Islamic terrorism: a result of what is being taught at madrassas

09/08/2005 08:10

Islamic terrorism: a result of what is being taught at madrassas
by Samir Khalil Samir
Part Three of the series “Islam and the West” by Fr Samir Khalil Samir, Egyptian Jesuit and professor of Arab and Islamic studies at Saint-Joseph University in Beirut.

Beirut (AsiaNews) — Terrorism is not the unexpected result of Islam, but the direct result of what is being taught at madrassas, traditional schools. And not only because many schools give training in terrorism and guerrilla warfare, but mainly because they educate in fundamentalism. They depict religion as the solution to any problem and look at the world and the West in an intransigent and radical way, through which the only solution is jihad, the destruction of the West and all that seems to conspire against religion.

Any fight against terrorism must take steps to change the traditionalist educational process which is in the hands of imams and which they are spreading throughout the world. I had the chance to meet the famous imam of Qatar, Yusuf Qaradawi: he is an intelligent and good man, open to dialogue with Christians. There is a lot, however, about him that is fundamentalistic. To give just one example, he justifies, without the least bit of concern, terrorist attacks against the people of Israel. Qaradawi speaks everyday on Qatari television, for over an hour, broadcasting his mentality. Like him, thousands of imams are teaching without much training and without having assimilated human sciences.

Islam: no authority, no secularity

There are two problems in Islamic teaching: in the first place, there is no recognized central authority. Not even Al Ahzar, Cairo’s illustrious university, is recognized by everyone. Thus imams and muftis (those who declare fatwas, juridical rulings) exist by the thousands. One has but to study a bit of Koran to claim status as a mufti. At one time, 30 years ago, this was not the case: each country had at most one mufti recognized by the entire nation. Instead, today, all imams claim to be muftis and each have their own followers.

The other problem is the teaching done by the ulemas (scholars, men of learning). In actual fact, these ulemas are “men of learning” only in one limited field: they have learned the Koran by heart, they have learned the thousands of sayings attributed to Mohammad; they have memorized thousands of the juridical rulings of a large number of imams. But they have never studied math, sociology, psychology, foreign literature, they are not able to read a book in a Western language. History is limited to the Islamic world; religions are studied only as a function of how to respond if Islam is criticized. It is a kind of study which is very restricted and closed in on itself. Al Ahzar University itself and all others in the world are characterized by this closed quality. They are therefore unable to analyze Western cultures, unable to understand situations that are different from those where Islam makes up the majority. And, in the end, they are unable to understand the world of Muslim Europe: their criteria are valid only for an Islamic world where everyone is Muslim. They are able to understand only this type of medieval situation. They cannot understand a secular society like Turkey. They wish therefore to label everything as Islamic: banks, politics, science, medicine etc.

When these imams arrive in the West, more than 90% of them at work in Western Europe do not speak the local language: they speak only Arabic, or Turkish, etc. They are detached from the culture of the country in which they actually live. So what can they possibly say to the young Muslims born in England, France, Germany? They can only repropose a medieval system, perhaps even updated, but they cannot work toward modernizing Islam, reproposing the split between religion and modern society.

There is no link between the normal studies done by a young Westerner and the studies done by their imams. It would be as if Catholic priests wished to evangelize the world studying just the Bible from the perspective of ancient considerations.

Troubled youth and fundamentalism

This explains why young people, educated within modernity, carried out terrorist acts in London. Most of them were and are normal youths, born in Great Britain. Then, inner troubles took them within range of those who preach fundamentalism. From Great Britain, they went to Pakistan to be educated in a madrassa (school). Essentially, they were trained in fundamentalism. Everyone says: it’s their right. But by analyzing this classical Muslim teaching, one can see that terrorism stems right from the type of education offered by these madrassas.

I repeat: terrorism stems from the type of education that they give — traditional Muslim religious teaching, which is the most wide-spread. In the madrassas, in Islamic teaching, the typical dissatisfaction of every young person finds an immediate and easy answer in religion. In the face of sociological, cultural, psychological problems, the Islamic world has no other answer but the religious answer. For example, instead of analyzing a problem from the political point of view, instead of fighting, perhaps even together with Christians and atheists, to bring about justice, they might say: we are fighting in the name of Islam.

