a government employee - set up a website to promote wife swapping and posted ads in chat rooms linked to popular Arabic porn sites.
He and his wife - a school teacher - then interviewed some 44 couples, usually at coffee shops in downtown Cairo, before they swapped partners.
Press reports said the pair turned down over 40 couples because they were not officially married, causing concern that they would not guarantee confidentiality.
It said police also arrested a lawyer at a cafe in the Cairo suburb Giza while he was finalising a swap deal, adding that another swap was set for the weekend with a young man from the Gulf and his wife.
Many of the ads on the website used by the couple are said to contain personal email addresses and phone numbers.
A human rights group, the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, criticised police for snooping on the couples.
"The case raises serious concerns about due process and the privacy rights of those arrested, especially in light of press reports about police interception of defendants' electronic correspondence," spokesman Hossam Bahgat told the AFP news agency.
"We're also of course worried that police seem to be still going after many people based on the intercepted emails of the two main defendants."
The pair are said to have held at least three "swinger" parties at their home in Cairo, after soliciting other married couples over the internet.
Extra-marital sex is illegal in Egypt, where the constitution says Islamic law is the main source of legislation.
Police say they are looking for others who participated in the sex acts.
The couple, who media reports say have children and used the aliases Magdy and Samira, face up to three years in prison if convicted of facilitating prostitution.
'Snooping'
Egyptian media reported that the main suspect - a government employee - set up a website to promote wife swapping and posted ads in chat rooms linked to popular Arabic porn sites.
He and his wife - a school teacher - then interviewed some 44 couples, usually at coffee shops in downtown Cairo, before they swapped partners.
Press reports said the pair turned down over 40 couples because they were not officially married, causing concern that they would not guarantee confidentiality.
It said police also arrested a lawyer at a cafe in the Cairo suburb Giza while he was finalising a swap deal, adding that another swap was set for the weekend with a young man from the Gulf and his wife.
Many of the ads on the website used by the couple are said to contain personal email addresses and phone numbers.
A human rights group, the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, criticised police for snooping on the couples.
"The case raises serious concerns about due process and the privacy rights of those arrested, especially in light of press reports about police interception of defendants' electronic correspondence," spokesman Hossam Bahgat told the AFP news agency.
"We're also of course worried that police seem to be still going after many people based on the intercepted emails of the two main defendants."
Source: BBC
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
A Peaceful Islam...
These pictures are of Muslims marching through the STREETS OF LONDON during their recent 'Religion of Peace Demonstration.'
Monday, May 4, 2009
Lebanese woman fined for losing unborn baby in Dubai car crash
DUBAI: A woman who lost her unborn baby in a Dubai road crash has been convicted of manslaughter and ordered to pay blood money, in the first such ruling in the UAE, local newspapers reported on Monday. The court found the 27-year-old Lebanese woman had failed to exercise due diligence when driving and caused her car to collide with another vehicle in October when she was nine months pregnant, the Arabic-language Al-Emarat Al-Youm said.
The National reported that the woman's car was struck from behind after she braked on a highway in Dubai, which like the rest of the UAE is notorious for fatal road accidents.
The Dubai Traffic Court ordered the mother to pay 20,000 dirhams ($5,450) in diyyah or blood money to the unborn baby's next of kin and fined her another $540 for "unintentional homicide," Al-Emarat Al-Youm said. The judge based the verdict on Islamic or sharia law, it added.
"This may be the first case of its kind and may appear unusual to some, but the case highlights the fact that an unborn foetus also has rights as any human being," chief traffic prosecutor Salah Bu Farousha was quoted as saying in The National.
Highways in the UAE have a top speed limit of 120 kilometers an hour but motorists often drive much faster. - AFP
Source: The Daily Star - Lebanon
The National reported that the woman's car was struck from behind after she braked on a highway in Dubai, which like the rest of the UAE is notorious for fatal road accidents.
The Dubai Traffic Court ordered the mother to pay 20,000 dirhams ($5,450) in diyyah or blood money to the unborn baby's next of kin and fined her another $540 for "unintentional homicide," Al-Emarat Al-Youm said. The judge based the verdict on Islamic or sharia law, it added.
"This may be the first case of its kind and may appear unusual to some, but the case highlights the fact that an unborn foetus also has rights as any human being," chief traffic prosecutor Salah Bu Farousha was quoted as saying in The National.
Highways in the UAE have a top speed limit of 120 kilometers an hour but motorists often drive much faster. - AFP
Source: The Daily Star - Lebanon
Airline sorry for omitting Israel
British airline BMI has apologised after in-flight maps on its London-Tel Aviv service did not identify Israel.
The moving maps marked Islamic holy sites but showed only the city of Haifa in Israel, identified by its Arabic name, Khefa.
Israeli officials accused BMI of trying to "hide the existence of Israel".
But BMI said it was a technical error - the maps had not been changed since the planes were taken over from a former airline which flew to the Middle East.
"If BMI had any political agenda in order not to anger neighbouring countries, it would not have invested so much in the Tel Aviv line," AFP news agency quoted a spokesman as saying.
BMED, which was taken over by BMI in 2007, had flown from the UK to many Muslim countries in the Middle East and so the maps had pointed out sites which were relevant to passengers.
A BMI spokesman told the BBC the maps should have been deactivated before the planes were deployed on the new route but "due to a technical error this did not take place".
Israeli transport ministry Director General Gideon Sitterman, said it was "unacceptable" that Israel had been "wiped off the map".
"Doing business with Israel has its advantages and disadvantages, but we will not agree to a situation where they hide the existence of Israel but want to do business with Israel," he told Israeli army radio.
BMI has withdrawn the two planes from service while new maps are installed, but said larger planes had been scheduled to take over the route last Sunday anyway.
The spokesman told the BBC there had been "quite a bit of upset" from customers but that it had been a genuine error and the airline was sorry for any offence caused.
The moving maps marked Islamic holy sites but showed only the city of Haifa in Israel, identified by its Arabic name, Khefa.
Israeli officials accused BMI of trying to "hide the existence of Israel".
But BMI said it was a technical error - the maps had not been changed since the planes were taken over from a former airline which flew to the Middle East.
"If BMI had any political agenda in order not to anger neighbouring countries, it would not have invested so much in the Tel Aviv line," AFP news agency quoted a spokesman as saying.
BMED, which was taken over by BMI in 2007, had flown from the UK to many Muslim countries in the Middle East and so the maps had pointed out sites which were relevant to passengers.
A BMI spokesman told the BBC the maps should have been deactivated before the planes were deployed on the new route but "due to a technical error this did not take place".
Israeli transport ministry Director General Gideon Sitterman, said it was "unacceptable" that Israel had been "wiped off the map".
"Doing business with Israel has its advantages and disadvantages, but we will not agree to a situation where they hide the existence of Israel but want to do business with Israel," he told Israeli army radio.
BMI has withdrawn the two planes from service while new maps are installed, but said larger planes had been scheduled to take over the route last Sunday anyway.
The spokesman told the BBC there had been "quite a bit of upset" from customers but that it had been a genuine error and the airline was sorry for any offence caused.
Monday, April 27, 2009
Saudis clamp down on women's gyms
Many women-only sports clubs and gyms in Saudi Arabia face closure under a government clampdown on unlicensed premises, Saudi media have reported.
Women's gyms have become popular in the ultra-conservative Muslim country where the sexes are heavily segregated.
But only clubs linked to medical groups can get licenses and others will be closed, the Arab News newspaper said.
Saudi women were reported to have launched an online campaign in protest called Let Her Get Fat.
Government departments are not allowed to issue licenses for commercial gyms and sports clubs for women, unlike facilities for men, the newspaper reported.
Beauty salons
It quoted club manager Bader al-Shibani, who tried to open a women's sports club along with the one he runs for men in Jeddah.
"I ran into a stone wall at every turn. Every department I visited denied that they had the authority to give permission to establish a women's club," he said.