Under such influence, young people, initially accustomed to wearing Western clothes, change their attire and take to wearing a white robe and headcovering, and they let their beard grow. These correspond to just as many symbols of a changed mentality, of a rejection of the West, a crisis of identity and spiritual distress. Until 30 years ago, this did not happen — today it does. And having taken on these symbols means having entered into a fundamentalist, literalist way of thinking, and being prone to manipulation.

Pilgrimages to the Mecca are also an occasion for indoctrination in fundamentalism.

I know several Muslim ladies who were integrated very well into European society: they dressed in a Western manner, wore make-up, went out with their head uncovered. After a pilgrimage to the Mecca, they returned and took to putting on a veil, wearing a chador, asking for halal meat…

It is difficult in the Islamic world to get out of the expected bounds of religion, but it’s a necessary step.

The distinction between secular and religious

An effort is needed so that secularity becomes part of the Islamic world. This concept is known by, at the most, a few Muslims educated in Western culture. In general, in the Islamic world, secularity does not exist. In Arabic, we have the word “secularity”, ‘almâniyya, a new term coined by Arab Christian, but very often it is confused with “atheism.” Secularity must be, above all, affirmed in the interpretation of the Koran.

In my teaching at Saint Joseph University in Beirut, I taught various times a course on the Bible and the Koran. I told my students: let’s study these books as historical documents, from the point of view of history, philology etc. With Christians, this can be done; but with Muslims, it is almost impossible. All this makes it difficult to understand historically the Koran and to grasp the original meaing (at the origin) of the words. A few examples follow. We all know that the word “paradise” is of Persian origin, but for Islamic students and imams, this conclusion is unacceptable. The word “Evangelos (Good News)” derives from Greek, but for Muslim students and their imams, this is unacceptable: for them, the Koran descended directly from God and cannot have human or historical “encrustations.” Therefore, if in the Koran one finds record of the annunciation to Mary, for Muslims it is impossible to deduce some kind of influence of the Christian world on the Koran. And if the two records contradict each other at some point, the Koran’s is without doubt more correct since “it was revealed by God in a complete way.”

The only way out is to affirm that the Koran is a historical document, written by a human being, perhaps even religiously inspired.

This is why I always say that Muslims need an Enlightenment, in other words a revolution in thought that affirms the value of worldly reality in and of itself, detached from religion, though not in opposition to it. Scholars in Egypt have been publishing a series of books for some 30 years called al-Tanwîr, enlightenment, but the influence of Al Ahzar and the mullahs is still too strong.

In speaking of Enlightenment, it is clear that we are speaking of an Enlightenment that does not renounce the religious element. On the other hand, perhaps the West needed to go through secularism in order to gain a new balance. By now, the Church in the West is not seen as an enemy, but as an element that contributes to civilization. And while there is a Christian humanism, recognized even by atheists, Islamic humanism does not exist. If an Islamic humanism is not developed, the distance between the modern world and the Muslim world will become abysmal.

There is technological and scientific modernization in the Islamic world, but this does not lead to a modern humanism. Many terrorists are people of a considerable cultural level; there are doctors, engineers, etc. among them. They have great scientific and technological culture, but they have not built a link between their science and religion. They take from the West the fruit, the technology, but they do not measure themselves up to the process that generated that fruit. The Western fruit of technology comes from a secularizing passage, first through Christianity, then by way of rationalism and Enlightenment. Muslims accept technology, but they do not accept the distinction between secular and religious. And this is wrong, as it does not generate a movement toward self-criticism and liberation.

If Muslims discovered this distinction, then they could dialogue with the West, criticize it, discern what is good in it and what is to be rejected. Instead, the lack of this distinction results in the total rejection of the West and in the plan for its destruction. Without recuperating secularity and the distinction between secular and religious, Islam is condemned to obscurantism.

09/08/2005 08:10

http://www.asianews.it/index.php?l=en&art=4071

Benedict XVI and Islam

Vatican – Islam
Benedict XVI and Islam
by Samir Khalil Samir, sj

For Pope Ratzinger, religions should be compared on the basis of the cultures and civilizations they generate. To avoid a clash of civilizations, Islam should distance itself from terrorist violence; the west from secularist and atheistic violence. This is the analysis of a renowned expert, who last September participated in a meeting on Islam behind closed doors with the pontiff.

Beirut (AsiaNews) – Benedict XVI is probably one of the few figures to have profoundly understood the ambiguity in which contemporary Islam is being debated and its struggle to find a place in modern society. At the same time, he is proposing a way for Islam to work toward coexistence globally and with religions, based not on religious dialogue, but on dialogue between cultures and civilizations based on rationality and on a vision of man and human nature which comes before any ideology or religion. This choice to wager on cultural dialogue explains his decision to absorb the Pontifical Council for Inter-religious Dialogue into the larger Pontifical Council for Culture.

While the Pope is asking Islam for dialogue based on culture, human rights, the refusal of violence, he is asking the West, at the same time, to go back to a vision of human nature and rationality in which the religious dimension is not excluded. In this way – and perhaps only in this way – a clash of civilizations can be avoided, transforming it instead into a dialogue between civilizations.

Islamic totalitarianism differs from Christianity

To understand Benedict XVI’s thinking and Islamic religion, we must go over their evolution. A truly essential document is found in his book (written in 1996, when he was still cardinal, together with Peter Seewald), entitled “The Salt of the Earth”, in which he makes certain considerations and highlights various differences between Islam and Christian religion and the West.

First of all, he shows that there is no orthodoxy in Islam, because there is no one authority, no common doctrinal magisterium. This makes dialogue difficult: when we engage in dialogue, it is not “with Islam”, but with groups.

But the key point that he tackles is that of sharia. He points out that:

“the Koran is a total religious law, which regulates the whole of political and social life and insists that the whole order of life be Islamic. Sharia shapes society from beginning to end. In this sense, it can exploit such freedoms as our constitutions give, but it cannot be its final goal to say: Yes, now we too are a body with rights, now we are present [in society] just like the Catholics and the Protestants. In such a situation, [Islam] would not achieve a status consistent with its inner nature; it would be in alienation from itself”, which could be resolved only through the total Islamization of society. When for example an Islamic finds himself in a Western society, he can benefit from or exploit certain elements, but he can never identify himself with the non-Muslim citizen, because he does not find himself in a Muslim society.

Thus Cardinal Ratzinger saw clearly an essential difficulty of socio-political relations with the Muslim world, which comes from the totalizing conception of Islamic religion, which is profoundly different from Christianity. For this reason, he insists in saying that we cannot try to project onto Islam the Christian vision of the relationship between politics and religion. This would be very difficult: Islam is a religion totally different from Christianity and Western society and this makes does not make coexistence easy.

In a closed-door seminar, held at Castelgandolfo (September 1-2, 2005), the Pope insisted on and stressed this same idea: the profound diversity between Islam and Christianity. On this occasion, he started from a theological point of view, taking into account the Islamic conception of revelation: the Koran “descended” upon Mohammad, it is not “inspired” to Mohammad. For this reason, a Muslim does not think himself authorized to interpret the Koran, but is tied to this text which emerged in Arabia in the 7th century. This brings to the same conclusions as before: the absolute nature of the Koran makes dialogue all the more difficult, because there is very little room for interpretation, if at all.

As we can see, his thinking as cardinal extends into his vision as Pontiff, which highlights the profound differences between Islam and Christianity.

On July 24, during his stay in the Italian Aosta Valley region, he was asked if Islam can be described as a religion of peace, to which he replied “I would not speak in generic terms, certainly Islam contains elements which are in favour of peace, as it contains other elements.” Even if not explicitly, Benedict XVI suggests that Islam suffers from ambiguity vis-à-vis violence, justifying it in various cases. And he added. “We must always strive to find the better elements.” Another person asked him then if terrorist attacks can be considered anti-Christian. He reply is clear-cut: “No, generally the intention seems to be much more general and not directed precisely at Christianity.”

Dialogue between cultures is more fruitful than inter-religious dialogue

On August 20 in Cologne, Pope Benedict XVI has his first big encounter with Islam, speaking with the representatives of Muslim communities. In a relatively long speech, he says,

“I am certain that I echo your own thoughts when I bring up one of our concerns as we notice the spread of terrorism.”

I like the way he involves Muslims here, telling them that we have the same concern. He then goes on to say: “I know that many of you have firmly rejected, also publicly, in particular any connection between your faith and terrorism and have condemned it.”