Many clubs are registered as beauty salons, and offer fitness facilities and even exercise classes in addition, the newspaper said.
A spokesman for the Ministry of Municipal and Rural Affairs told the newspaper that commercial clubs do not have registration for the provision of sport and health services.
"It's clear that one department is now taking the decision to put an end to the increasing number of unlicensed clubs," lawyer and community activist Abdulaziz al-Qasim told Arab News.
A group of women launched an internet campaign in protest against the move, saying facilities linked to medical clinics were too expensive, and their health would suffer as a result of the closures.
Women in Saudi Arabia are banned from driving, must wear a head-to-toe cloak when out in public and must obtain permission from a male relative to work, travel, study or marry.
Source: BBC
Women's gyms have become popular in the ultra-conservative Muslim country where the sexes are heavily segregated.
But only clubs linked to medical groups can get licenses and others will be closed, the Arab News newspaper said.
Saudi women were reported to have launched an online campaign in protest called Let Her Get Fat.
Government departments are not allowed to issue licenses for commercial gyms and sports clubs for women, unlike facilities for men, the newspaper reported.
Beauty salons
It quoted club manager Bader al-Shibani, who tried to open a women's sports club along with the one he runs for men in Jeddah.
"I ran into a stone wall at every turn. Every department I visited denied that they had the authority to give permission to establish a women's club," he said.
Many clubs are registered as beauty salons, and offer fitness facilities and even exercise classes in addition, the newspaper said.
A spokesman for the Ministry of Municipal and Rural Affairs told the newspaper that commercial clubs do not have registration for the provision of sport and health services.
"It's clear that one department is now taking the decision to put an end to the increasing number of unlicensed clubs," lawyer and community activist Abdulaziz al-Qasim told Arab News.
A group of women launched an internet campaign in protest against the move, saying facilities linked to medical clinics were too expensive, and their health would suffer as a result of the closures.
Women in Saudi Arabia are banned from driving, must wear a head-to-toe cloak when out in public and must obtain permission from a male relative to work, travel, study or marry.
Source: BBC
Friday, April 24, 2009
Honor Kiling versus Domestic Violence
| Honor Killings | Domestic Violence |
| Committed mainly by Muslims against Muslim girls/young adult women. | Committed by men of all faiths usually against adult women. |
| Committed mainly by fathers against their teenage daughters and daughters in their early twenties. Wives and older-age daughters may also be victims, but to a lesser extent. | Committed by an adult male spouse against an adult female spouse or intimate partner. |
| Carefully planned. Death threats are often used as a means of control. | The murder is often unplanned and spontaneous. |
| The planning and execution involve multiple family members and can include mothers, sisters, brothers, male cousins, uncles, grandfathers, etc. If the girl escapes, the extended family will continue to search for her to kill her. | The murder is carried out by one man with no family complicity. |
| The reason given for the honor killing is that the girl or young woman has "dishonored" the family. | The batterer-murderer does not claim any family concept of "honor." The reasons may range from a poorly cooked meal to suspected infidelity to the woman's trying to protect the children from his abuse or turning to the authorities for help. |
| At least half the time, the killings are carried out with barbaric ferocity. The female victim is often raped, burned alive, stoned or beaten to death, cut at the throat, decapitated, stabbed numerous times, suffocated slowly, etc. | While some men do beat a spouse to death, they often simply shoot or stab them. |
| The extended family and community valorize the honor killing. They do not condemn the perpetrators in the name of Islam. Mainly, honor killings are seen as normative. | The batterer-murderer is seen as a criminal; no one defends him as a hero. Such men are often viewed as sociopaths, mentally ill, or evil. |
| The murderer(s) do not show remorse. Instead, they experience themselves as "victims," defending themselves from the girl's actions and trying to restore their lost family honor. | Sometimes, remorse or regret is exhibited |
Thursday, April 23, 2009
The Politics of Palestinian Demography
by Yakov Faitelson
Middle East Quarterly
Spring 2009, pp. 51-59
Middle East Quarterly
Spring 2009, pp. 51-59
With every generation, it seems, a new demographic panic strikes Israel. Opening the Israeli Knesset (parliament) on October 8, 2007, after the Jewish New Year, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert warned of "a demographic battle, drowned in blood and tears," if Israel did not make territorial concessions. As a new administration in Washington seeks to revive the peace process, the demographic question has again moved front and center. Citing Israel's eroding demographic position, New York Times columnist Roger Cohen urged Secretary of State-designate Hillary Clinton to try "tough love" to force Israeli concessions. Proponents of the argument that demography mandates concessions might be sincere, but they get the science wrong. Not only does demography not show an imminent Jewish minority in Israel, but even a cursory look at Palestinian numbers shows just how false and politically motivated recent Palestinian surveys are.
On February 9, 2008, Luay Shabaneh, the new president of the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS), published the results of a December 2007 Palestinian Authority population census. According to the new data, since 1997, the Arab population has increased to 1,460,000 in the Gaza Strip and 2,300,000 in the West Bank (including 208,000 in East Jerusalem) to a total of 3,760,000 people—an increase of 30 percent in one decade. East Jerusalem is under Israel's administration, but the Palestinian Authority nevertheless counts its Arab population as part of the territory it administers. Thus, the East Jerusalem Arabs are double-counted: once as part of the Arab population of Israel, and again as a part of the population of the Palestinian Authority.
The 30 percent population increase again caused renewed demographic panic in Israel. According to a BBC news report, Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert said that failure to negotiate a two-state solution with the Palestinians would bring the end of the State of Israel.
But unlike what had happened during previous demographic panics, Israeli experts began to raise serious questions about the accuracy of the census. Such questions had been a long time in coming: Most of the middle- and long-term demographic forecasts for Israel, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip—formulated by demographers over the last 110 years—have turned out to be unsound, often dramatically so. This is due to the fact that long-term military, political, economic, and social changes in the region particularly, and in the world in general, cannot be accurately predicted; what is presented with a patina of scientific legitimacy is often simply someone's best guess. Added to this problem is a more troublesome one: Population statistics and birth rates play such an important role in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict—from the way that foreign aid is allocated to Israel's decision to hold or relinquish territory—that those attempting to manipulate the perceptions of both the public and policymakers are irresistibly drawn to the field.
Those who questioned the new Palestinian census were correct: The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics' demographic data arrived at its data not through objective scientific inquiry but rather by overstating the size of the Arab population residing in the territories administered by the Palestinian Authority.
The History of Demographic Forecasts
In a March 1898 letter, the famous Jewish historian, Simon Dubnow, criticized Zionist ideas, writing,
During seventeen years of tense work to encourage substantial emigration, after the expense of vast means and with the help of millions donated by Rothschild, we managed to place on the land of Palestine only about 3,600 settlers, which makes up approximately 211 people per year. Let us allow that the Western Zionist committees will work with significantly larger capitals and energy and will move to Palestine not two hundred, but one thousand settlers annually … then in a hundred years the Jewish population of Palestine will reach one hundred thousand men. Let's increase this number five times and add to this the natural increase and inflow of the industrial population to the cities, then we shall receive about a half million Jews in Palestine after one hundred years … Certainly, all of us treasure the hope to see at the beginning of the twenty-first century about a half-million of our brothers living in our ancient homeland, but can it solve the problem of 10 millions Jews, who are dispersed?
In May 1948, only fifty years after Dubnow's projections, the Jews in Palestine already numbered 649,600 people.
Such mistaken projections, however, have been the rule rather than the exception. At the end of 1944, Roberto Bachi presented to the Jewish National Council, the main institution of the Jewish community during the British Mandate, a secret demographic report that included four forecasts: optimistic and pessimistic, and with Jewish immigration as a variable. Bachi based his forecasts on the existing demographic data for 1938-42 and on estimates of trends that could be accepted as reasonable. He assumed that Arab fertility for the ensuing sixty years would continue to be very high (seven children or more per woman) or that it would decrease only slightly (six children per woman). He also assumed that Jewish fertility would remain at about two children per woman but might increase slightly to three children per woman. He also predicted that Jewish immigration might bring about one million Jews to Israel during the five to fifteen years starting from 1946.