Further on, he says, “terrorism of any kind is a perverse and cruel [a word that he repeats 3 times] choice which shows contempt for the sacred right to life and undermines the very foundations of all civil coexistence.” Then, again, he involves the Islamic world:

“If together we can succeed in eliminating from hearts any trace of rancour, in resisting every form of intolerance and in opposing every manifestation of violence, we will turn back the wave of cruel fanaticism that endangers the lives of so many people and hinders progress towards world peace. The task is difficult but not impossible and the believer can accomplish this.”

I liked very much the way he stressed “eliminating from hearts any trace of rancour”: Benedict XVI has understood that one of the causes of terrorism is this sentiment of rancour. And further on

“Dear friends, I am profoundly convinced that we must not yield to the negative pressures in our midst, but must affirm the values of mutual respect, solidarity and peace.”

Also,

“there is plenty of scope for us to act together in the service of fundamental moral values. The dignity of the person and the defence of the rights which that dignity confers must represent the goal of every social endeavour and of every effort to bring it to fruition.”

And here we find a crucial sentence:

“This message is conveyed to us unmistakably by the quiet but clear voice of conscience.” “Only through recognition of the centrality of the person,” the Pope goes on to say, “can a common basis for understanding be found, one which enables us to move beyond cultural conflicts and which neutralizes the disruptive power of ideologies.”

Thus, even before religion, there is the voice of conscience and we must all fight for moral values, for the dignity of the person, the defence of rights.

Therefore, for Benedict XVI, dialogue must be based on the centrality of the person, which overrides both cultural and ideological contrasts. And I think that, getting under ideologies, religions can also be understood. This is one of the pillars of the Pope’s vision: it also explains why he united the Council for Inter-Religious Dialogue and the Council for Culture, surprising everyone. This choice derives from a profound vision and is not, as the press would have it, to “get rid” of Archbishop Michael Fitzgerald, who deserves much recognition. That may have been part of it, but it was not the purpose.

The essential idea is that dialogue with Islam and with other religions cannot be essentially a theological or religious dialogue, except in the broad terms of moral values; it must instead be a dialogue of cultures and civilizations.

It is worth recalling that already as far back as 1999, Cardinal Ratzinger took part in an encounter with Prince Hassan of Jordan, Metropolitan Damaskinos of Geneva, Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan, deceased in 2003, and the Grand Rabbi of France René Samuel Sirat. Muslims, Jews and Christians were invited by a foundation for inter-religious and inter-cultural dialogue to create among them a pole for cultural dialogue.

This step towards cultural dialogue is of extreme importance. In any kind of dialogue that takes place with the Muslim world, as soon as talk begins on religious topics, discussion turns to the Palestinians, Israel, Iraq, Afghanistan, in other words all the questions of political and cultural conflict. An exquisitely theological discussion is never possible with Islam: one cannot speak of the Trinity, of Incarnation, etc. Once in Cordoba, in 1977, a conference was held on the notion of prophecy. After having dealt with the prophetic character of Christ as seen by Muslims, a Christian made a presentation on the prophetic character of Mohammad from the Christian point of view and dared to say that the Church cannot recognize him as prophet; at the most, it could define him as such but only in a generic sense, just as one says that Marx is “prophet” of modern times. The conclusion? This question became the topic of conversation for the following three days, pre-empting the original conference.

The discussions with the Muslim world that I have found most fruitful have been those in which interdisciplinary and intercultural questions were discussed. I have taken part various times, at the invitation of Muslims, in inter-religious meetings in various parts of the Muslim world: talk was always on the encounter of religions and civilizations, or cultures.

Two weeks ago, in Isfahan (Iran), the title was “meeting of civilizations and religions.” Next September 19, at Rome’s Pontifical Gregorian University, there will be a conference organized by the Iranian Ministry of Culture along with Italian authorities, and this too will be on the encounter between cultures, and will include the participation of former president Khatami.

The Pope has understood this important aspect: discussions on theology can take place only among a few, but now is certainly not the time between Islam and Christianity. Instead, it is a question of tackling the question of coexistence in the concrete terms of politics, economy, history, culture, customs…

Rationality and Faith

Another fact seems to me important. In an exchange that took place on October 25, 2004, between Italian historian, Ernesto Galli della Loggia, and the then Cardinal Ratzinger, the latter, at a certain point, recalled the “seeds of the Word” and underscored the importance of rationality in Christian faith, seen by Church Fathers as the fulfilment of the search for truth found in philosophy. Galli della Loggia thus said: “Your hope which is identical to faith, brings with it a logos and this logos can become an apologia, a reply that can be communicated to others,” to everyone.