These estimates could not be treated as prophecy, wrote Bachi, since the differences between reality and forecast increase as the projected time period lengthens. According to Bachi's pessimistic scenario, by 1971, the population of Palestine would include 2,467,000 Arabs and 604,000 Jews without Jewish immigration or 1,695,000 Jews should there have been one million Jewish immigrants. According to Bachi's more optimistic forecasts, the population of Palestine in the same year could consist of 2,186,000 Arabs and 698,000 Jews without immigration or 1,898,000 Jews with a million Jewish immigrants.
Fast-forward to 1971. Israel controlled the whole territory of the former British Mandate in Palestine, and 2,662,000 Jews already lived in Israel—about half a million more than in Bachi's most optimistic projection. The Arab population stood at 1,460,000, about one million fewer than he had predicted. Then in 1972, Bachi predicted, as he had in 1956, that immigration to Israel would stop as the Jews of the West were indifferent and the Jews of the Soviet Union were forever trapped. Nevertheless, over the next seven years, more than a quarter million Jews migrated to Israel.
His projections for 2001 were similarly off-base: According to the pessimistic forecast, the population of Palestine in 2001 would comprise 5,871,000 Arabs and 563,000 Jews without immigration or 1,580,000 Jews with a million Jewish immigrants. Following his optimistic forecast, the population of Palestine in 2001 should have been 4,415,000 Arabs and 831,000 Jews without immigration or 2,258,000 Jews with a million Jewish immigrants.
The reality was quite different. The Jewish population reached 5,025,010, nine times more than his pessimistic projection, and 2.2 times more than his most optimistic forecast. When combined with the immigrant population from the former Soviet Union, the total comprised 5,281,300 people The total Arab population reached 3,570,000, some 1,300,000, or 39 percent less than Bachi's projection for 2001.
Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics forecast in 1968 that, by 1985, the Jewish population would increase to 2,923,000, and the Arab population would rise to 49 percent of Israel's total population. In reality, there were 3,517,200 Jews in 1985, representing 62.7 percent of the total population.
Amidst the 1987 Palestinian uprising against Israeli control in the West Bank and Gaza, demographic predictions—no matter how sloppy—became the stuff of headlines. In 1987, the Israeli newspaper Yedi'ot Aharanot quoted Arnon Sofer's bombshell forecast: "In the year 2000, Israel will become non-Jewish." The New York Times' Thomas Friedman picked up Sofer's prediction and ran with it in an 1800-word, page one story. Sofer claimed that by 2000 there would be "4.2 million Jews versus 3.5 million non-Jews. The 3.5 million Arabs would include: 1.2 million Israeli Arabs within the Green Line, one million Arabs in the Gaza Strip, and between 1.1 and 1.5 million in the West Bank." Sofer's tally indicated for 2000 a range of between 2.1 to 2.5 million Arabs in the Palestinian territories.
Putting aside the fact that the figures did not justify the headlines proclaiming a Jewish minority, Sofer actually miscalculated the Arab population twice: First, by using the 1986 Central Bureau of Statistics forecast made for 2002 for all Arabs—defined officially as citizens and permanent residents of the State of Israel, including East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights—as the Arab population of Israel only "within the Green Line," i.e., exclusive of East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights; and, second, by folding the Arab population of East Jerusalem into the forecast of the Arab population in the Palestinian territories. Then, he presented the forecast for the West Bank and Gaza Strip including East Jerusalem, as it was usually done by the U.N., CIA, and Palestinian sources. In effect, this results in double counting the East Jerusalem population, first as permanent residents of the State of Israel and then as the residents of Palestinian territory.
A month later, Sofer explained his forecast: "Without even considering birth rates, to make up one percentage point today, we need an additional 170,000 Jews ...Who among us really expects that sort of aliya (migration to Israel) in the near future?" Two years later, though, just such a migration occurred, underlining the inability of the demographers to forecast political developments. Over the ensuing decade, more than one million Jews were repatriated to Israel from the former Soviet Union. Including mixed Jewish families, this wave of immigration totaled 1.2 million people and increased Israel's Jewish population by 31 percent. Demographic prediction is such an uncertain science that even Israeli specialists get it wrong repeatedly.
A Demographic Intifada
Palestinian Arab numbers have always been spotty. There is very little historical data. As University of Illinois economics professor Fred M. Gottheil has noted,
Palestinian demography of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries has never been just a matter of numbers. It has always been—and consciously so—a frontline weapon used in a life-and-death struggle for nationhood … The problem with staking so much on so narrow a focus as past demography is that the data generated by demographers and others since the early nineteenth century are so lacking in precision that, in some matters of dispute concerning demography, "anyone's guess," as the saying goes, "is as good as any other."
Justin McCarthy, a University of Louisville historian with a specialization in demography, notes that Israel's 1967 census of Gaza's population was the first in more than thirty-five years; before that census, procedures were not rigorous. At best, McCarthy notes, pre-1967 counts of Palestinian Arabs are "estimations" although he also notes that subsequent Israeli-conducted censuses were scientific and objective.
In 1997, three years after the Oslo accords handed control of large portions of the West Bank and Gaza to the Palestine Authority, the Palestinians conducted their first independent census, according to which the Arab population numbered 2,895,683 people: 1,873,476 in the West Bank (including 210,209 in East Jerusalem) and 1,022,207 in the Gaza Strip. It also included 325,253 Arab emigrants contradicting international standards regarding the enlistment of only permanent residents in the population registry. According to the "U.N. Principles and Recommendations for Population and Housing Censuses," people to be enumerated by the census are defined as "usual residents":
Usual residents may have citizenship or not, and they may also include undocumented persons, applicants for asylum, or refugees. Usual residents then may include foreigners who reside, or intend to reside, in the country continuously for either most of the last 12 months or for 12 months or more, depending on the definition of place of usual residence that is adopted by the country. Persons who may consider themselves usual residents of a country because of citizenship or family ties, but are absent from the country for either most of the last 12 months, or for 12 months or more, depending on the definition adopted, should be excluded.
Even without contesting the professionalism of the count itself, the Arab population stood, in fact, at only 2,360,231 people when the East Jerusalem and emigrant Arabs are subtracted.
Yet the numbers of the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics themselves seem improbably high. According to data released by the Israeli census bureau at the end of 1993, the Arab population numbered 1,084,400 in the West Bank and 748,400 in the Gaza Strip, for a total of 1,832,800. If the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics census was accurate, the Arab population in the Palestinian territories increased by an astonishing 527,431 people, or 29 percent, in only four years. In order to reach such phenomenal population growth, the geometrical mean of the annual growth rate would have to be an improbable 6.6 percent per year during this period.
U.N. data for 2006 indicate that the natural growth of the Arab population in the West Bank and Gaza Strip was much smaller: an annual average of 3.89 percent per year between 1990 and 1995, 3.7 percent between 1995 and 2000, and 3.56 percent per year between 2000 and 2005. Even these U.N. estimates may be high, as they accepted Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics data uncritically.
In contrast, a 2003 study conducted by this author demonstrated that the Palestinian population grew by about one million people from 1990 to 2000. By coincidence, this figure seemingly offsets the mass immigration to Israel from the former Soviet Union during the 1990s. The study found that Palestinian data suggested that the Arab population had doubled and that the Palestinian Arab population nominal growth was actually larger than the Jewish population growth at the time of the migration of Soviet Jews to Israel. Given the strain and management problem that a population growth of 31.2 percent represented for Israel, it defies logic that Palestinian growth could double without outside observers noticing. As McCarthy noted,
It is difficult to see how the agricultural or industrial base of Palestine can cope with the increased numbers that will result from high Palestinian fertility … Possessing neither the agricultural potential nor the economic base … Palestine can expect a demographic crisis.
This study prompted Haggai Segal, an Israel-based Ma'ariv, Makor Rishon, and BeSheva columnist, journalist, and commentator, to undertake additional investigation on this subject, which he published in BeSheva.
In 2005, an American and Israeli demography team headed by Bennett Zimmerman and Yoram Ettinger confirmed the 2003 findings and, again, criticized both the illegitimate inclusion of Arab emigrants from the Palestinian Authority and the double counting of the East Jerusalem Arab population. The Zimmerman and Ettinger study also revealed that, at the end of 2000, the Arab population in the West Bank and Gaza Strip numbered 2,246,000 people—1,280,000 in the West Bank and about 966,000 in the Gaza Strip.
According to the data provided by the Palestinian Authority at the end of 2005, in contrast, the population in the territories numbered 3,762,005—2,372,216 in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and 1,389,789 in the Gaza Strip. The Palestinian numbers get even stranger: According to estimates by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, in 2006, the population of the Palestinian Authority jumped to 3,952,354—an increase of 190,349 over the previous year, or more than 5 percent in a single year. Not only is this improbable but, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, the rates of natural population growth were half of this: 2.4 percent in 2003, 2.6 percent in 2004, and 2.5 percent in 2005.
In February 2005, the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics released a study conducted by Yousef Ibrahim, a professor of geography and population studies at al-Aqsa University in Gaza, which said that the Arab population would reach 6.3 million in 2010, compared to 5.7 million Jews, provided that the current growth ratios continued along the same pattern, consciously utilizing the words of Israeli demographic expert Sergio DellaPergola, who said that "the direction is quite obvious. Before the end of this decade, Jews will become a minority in the lands that include 'Israel,' West Bank and Gaza Strip." The Atlantic, a widely read American monthly, asked shrilly, "Will Israel Live to 100?"
Then, in December 2006, the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics issued a statement asserting that a "population dichotomy at 5.7 million is expected at the end of 2010," i.e., that in 2010 the number of Palestinian would be equal to the number of the Jews, a discrepancy of 600,000 in less than two years.
In February 2008, the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistic, using data from the Palestinian Authority's December 2007 census, found that the population of the Palestinian Authority reached 3,760,000 people: 1,460,000 in the Gaza Strip and 2,300,000 in the West Bank, including 208,000 in East Jerusalem, an increase of 30 percent from 1997. But, according to these data, the population in East Jerusalem is 2,209 less than it was in 1997. This report provoked harsh criticism from the Palestinian Authority, which demanded that these "distortions" be "corrected." Hatem Abdel Kader, an adviser on Jerusalem affairs to Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad, said he did not believe the Jerusalem figures were reliable and that the Palestinian Authority believed that census takers had failed to visit many households.
Once again, by coincidence, the results of the population census for the end of 2007 were almost identical to the estimates of the Palestinian Authority at the end of 2005. What happened to the 192,354 people that existed according to the estimates of the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics at the end of 2006? Two answers are possible: During 2007, there was a massive emigration of Arabs from the Palestinian territories, unprecedented since the Six-Day War, and the results were registered in the population census; or this was a crude manipulation of the data and estimates of the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, especially the gaps in their data for 2005 and 2006. The latter is more plausible. As Hassan Abu Libdeh, director of the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics in the 1990s, told The New York Times, "In my opinion, [the data] is as important as the intifada. It is a civil intifada." Indeed, such an attitude explains why the Palestinian Authority's Ministry of Health has erased from their Internet site official reports containing demographic data since 2000, which might contradict the Palestinian leadership's current line.
The 2007 census clearly shows that the yearly growth rate of the Arab population, according to a calculation of the annual geometric mean over the last ten years, should have been 2.66 percent. By extending this 10-year period to fourteen years, and basing calculations on the data of the Israeli census bureau for the population of the Palestinian territories for the end of 1993, the population of these areas should, in fact, stand at 2,646,871—1,113,129 fewer than the 2007 Palestinian census. The difference between the likely actual Palestinian population and the results of the two Palestinian censuses (1997 and 2007) is probably around one million people, just as the Zimmerman and Ettinger study showed four years ago. The major data distortion was made in 1997, and then the overstated population number became the basis for the future estimates.
Conclusions
On May 15, 2008, Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics president Luay Shabaneh claimed that the Arab population in Palestine would become equal to the Jewish population by 2016, echoing similar predictions of an impending Jewish minority by earlier generations of demographers and analysts: Bachi in 1944, Patrick Loftus in 1947, Bachi again in 1968, Pinkhas Sapir in 1973, Sofer in 1987, DellaPergola in 2005, and the Palestinian bureau in 2005 and 2006.
Then, three months after this last Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics statement, DellaPergola once again postponed his previous projection of Arab and Jewish populations reaching equality from 2010 to 2020. From DellaPergola's statement, it seems that the gap of one million persons could be closed in ten years, making necessary an additional annual yearly increase of 100,000 Arabs, more than double the current numbers. But, far from doubling, Arab fertility and natural increase are decreasing following the demographic transition rules.
Why fudge the numbers? There are two important reasons: First, overstating the Palestinian population is good for Palestinian morale, bad for Israeli morale, and heightens Jewish fears of the so-called "demographic time bomb"; second, there is a significant financial incentive, as the international community provides money to the Palestinian Authority according to the number of its inhabitants. When the Palestinian Authority pads its population numbers, the Palestinian Authority receives more money.
Careful demographic analysis, however, should lead to a conclusion in stark contrast to the demographic time bomb thesis. The natural increase of the Jewish population in Israel—that is, its yearly birth rate less its yearly death rate—stabilized thirty years ago and, since 2002, has even begun to grow. The natural increase of the total Arab population, comprising both Israeli Arabs and the Arabs of the West Bank and Gaza, continues to descend toward convergence with the Jewish population, probably in the latter half of this century.
The data, moreover, point to rising levels of Arab emigration, particularly among young people. According to the survey conducted by Bir-Zeit University, 32 percent of all Palestinians and 44 percent of Palestinian youth would emigrate if they could. The official Palestinian newspaper Al-Hayat al-Jadida has reported similar numbers. A public opinion poll conducted by the Near East Consulting Corporation in the Gaza Strip reveals an even higher rate—47 percent of all Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Translated into numbers of people, as of 2006, more than a million Arabs in the Palestinian territories wish to emigrate. As journalist Amit Cohen noted in 2007, "Close to 14,000 Palestinians, more than 1 percent of the population in the Strip, have left the Gaza Strip since the implementation of the withdrawal program, largely for financial reasons.
In an interview reported in the pan-Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat around the same time, Salam Fayyad, head of the Emergency Palestinian Government, commented: "How will we be able to deal with the problem of 40,000 to 50,000 Palestinians who have emigrated and many more that are not emigrating just because they do not have the means? We are losing in this respect."
The misuse of demography has been one of the most prominent, yet unexamined, aspects of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Many Israelis have so thoroughly absorbed the repeated claims of a diminishing Jewish majority that they do not consider whether their conventional wisdom is false. Before an accurate demographic picture of Israel and the Palestinian territories trickles down to the consciousness of the residents of the region, it must first be understood by Israeli and Palestinian policymakers, academics, and journalists, who need accurate, factual information to do their jobs. The impact on the conflict of such a development would be substantial.
Yakov Faitelson is the author of Demographic Trends in the Land of Israel, 1800-2007 (Israeli Institute for Zionist Strategies (IZS), 2008).
Source: Middle East Forum
Arabian Sex Tourism
Indian media have been publishing exposés documenting the foul behavior of Gulf Arabs in the southern Indian town of Hyderabad. "Fly-by-night bridegrooms" by R Akhileshwari in the Deccan Herald and "One minor girl, many Arabs" by Mohammed Wajihuddin in the Times of India are two important examples. Wajihuddin sets the stage:
They are old predators with new vigour. Often bearded, invariably in flowing robes and expensive turbans. The rich, middle-aged Arabs increasingly stalk the deprived streets of Hyderabad like medieval monarchs would stalk their harems in days that we wrongly think are history. These Viagra-enabled Arabs are perpetrating a blatant crime under the veneer of nikaah, the Islamic rules of marriage.