Cardinal Ratzinger replied:

“We do not want to create an empire of power, but we have something that can be communicated and towards which an expectation of our reason tends. It is communicable because it belongs to our shared human nature and there is a duty to communicate on the part of those who have found a treasure of truth and love. Rationality was therefore a postulate and condition of Christianity, which remains a European legacy for comparing ourselves peacefully and positively, with Islam and also the great Asian religions.”

Therefore, for the Pope, dialogue is at this level, i.e. founded on reason. He then went on to add that

“this rationality becomes dangerous and destructive for the human creature if it becomes positivist [and here he critiques the West], which reduces the great values of our being to subjectivity [to relativism] and thus becomes an amputation of the human creature. We do not wish to impose on anyone a faith that can only be freely accepted, but as a vivifying force of the rationality of Europe, it belongs to our identity.”

Then comes the essential part:

“it has been said that we must not speak of God in the European constitution, because we must not offend Muslims and the faithful of other religions. The opposite is true – Ratzinger points out – what offends Muslims and the faithful of other religions is not talking about God or our Christian roots, but rather the disdain for God and the sacred, that separates us from other cultures and does not create the opportunity for encounter, but expresses the arrogance of diminished, reduced reason, which provokes fundamentalist reactions.”

Benedict XVI admires in Islam the certainty based on faith, which contrasts with the West where everything is relativized; and he admires in Islam the sense of the sacred, which instead seems to have disappeared in the West. He has understood that a Muslim is not offended by the crucifix, by religious symbols: this is actually a laicist polemic that strives to eliminate the religious from society. Muslims are not offended by religious symbols, but by secularized culture, by the fact that God and the values that they associate with God are absent from this civilization.

This is also my experience, when I chat every once in a while with Muslims who live in Italy. They tell me: this country offers everything, we can live as we like, but unfortunately there are no “principles” (this is the word they use). This is felt very much by the Pope, who says: let’s go back to human nature, based on rationality, on conscience, which gives an idea of human rights; on the other hand, let’s not reduce rationality to something which is impoverished, but let’s integrate the religious in rationality; the religious is part of rationality.

In this, I think that Benedict XVI has stated more exactly the vision of John Paul II. For the previous Pope, dialogue with Islam needed to be open to collaboration on everything, even in prayer. Benedict is aiming at more essential points: theology is not what counts, at least not in this stage of history; what counts is the fact that Islam is the religion that is developing more and is becoming more and more a danger for the West and the world. The danger is not in Islam in general, but in a certain vision of Islam that does never openly renounces violence and generates terrorism, fanaticism. On the other hand, he does not want to reduce Islam to a social-political phenomenon. The Pope has profoundly understood the ambiguity of Islam, which is both one and the other, which at times plays on one or the other front. And his proposal is that, if we want to find a common basis, we must get out of religious dialogue to give humanistic foundations to this dialogue, because only these are universal and shared by all human beings. Humanism is a universal factor; faiths can be factors of clash and division.

Yes to reciprocity, no to “do-goodism”

The Pope’s position never falls into the justification of terrorism and violence. Sometimes, even when it comes to Church figures, people slip into a generic kind of relativism: after all, there’s violence in all religions, even among Christians; or, violence is justified as a reply to other violence… No, this Pope has never made allusions of this kind. But, on the other hand, he has never fallen into the behaviour found in certain Christian circles in the West marked by “do-goodism” and by guilt complexes. Recently, some Muslims have asked that the Pope ask forgiveness for the Crusades, colonialism, missionaries, cartoons, etc… He is not falling in this trap, because he knows that his words could be used not for building dialogue, but for destroying it. This is the experience that we have of the Muslim world: all such gestures, which are very generous and profoundly spiritual to ask for forgiveness for historical events of the past, are exploited and are presented by Muslims as a settling of accounts: here, they say, you recognize it even yourself: you’re guilty. Such gestures never spark any kind of reciprocity.