(I have silently corrected some typos). Wajihuddin then specifies the problem:
Misusing the sanctioned provision which allows a Muslim man to have four wives at a time, many old Arabs are not just marrying minors in Hyderabad, but marrying more than one minor in a single sitting. "The Arabs prefer teenage, virgin brides," says Jameela Nishat, who counsels and sensitises young women against the malaise.
The Arabs usually "marry" the girls for short periods, sometimes just a single night. In fact, Wajihuddin reports, marriage and divorce formalities are often prepared at the same time, thereby expediting the process for all involved. Akhileshwari notes that "their girl children are available for as little as 5,000 rupees to satisfy the lust of doddering old Arab men." Five thousand rupees, by the way, equals just a bit over US$100.
An Indian television program recently reported on a show-casing of eight prospective brides, most of them minors, at which they were offered up to their Arab suitors. "It resembled a brothel. The girls were paraded before the Arab who would lift the girls' burqa, run his fingers through their hair, gaze at their figures and converse through an interpreter," recalls one of Nishat's assistants.
Wajihuddin also offers a specific case history:
On the first of August, forty-five-year-old Al Rahman Ismail Mirza Abdul Jabbar, a sheikh from the UAE, approached a broker in these matters, seventy-year-old Zainab Bi, in the walled city, near the historic Char Minar. The broker procured Farheen Sultana and Hina Sultana, aged between thirteen and fifteen, for twenty thousand rupees [DP comment: that equals US$450]. Then he hired Qazi [DP comment: an Islamic judge, usually spelled qadi in English] Mohammed Abdul Waheed Qureshi to solemnise the marriage. The qazi, taking advantage of an Islamic provision, married the girls off to the Arab. After the wedding night with the girls, the Arab left at dawn.
So much for that "marriage."
Sunita Krishnan, head of an anti human-trafficking organization, Prajwala, makes the only too-obvious point that girl children are not valued. "If a girl child is sold or her life ruined, it is not a national loss, that's why this is a non-issue, both for community and to society." With the exception of Maulana Hameeduddin Aqil, the head of Millat-e-Islamia (a local organization, apparently not connected the notorious Pakistani terrorist group), who speaks out against these sham marriages ("They are committing a sin. It's not nikaah, it's prostitution by another name"), the Islamic authorities in India are almost all silent about this travesty of the Shari'a.
For their part, Muslim politicians in the city of Hyderabad apparently could care less. "It's not on the poll agenda of any politician," says Mazhar Hussain, director of a social welfare organization, the Confederation of Voluntary Associations. The Majlis-e-Ittihadul Muslameen, the main party of Hyderabad's Muslims, is blissfully unconcerned: "You cannot deny that the fortunes of many families have changed through such marriages," MIM's president, Sultan Salahuddin Owaisi, cheerfully points out.
Comments:
(1) Ironically, the girls thus proffered appear all to be Muslim – no Hindus or others need apply.
(2) The behavior of Arabs in India in some way parallels that of Japanese and Westerners in Thailand, with the notable difference that the Indian case involves marriage, an emphasis on virginity, and local authorities seemingly pleased with providing their minor girls for sex tourism.
(3) Arabian sex tourism is not exclusive to India but also takes place in other poor countries.
(4) This trade in persons is merely one dimension of a problem that prevails through Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states (for another dimension, see "Saudis Import Slaves to America").
(5) Concubinage, forced labor, indentured servitude, slavery – these deep problems are nowhere near being addressed in the Gulf region, much less solved. Indeed, one prominent Saudi theologian has gone so far as to state that "Slavery is a part of Islam" and whoever says it should be abolished "is an infidel." So long as such attitudes can be articulated publicly, without censure, abuses are certain to continue.
(6) The hypocrisy of this trade is perhaps its vilest aspect. Better prostitution, frankly acknowledged, than religiously-sanctioned fake marriages, for the former is understood to be a vice while the latter parades as a virtue.
(7) Wajihuddin compares the Arabian men to "medieval monarchs" and the analogy is apt. These transactions, involving Muslim minors and conducted under the auspices of Islamic law, point yet again to the dominance of premodern ways in the Muslim world and the urgent need to modernize the Islamic religion.
_________
Oct. 7, 2005 update: A bibliography of my writings on "Sex and gender relations" provides background to the problem described here. See especially "Female Desire and Islamic Trauma."
Oct. 8, 2005 update: A reader points out the irony of men from the U.A.E. going to India in search of sex when Dubai, the largest U.A.E. city itself is notorious for its sex trade. On this, see Peyman Pejman, "U.A.E.: Muslim Federation Of States Is Hub of International Prostitution."
Feb. 21, 2006 update: The Abdul Jabbar story above is told differently by the Times of India in "80-year-old Arab buys Indian bride for Rs 10 k":
In August last year, two minor girls were married to a middle-aged Arab from the UAE in one sitting by a cleric. However, the girls escaped from his clutches. The Arab, Shaik Al Rahama Ismail Mirza Abdul Jabbar fled the country. Police had then arrested the cleric and the broker and claimed that the marriage racket had international ramifications.
The same article also provides a host of other examples, including the title case involving a 27-year-old Indian bride bought for US$225 and a variety of other travesties.
June 29, 2006 update: One hardly knows whether to cry or laugh on learning the comments of Indonesia's Vice President Jusuf Kalla at a travel industry seminar on attracting more Arab visitors to Indonesia.
Kalla noted that many Arab tourists currently traveled to Puncak - a hill town near Jakarta notorious for prostitution, where signs in Arabic at restaurants and hotels testify to the its popularity with Arabs - to enter into short-term marriage contracts with Indonesian women. "We need different kinds of marketing campaigns, more targeted. At the moment most Arabs go to Puncak. If they go there looking for widows or divorcees that is not our business, it is not a problem. So what if the man goes home, the lady gets a small house, that is good isn't it?"
Aug. 16, 2008 update: Summer "tourist marriages" are emerging as a pattern during the summer months, when Saudis travel to Indonesia to escape the heat and some men marry local women only to abandon them in the fall. The marriages are facilitated by matchmakers with albums of pictures of potential wives, which customers can select for SR2000 or US$530.
In one instance, reports the Saudi Gazette, relying on information in Al-Watan from Faraj Al-Dawseri of the Saudi Embassy, four young Saudis married four Indonesian girls in the town of Bandon but then
alleged the marriages were unofficial because they did not acquire a permit from the Ministry of the Interior in Saudi Arabia and instead the marriages were officiated by a mosque's Imam in the presence of the girls' father. They alleged they did not deceive their father-in-law because they declared the marriages were only being conducted to "protect them from temptation." They also said they were being cautious not to father children with the women because the marriages were strictly "tourist marriages."
The result of such marriages, according to Dawseri, are thousands of children in Indonesia abandoned by their Saudi fathers. The embassy facilitates contact between the Saudis and their abandoned wives and children; often, Indonesian families settle for payments of SR2,000.
Apr. 18, 2009 update: According to Khaled Al-Arrak, director of Saudi affairs at the Saudi Embassy in Jakarta, misyar (temporary) marriages between Saudi sex tourists and Indonesian women are commonplace. "Some poor Indonesians marry off their girls to Saudis hoping it would put an end to their poverty and miseries." In fact, these are temporary marriages that end within days, often leaving the women with unwanted children. The Saudi Embassy in Jakarta received 82 calls last year regarding children of Saudis who had married Indonesian women and then abandoned them. So far this year, it has received 18 such calls.
The artcle P.K. Abdul Ghafour in the Arab News tells about Aysha Noor, 22, an Indonesian woman from Sikka Bhumi, 160 km east of Jakarta.
She said that her parents married her to a young Saudi man when she was 16, thinking it would be a blessing for the family and end their poverty. "We in Indonesia consider people of Makkah and Madinah as blessed ones. The man gave me a dowry of six million Indonesian rupiahs [US$540]. The dowry helped us to solve some of our economic problems. My family did not know that the man was intending to have a temporary marriage." She adds: "After a few days he paid us the remaining amount of three million rupiahs [US$270] and left the country." Noor said she later had a similar marriage with another Saudi before finding a job at a nightclub as a singer and dancer.
The consul for information at the Indonesian Consulate in Jeddah, S.P. Dharmakirty, confirmed the problem of temporary marriages involving Saudi men and Indonesian women. "Indonesian authorities have taken appropriate measures to curb this practice," adding that some people involved in such illegal marriages have been detained.
Source:Daniel Pipes
Monday, April 13, 2009
Al-Azhar Lecturer Suspended after Issuing Controversial Fatwa Recommending Breastfeeding of Men by Women in the Workplace
The head of the Hadith Department in Al-AzharUniversity, Dr. Izzat Atiyya, recently issued a controversial fatwa dealing with breastfeeding of adults. The fatwa stated that a woman who is required to work in private with a man not of her immediate family - a situation that is forbidden by Islamic law - can resolve the problem by breastfeeding the man, which, according to shari'a, turns him into a member of her immediate family.
The fatwa sparked a storm of protest in the Egyptian public arena, especially within the religious establishment. It was harshly criticized by Muslim Brotherhood MPs, who even brought it up for discussion in parliament, as well as by Egyptian intellectuals and columnists.
In response, Al-AzharUniversity formed a special committee to debate the fatwa, and on the recommendation of this committee, Dr. Atiyya was suspended. The Egyptian information minister ordered the removal from sellers' shelves of the issue of the government weekly Al-Watani Al-Yawm in which the fatwa had been published.
Dr. Atiyya, on his part, published a retraction and apologized, saying that the fatwa was no more than a personal interpretation of a certain hadith, and furthermore, that the hadith in questionrelates a particular incident that occurred under specific constraints, and has no general applicability. However, Al-Azhar refused to accept his apology.
Head of the Al-Azhar Hadith Department: Breastfeeding Allows a Woman to Be With a Man in Private
Dr. Izzat Atiyya explained his fatwa in an interview with Al-Watani Al-Yawm, the weekly of Egypt's ruling National Democratic Front party. He said: "The religious ruling that appears in the Prophet's conduct [Sunna] confirms that breastfeeding allows a man and a woman to be together in private, even if they are not family and if the woman did not nurse the man in his infancy, before he was weaned - providing that their being together serves some purpose, religious or secular...
"Being together in private means being in a room with the door closed, so that nobody can see them... A man and a woman who are not family members are not permitted [to do this], because it raises suspicions and doubts. A man and a woman who are alone together are not [necessarily] having sex, but this possibility exists, and breastfeeding provides a solution to this problem... I also insist that the breastfeeding relationship be officially documented in writing... The contract will state that this woman has suckled this man... After this, the woman may remove her hijab and expose her hair in the man's [presence]...
Dr. Atiyya further explained that the breastfeeding does not necessarily have to be done by the woman herself. "The important point," he said, "is that the man and the woman must be related through breastfeeding. [This can also be achieved] by means of the man's mother or sister suckling the woman, or by means of the woman's mother or sister suckling the man, since [all of these solutions legally] turn them into brother and sister...
"The logic behind [the concept] of breastfeeding an adult is to transform the bestial relationship between [two people] into a religious relationship based on [religious] duties... Since [this] breastfeeding takes place between [two] adults, the man is still permitted to marry the woman [who breastfed him], whereas [a woman] who nursed [a man] in his infancy is not permitted to marry him...
"The adult must suckle directly from the [woman's] breast... [This according to a hadith attributed to Aisha, wife of the Prophet's Muhammad], which tells of Salem [the adopted son of Abu Hudheifa] who was breastfed by Abu-Hudheifa's wife when he was already a grown man with a beard, by the Prophet's order... Other methods, such as [transferring] the milk to a container, are [less desirable]...
"[As for the possibility of using a breast-pump, which] increases the production of the milk glands... that is a matter for doctors and religious scholars who must determine if the milk [thus produced] is real milk, i.e., if its composition is identical to that of the [woman's] original milk. If it is, this method is permissible...
Dr. Atiyya also said: "The fact that the hadith regarding the breastfeeding of an adult is inconceivable to the mind does not make it invalid. This is a reliable hadith, and rejecting it is tantamount to rejecting Allah's Messenger and questioning the Prophet's tradition."
Al-Azhar Examines the Fatwa, Suspends Dr. Atiyya
In response to the uproar caused by the fatwa, Al-Azhar university formed a committee of several experts on hadiths to investigate the matter. According to a senior Al-Azhar source, the university president also ordered Dr. Atiyya to publish an apology, and the latter complied and retracted his fatwa, explaining: "My statements on the issue of breastfeeding an adult were based on the imams Ibn Hazm, Ibn Taymiyya, Ibn Al-Qayyim, Al-Shawkani and Amin Khattab [Al-Subki], and on conclusions I drew from the statements of Ibn Hajar [Al-Askalani]. However, I hold that only the breastfeeding of an infant creates a family relationship [that prohibits marriage between the parties and allows them to be together], as the Four Imams [i.e., the founders of the four Sunni legal schools] said, while the [act of] breastfeeding a grown man [mentioned in the hadith] was a [specific] incident that came to serve a [specific] purpose, and the fatwa I issued was based solely on my personal interpretation. Based on what I have learned with my brothers the religious scholars, I apologize for my earlier [statements] and retract my opinion, which contradicts [the norms accepted] by the public."
However, the Al-Azhar Supreme Council, headed by Al-Azhar Sheikh Dr. Muhammad Sayyid Tantawi, refused to accept Dr. Atiyya's apology, saying, "We must not be too lax in matters of religion, especially when the matter at hand is a fatwa that significantly affects people's actual lives, inclinations, and views - because it speaks to their natural emotions which [lead them to] embrace what is permitted and shun prohibitions." Tantawi said, "Society cannot tolerate [a fatwa] that undermines its religious stability. There is enough chaos with all the unsupervised fatwas [published] on some satellite channels. We will never permit this chaos to spread to the religious establishment and to Al-Azhar."
By the recommendation of the special committee formed to examine the fatwa, Al-Azhar decided to suspend Dr. Atiyya pending further investigation of his case.
Egyptian Minister of Religious Endowments Dr. Muhammad Hamdi Zaqzouq likewise criticized the fatwa, saying: "Fatwas like these harm Islam, serve our enemies and push the public towards backwardness and ignorance."
*PUBLIC UPROAR OVER DR. ATIYYA'S FATWA
Muslim Brotherhood MPs: This is an Erroneous Fatwa
The issue of breastfeeding adults was brought up for debate in the Egyptian parliament. Sabri Khalaf Allah from Muslim Brotherhood bloc in the parliament told the Al-Arabiyya TV website that some 50 MPs had discussed the issue, had expressed concern over the fact that the fatwa had been published in the media, but had refrained from submitting a parliamentary question in order to avoid creating too big an uproar.
Dr. Sayyid Askar, a Muslim Brotherhood MP and former member of the Academy of Islamic Studies, said that the hadith on which the fatwa is based is indeed authentic and valid, but that the accepted view among Muslim scholars is that it refers to a specific case and cannot be applied to other cases. Therefore, he concluded, Dr. Attiya's fatwa is an erroneous fatwa that goes against the consensus. "In our modern society," he added, "it makes no sense to talk of breastfeeding adults."