At this point, it is worth recalling the Pope’s address to the Moroccan Ambassador (February 20, 2006), when he alluded to “respect for the convictions and religious practices of others so that, in a reciprocal manner, the exercise of freely-chosen religion is truly assured to all in all societies.” These are two small but very important affirmations on the reciprocity of religious freedoms rights between Western and Islamic countries and on the freedom to change religion, something which is prohibited in Islam. The nice thing is that the Pope dared to say them: in the political and Church world, people are often afraid to mention such things. It’s enough to take note of the silence that reigns when it comes to the religious freedom violations that exist in Saudi Arabia.

I really like this Pope, his balance, his clearness. He makes no compromise: he continues to underline the need to announce the Gospel in the name of rationality and therefore he does not let himself be influenced by those who fear and speak out against would-be proselytism. The Pope asks always for guarantees that Christian faith can be “proposed” and that it can be “freely chosen.”

http://www.asianews.it/index.php?l=en&art=5998

Multiculturalism and Islam: Sharia vs European constitutions

03/23/2007 15:07
ISLAM
Multiculturalism and Islam: Sharia vs European constitutions
by Samir Khalil Samir, sj
Problems in Holland and Denmark. Great Britain as an example: decades of multiculturalism that have lead to ghettos, closure, radicalism of Islamic communities. Women ever penalized. Being European citizens involves having the duty to integrate. Third in a series of articles.

Beirut (AsiaNews) – Multiculturalist ideology, i.e. the blind tolerance of any culture or tradition, is destroying Europe and standing in the way of any positive development of Islam.  Such ideology has been condemned by Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Somali intellectual and parliamentarian who, having received death threats from Muslims for her defence of women’s rights and tired of European multiculturalism, left Holland to go work in the United States at the American Enterprise Institute.  She accused Holland of excessive acquiescence, of encouraging the immobility of Muslim communities and even of letting itself be conquered by Islam and Islamic law.

In making room for Sharia, there is the risk of conflict with European constitutions.  An interesting thing is taking place in Denmark, a country which is at the forefront of multi-culturality. The SIAD Party has recently been founded and it proposes the following: anyone who cites Koranic verses contrary to the Danish constitution must be punished because the constitution is superior to all other laws.

And they quote articles 67-69 of the Danish Constitution which says, “We authorize freedom of worship, as long as it is exercised within the framework of Danish laws without disturbing public order.”

All this is a clear signal that people are beginning to reflect on the possible contrast that exists between the constitutions of European countries and certain laws of the Koran.  In Demark too, there exist two trends: the “left”, or the “do-gooders”, who want to respect the culture of others, saying that ours is not an absolute, or suggest that we must be tolerant and give Muslims time to take this step; and those who make no allowances, and who say that if a person is not able to integrate, he is better off going elsewhere.

But the most significant and problematic case is that of Great Britain: here, after decades of multiculturalism, instead of integrating and coexisting, Islamic communities are increasingly closing themselves into ghettos, and fundamentalistic behaviours, dangerous for all society, are emerging.

State schools and Islamic morals

The most representative association of British Muslims, the Muslim Council of Great Britain, has asked that Muslims be recognized the right to apply Islamic morals in state schools.  On February 21, it published a 72-page document and presented it to the government in the name of 400,000 Muslim students attending the country’s state schools.  They ask that the government accept the demands of Muslim parents and youngster on the grounds of faith concerns.

Taking their cue from their concept of modesty, they say that female students:

a) have the right to wear headscarves or the hijab (there is no mention however of the niqab);

b) have the right to not take part in physical education lessons, because Islam prohibits contact between the sexes in public and because there is the risk of girls exposing bare skin, which is prohibited by Sharia.

They also demand separate classes for girls and boys; the refusal of dancing and of sex education (which is a family matter and not a topic for school); drawings and anatomy textbooks must not show genital organs.  As for faith and history, they ask for a revision of the entire teaching system in the name of Islamic morals.

 The Education Ministry has not yet replied officially, but has already said that these requests will be a step backwards in terms of the tolerance that already existed.

British and Muslim

The tendency towards closure – the fruit of multiculturalism! – is apparent also at another level.  Last February 19, a public survey in the Sunday Telegraph shows that 40% of British Muslims are favourable to the introduction of sharia.  This demonstrates the radicalization of a substantial part of the country’s Islamic community.  Forty percent feels foreign to British society and deems that it is necessary and normal to lead a lifestyle in line with the most radical of Islamic ethics.