Intellectuals Object: The Koran Forbids the Breastfeeding of Adults
Dr. Abd Al-Fatah Asaker, who studies Muslim tradition, denied the validity of the hadith on which the fatwa is based, claiming it is nonsense and criticized the publication of Abd Al-Qadir's book which regarded it as valid. In an interview withAl-Watani Al-Yawm, he said: "Would Dr. Abd Al-Mahdi [Abd Al-Qadr] agree [to let] his wife, daughter, sister or even his mother breastfeed a grown man - whether a stranger or a family member? Would the Muslim scholars [want people] to say that their wives breastfeed any man who comes along?
Asaker argued that the hadiths of Muslim tradition, even those that appear [in reliable compilations like those of] Al-Bukhari and Muslim, are invalid if they contradict what is said in the Koran, which states: "Mothers shall suckle their children for two whole years; [that is] for those who wish to complete the [full period of] suckling [Koran 2:233]." Asaker argued that after this period ends, breastfeeding is forbidden, and added that the story of Salem is a legend spread by the enemies of Islam with the aim of discrediting Aisha, to whom the hadith is attributed. "It is inconceivable," he concluded, "that Islam, which commands the believing [men and women] to lower their eyes [in modesty], should permit a strange man to place his mouth on the breast of a married woman and suckle from [it]."
Liberal Muslim thinker Gamal Al-Banna argued that, in ancient times, the issue of breastfeeding adults was not sensitive, but today times and perceptions have changed. He added, "We always call [to distinguish] within Islamic tradition [between] hadiths which were published in [certain] circumstances that have changed [and hadiths that remain valid]..."
Egyptian Columnist: The Fatwa Reflects Intellectual Petrifaction
Al-Sayyid Abd Al-Rauf, former editor of the Egyptian religious government weekly Aqidati, wrote in his regular column: "Strange and bizarre fatwas [like the one published by Dr. Atiyya]… sometimes stem from a desire to gain publicity by unusual means that lie outside the consensus, and [sometimes stem] from failure to understand the [current] reality of the Islamic nation. The reality of the modern world, with all its struggles and changes, requires new outlooks that acknowledge the Islamic legal tradition and maintain its principles, [but at the same time] deal with the changes in [this tradition] - in accordance with the principle that fatwas must change with time and place.
"In some instances, fatwas like this also reflect a frozen outlook, a petrified point of view, and an insistence on drawing conclusions from an incident that occurred to specific individuals in specific circumstances, applying them to a different reality, and [then] publicizing [this] ruling…
"Some clerics are dragging the nation back [into the past] or are spreading opinions that provoke conflicts and struggles. Some do it to satisfy the rulers, whether in quest for power, publicity and money or out of belief in ancient opinions, and without exercising their own minds…"
Uproar in Ruling Party Weekly over Publication of Fatwa
The interview with Dr. Atiyya published in Al-Watani Al-Yawm, the weekly of the ruling National Democratic Party, caused an uproar among party members, and the Egyptian information minister ordered that the issue with the interview be removed from sellers' shelves. Dr. Ali Al-Din Hilal, member of the party's general secretariat, said: "Al-Watani Al-Yawm is the newspaper of the party, which expresses its ideas and opinions." Hilal decried the publication of Dr. Atiyya's opinions, saying that "they are damaging to all of us, especially since we bring them into our homes, and our children read them." Many party members sent faxes to the party secretariat in which they expressed their opposition to the articles on the fatwa in Al-Watani Al-Yawm. They claimed that these articles were damaging to the newspaper and to party members, especially during the elections campaign, when there are more people looking out for the party's mistakes."
In response, Al-Watani Al-Yawm published a clarification: "We emphasize that we are opposed to the fatwa. When we published it... our aim was to direct attention to the existence of such ideas in Al-Azhar, [and to the fact that these ideas] are to be studied in Al-Azhar in the coming year… We emphasize that our aim in publishing [the interview] was not to endorse the fatwa; rather, it was an attempt to bring [the fatwa] to the attention of the senior Al-Azhar scholars, so that they would investigate its author, especially since he is head of the Hadith Department in the Faculty of Theology, and the alumni [of this faculty] are thousands of preachers who occupy the pulpits of the mosques, and spread [the opinions] that they have learned to the public in Egypt and in the [rest of the] world. We hoped that Al-Azhar would speedily intervene and clarify the truth to the public…
"Since Dr. Atiyya has expressed very bold opinions on the Egyptian culture channel, which is broadcast into every Egyptian home - and this without needing [any] permit, as he is part of the Egyptian Information Ministry - and since his ideas were provocative to us, we saw it as [our] duty to approach him and discuss [his ideas] with him, and so we did… We recorded his answers on two tapes. Due to their boldness, we feared that he would [later] retract [them], so we asked him to write them out in his own handwriting. But he did not retract his ideas, [but] wrote us his bold opinions in his own hand…"
By: L. Lavi
The fatwa sparked a storm of protest in the Egyptian public arena, especially within the religious establishment. It was harshly criticized by Muslim Brotherhood MPs, who even brought it up for discussion in parliament, as well as by Egyptian intellectuals and columnists.
In response, Al-AzharUniversity formed a special committee to debate the fatwa, and on the recommendation of this committee, Dr. Atiyya was suspended. The Egyptian information minister ordered the removal from sellers' shelves of the issue of the government weekly Al-Watani Al-Yawm in which the fatwa had been published.
Dr. Atiyya, on his part, published a retraction and apologized, saying that the fatwa was no more than a personal interpretation of a certain hadith, and furthermore, that the hadith in questionrelates a particular incident that occurred under specific constraints, and has no general applicability. However, Al-Azhar refused to accept his apology.
Head of the Al-Azhar Hadith Department: Breastfeeding Allows a Woman to Be With a Man in Private
Dr. Izzat Atiyya explained his fatwa in an interview with Al-Watani Al-Yawm, the weekly of Egypt's ruling National Democratic Front party. He said: "The religious ruling that appears in the Prophet's conduct [Sunna] confirms that breastfeeding allows a man and a woman to be together in private, even if they are not family and if the woman did not nurse the man in his infancy, before he was weaned - providing that their being together serves some purpose, religious or secular...
"Being together in private means being in a room with the door closed, so that nobody can see them... A man and a woman who are not family members are not permitted [to do this], because it raises suspicions and doubts. A man and a woman who are alone together are not [necessarily] having sex, but this possibility exists, and breastfeeding provides a solution to this problem... I also insist that the breastfeeding relationship be officially documented in writing... The contract will state that this woman has suckled this man... After this, the woman may remove her hijab and expose her hair in the man's [presence]...
Dr. Atiyya further explained that the breastfeeding does not necessarily have to be done by the woman herself. "The important point," he said, "is that the man and the woman must be related through breastfeeding. [This can also be achieved] by means of the man's mother or sister suckling the woman, or by means of the woman's mother or sister suckling the man, since [all of these solutions legally] turn them into brother and sister...
"The logic behind [the concept] of breastfeeding an adult is to transform the bestial relationship between [two people] into a religious relationship based on [religious] duties... Since [this] breastfeeding takes place between [two] adults, the man is still permitted to marry the woman [who breastfed him], whereas [a woman] who nursed [a man] in his infancy is not permitted to marry him...
"The adult must suckle directly from the [woman's] breast... [This according to a hadith attributed to Aisha, wife of the Prophet's Muhammad], which tells of Salem [the adopted son of Abu Hudheifa] who was breastfed by Abu-Hudheifa's wife when he was already a grown man with a beard, by the Prophet's order... Other methods, such as [transferring] the milk to a container, are [less desirable]...
"[As for the possibility of using a breast-pump, which] increases the production of the milk glands... that is a matter for doctors and religious scholars who must determine if the milk [thus produced] is real milk, i.e., if its composition is identical to that of the [woman's] original milk. If it is, this method is permissible...
Dr. Atiyya also said: "The fact that the hadith regarding the breastfeeding of an adult is inconceivable to the mind does not make it invalid. This is a reliable hadith, and rejecting it is tantamount to rejecting Allah's Messenger and questioning the Prophet's tradition."