Another element which is emerging is the detachment of these people from British society.  Asked “How do you feel about the victims of conflicts in the world?”, the reply was “compassion”, “solidarity” and even “anger” with reference to conflicts involving Kashmir, Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan.  Simply put, they feel closer to Muslims than to Great Britain, which is directly involved in some of these conflicts.

From the sociological point of view, it should be said that they come from Pakistan, Bangladesh and India and belong to traditional families, but it is also worth noting that they have been in Great Britain for at least two generations.  It seems clear to me that the reactions to 9/11, instead of creating more global solidarity around the idea of the fight against terrorism, have instead radicalized Muslims who are siding with each other to defend their brothers in faith.

September 11 created or reinforced, in the entire Islamic world, an identity crisis: Islam and Muslims are under scrutiny.  Faced with this situation, there are those who stop to reflect on what must be reviewed in Islamic teaching behaviour, and there are those whose reaction is closure and aggressiveness so as to affirm more forcefully the radical diversity of Islam vis-à-vis the surrounding culture.  This second kind of behaviour is typical of many young people of second or third generation, who fully recognize themselves neither in Islamic nor in Western tradition (despite having perfectly assimilated the latter).

In any case, this study and the requests regarding schools show that Muslims in Great Britain are increasingly identifying themselves with their religion, more than with local society and culture.

Modesty for males and citizenship

The problems raised by Muslims, for example those in Great Britain, are real.  There does exist a problem of ethics in society, and thus also in the school system.  An exaggerated liberalism which allows young people everything, especially at the sexual level, on the grounds that they must learn to make their own choices, is certainly unacceptable to both the Muslim and Christian communities, as well as to the human community tout court.  But preventing contact between boys and girls, or preventing the teaching of all things related to sexuality is an entirely different matter.  Here, it is not a question of ethics, but of customs and traditions, and this is no longer acceptable.  In any given country, the norms of that country must be observed, not those of the homelands of a few parents!

Furthermore, one might ask oneself why, on the question of the relationship between sexes, it is always the woman who must be hidden or “observe modesty”, as is still said.  If modesty is a virtue – and in fact it is – it applies to males as it does to females.  And since modesty seems to be more spontaneous in females, it would seem more necessary to impose it upon males!  In other terms, despite the best intentions, Muslims tend to confuse customs with ethics.  Customs are tied to determined groups (ethnic, geographic, religious…) and do not apply to the national civil society.  Ethics dictate principles which are valid for every human person, independent of their sex or religion, and therefore are worth defending and fighting to defend.  It is time that we learn to defend ethics that are respectful of the human person, by starting to teach and practice them in schools, to everyone.  As for special treatment for a particular group, in the name of their different culture, this is a deformation of what should be “authentic multiculturalism,” which learns to evaluate different cultures and improve one’s own on the basis of comparison.

The question behind this problem is: what does citizenship mean?  Is it a piece of paper, useful to acquire so as to have advantages and few obligations?  Or is it a profound reality, the result of a pondered choice, which can also demand even big cultural sacrifice?

And more: what is the identity of an Italian citizen of Egyptian or Moroccan or Chinese or Albanian origin?  If it is Egyptian, Moroccan, Chinese, Albanian, then I ask: what is the sense of having requested and obtained Italian citizenship?  It is not perhaps to enjoy the advantages that a country offers and then return to live in one’s country of birth or that of one’s parents?  In that case, I am just an exploiter.  But if it means a conscious choice, which implies changes in behaviour, the desire to build with other citizens a more just society etc, then, yes, I deserve citizenship.  I think that society must help each person to make such pondered choices, helping and facilitating efforts to integrate.

Multiculturalism and Islam: suicide of the West and women’s rights

ISLAM – EUROPE

 

Multiculturalism and Islam: suicide of the West and women’s rights

by Samir Khalil Samir, sj

So-called “dialogue with the Islamic world” and juridical relativism on marriage and polygamy play havoc with the dignity of women and equality between sexes. The Koran: it’s o.k. to beat women.

Beirut (AsiaNews) – The ideology of multiculturalism, i.e. blind tolerance toward any culture and tradition, is destroying European identity and is above all doing away with human rights and, more specifically, women’s rights.