Al-Azhar Examines the Fatwa, Suspends Dr. Atiyya
In response to the uproar caused by the fatwa, Al-Azhar university formed a committee of several experts on hadiths to investigate the matter. According to a senior Al-Azhar source, the university president also ordered Dr. Atiyya to publish an apology, and the latter complied and retracted his fatwa, explaining: "My statements on the issue of breastfeeding an adult were based on the imams Ibn Hazm, Ibn Taymiyya, Ibn Al-Qayyim, Al-Shawkani and Amin Khattab [Al-Subki], and on conclusions I drew from the statements of Ibn Hajar [Al-Askalani]. However, I hold that only the breastfeeding of an infant creates a family relationship [that prohibits marriage between the parties and allows them to be together], as the Four Imams [i.e., the founders of the four Sunni legal schools] said, while the [act of] breastfeeding a grown man [mentioned in the hadith] was a [specific] incident that came to serve a [specific] purpose, and the fatwa I issued was based solely on my personal interpretation. Based on what I have learned with my brothers the religious scholars, I apologize for my earlier [statements] and retract my opinion, which contradicts [the norms accepted] by the public."
However, the Al-Azhar Supreme Council, headed by Al-Azhar Sheikh Dr. Muhammad Sayyid Tantawi, refused to accept Dr. Atiyya's apology, saying, "We must not be too lax in matters of religion, especially when the matter at hand is a fatwa that significantly affects people's actual lives, inclinations, and views - because it speaks to their natural emotions which [lead them to] embrace what is permitted and shun prohibitions." Tantawi said, "Society cannot tolerate [a fatwa] that undermines its religious stability. There is enough chaos with all the unsupervised fatwas [published] on some satellite channels. We will never permit this chaos to spread to the religious establishment and to Al-Azhar."
By the recommendation of the special committee formed to examine the fatwa, Al-Azhar decided to suspend Dr. Atiyya pending further investigation of his case.
Egyptian Minister of Religious Endowments Dr. Muhammad Hamdi Zaqzouq likewise criticized the fatwa, saying: "Fatwas like these harm Islam, serve our enemies and push the public towards backwardness and ignorance."
*PUBLIC UPROAR OVER DR. ATIYYA'S FATWA
Muslim Brotherhood MPs: This is an Erroneous Fatwa
The issue of breastfeeding adults was brought up for debate in the Egyptian parliament. Sabri Khalaf Allah from Muslim Brotherhood bloc in the parliament told the Al-Arabiyya TV website that some 50 MPs had discussed the issue, had expressed concern over the fact that the fatwa had been published in the media, but had refrained from submitting a parliamentary question in order to avoid creating too big an uproar.
Dr. Sayyid Askar, a Muslim Brotherhood MP and former member of the Academy of Islamic Studies, said that the hadith on which the fatwa is based is indeed authentic and valid, but that the accepted view among Muslim scholars is that it refers to a specific case and cannot be applied to other cases. Therefore, he concluded, Dr. Attiya's fatwa is an erroneous fatwa that goes against the consensus. "In our modern society," he added, "it makes no sense to talk of breastfeeding adults."
Intellectuals Object: The Koran Forbids the Breastfeeding of Adults
Dr. Abd Al-Fatah Asaker, who studies Muslim tradition, denied the validity of the hadith on which the fatwa is based, claiming it is nonsense and criticized the publication of Abd Al-Qadir's book which regarded it as valid. In an interview withAl-Watani Al-Yawm, he said: "Would Dr. Abd Al-Mahdi [Abd Al-Qadr] agree [to let] his wife, daughter, sister or even his mother breastfeed a grown man - whether a stranger or a family member? Would the Muslim scholars [want people] to say that their wives breastfeed any man who comes along?
Asaker argued that the hadiths of Muslim tradition, even those that appear [in reliable compilations like those of] Al-Bukhari and Muslim, are invalid if they contradict what is said in the Koran, which states: "Mothers shall suckle their children for two whole years; [that is] for those who wish to complete the [full period of] suckling [Koran 2:233]." Asaker argued that after this period ends, breastfeeding is forbidden, and added that the story of Salem is a legend spread by the enemies of Islam with the aim of discrediting Aisha, to whom the hadith is attributed. "It is inconceivable," he concluded, "that Islam, which commands the believing [men and women] to lower their eyes [in modesty], should permit a strange man to place his mouth on the breast of a married woman and suckle from [it]."
Liberal Muslim thinker Gamal Al-Banna argued that, in ancient times, the issue of breastfeeding adults was not sensitive, but today times and perceptions have changed. He added, "We always call [to distinguish] within Islamic tradition [between] hadiths which were published in [certain] circumstances that have changed [and hadiths that remain valid]..."
Egyptian Columnist: The Fatwa Reflects Intellectual Petrifaction
Al-Sayyid Abd Al-Rauf, former editor of the Egyptian religious government weekly Aqidati, wrote in his regular column: "Strange and bizarre fatwas [like the one published by Dr. Atiyya]… sometimes stem from a desire to gain publicity by unusual means that lie outside the consensus, and [sometimes stem] from failure to understand the [current] reality of the Islamic nation. The reality of the modern world, with all its struggles and changes, requires new outlooks that acknowledge the Islamic legal tradition and maintain its principles, [but at the same time] deal with the changes in [this tradition] - in accordance with the principle that fatwas must change with time and place.
"In some instances, fatwas like this also reflect a frozen outlook, a petrified point of view, and an insistence on drawing conclusions from an incident that occurred to specific individuals in specific circumstances, applying them to a different reality, and [then] publicizing [this] ruling…
"Some clerics are dragging the nation back [into the past] or are spreading opinions that provoke conflicts and struggles. Some do it to satisfy the rulers, whether in quest for power, publicity and money or out of belief in ancient opinions, and without exercising their own minds…"
Uproar in Ruling Party Weekly over Publication of Fatwa
The interview with Dr. Atiyya published in Al-Watani Al-Yawm, the weekly of the ruling National Democratic Party, caused an uproar among party members, and the Egyptian information minister ordered that the issue with the interview be removed from sellers' shelves. Dr. Ali Al-Din Hilal, member of the party's general secretariat, said: "Al-Watani Al-Yawm is the newspaper of the party, which expresses its ideas and opinions." Hilal decried the publication of Dr. Atiyya's opinions, saying that "they are damaging to all of us, especially since we bring them into our homes, and our children read them." Many party members sent faxes to the party secretariat in which they expressed their opposition to the articles on the fatwa in Al-Watani Al-Yawm. They claimed that these articles were damaging to the newspaper and to party members, especially during the elections campaign, when there are more people looking out for the party's mistakes."
In response, Al-Watani Al-Yawm published a clarification: "We emphasize that we are opposed to the fatwa. When we published it... our aim was to direct attention to the existence of such ideas in Al-Azhar, [and to the fact that these ideas] are to be studied in Al-Azhar in the coming year… We emphasize that our aim in publishing [the interview] was not to endorse the fatwa; rather, it was an attempt to bring [the fatwa] to the attention of the senior Al-Azhar scholars, so that they would investigate its author, especially since he is head of the Hadith Department in the Faculty of Theology, and the alumni [of this faculty] are thousands of preachers who occupy the pulpits of the mosques, and spread [the opinions] that they have learned to the public in Egypt and in the [rest of the] world. We hoped that Al-Azhar would speedily intervene and clarify the truth to the public…
"Since Dr. Atiyya has expressed very bold opinions on the Egyptian culture channel, which is broadcast into every Egyptian home - and this without needing [any] permit, as he is part of the Egyptian Information Ministry - and since his ideas were provocative to us, we saw it as [our] duty to approach him and discuss [his ideas] with him, and so we did… We recorded his answers on two tapes. Due to their boldness, we feared that he would [later] retract [them], so we asked him to write them out in his own handwriting. But he did not retract his ideas, [but] wrote us his bold opinions in his own hand…"
By: L. Lavi
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