A prime example is the increasing tolerance in European countries toward polygamy.

In theory, polygamy is prohibited in Italy and in Europe.

But it increasingly happens, in the name of multiculturalism, that Muslim immigrants are registered as polygamists in the European continent: if a man is Muslim and married in his country of origin with 4 wives, we cannot but accept this as a given.

All this goes against European laws and constitutions – which affirm monogamous families – but, in the name of a misplaced respect for cultures, any solution is deemed acceptable.

Tolerance for polygamy?

In Italy, some constitutionalists are suggesting, for the sake of letting people have it both ways, that only one wife be recognized as such, while the others are considered concubines: this would settle the situation of various Muslims who already have a wife in their country of origin and take another in Italy.

Others think that a distinction could be made between civil marriage (at City Hall, with just one wife) and religious marriage in a mosque, where polygamous marriages could be celebrated.

Naturally, to do this, they are proposing that the articles of Italian civil law, which affirm monogamy and the equality of men and women, not be read.

A similar trend is spreading in Greece.

In certain areas where Muslims are the majority, the government has accepted the principle that they manage themselves with their own norms.

And so, in Athens, polygamy is prohibited, but in Muslim-majority areas, it is allowed, again in the name of cultural respect.

Multiculturalism is doing a lot of damage.

Firstly to common sense: if a man is married in Senegal with a woman and in Italy with another, this cannot be defined as monogamy.

A crime remains such whether it is committed in Italy or abroad.

Such tricks are actually a way to suggest loopholes for polygamy.

Thus, if an Italian wants to have more than just one wife, all he needs to do is to convert to Islam!

But multiculturalism is above all damaging to the dignity of women.

Polygamy in Italy is prohibited in that it is contrary to the principle of equality between men and women.

It would be useful to Islam too to affirm this principle.

In Islamic society, in fact, women cannot be polygamous (only men have that “right”).

The same is true for repudiation, which is permitted to a man, but not to a woman who, however, can ask her husband the favour of repudiating her.

Affirming monogamy is thus the way forward on the path for an overall effort in favour of women’s rights.

The Imam of Vénissieux and women

To understand the humiliation in which women live in the Islamic world, I would like to recall a fact that sparked much debate in France.

Last February 20th, the courts definitively rejected an appeal made by Imam Abdelkader Bouziane.

An Algerian-national, Sheikh Abdelkader, imam of the mosque of Vénissieux, near Lyon, a polygamist and father of 16 (sixteen) children (14 of which French citizens) had been living in France since 1980.

He had been ordered on February 26, 2004, to leave the country by Interior Minister Sarkozy, for his inflammatory speeches and for incitement to hatred, but the ordinance was not enforced.

On April 20, following an interview in the “Lyon Mag” newspaper, he was again served an expulsion order for his statements against women, in particular for having said that “the Koran authorizes a Muslim, in certain cases, to beat his wife,” that women must subjugated themselves to their husband and were not equal to men.

On April 23rd, the administrative tribunal of Lyon suspended the expulsion ordinance and rejected the Interior Ministry’s request.

The imam went back to France in May 22.

On October 5, 2004, the State

Council cancelled the expulsion suspension, and the next day the iman was again expelled to Orano in Algeria.

On June 21, 2005, the Lyon court declared him once again free, but on October 14, he was convicted in absentia.

The imam filed an appeal, but on February 6, 2007, the courts definitively rejected his case.

The “Régards de femmes” Association of Lyon, which had sued the imam, declared: “The right to dignity, to respect, to the integrity of her body belongs to every woman in France.

It will not be possible from now on to legitimize violence against women on the pretence of religion.”

The Imam’s interview

ere are a few extracts of the (famous) interview with Sheikh Abdelkader on the male-female relationship.

In your opinion, are women equal to men?

No.

For example, women do not have the right to work alongside men, as they [women]

could be tempted by adultery.

Must women necessarily be subjugated to men?

Yes, because the head of the family is always a man.

But he must be fair to his wife: he must not beat her for no reason, nor consider her a slave.

Is this why you are favourable to polygamy?

Yes, a Muslim can have more than one wife.

But not more than four!

Plus, there are conditions.

But why can women not have more than one husband?

Because no one would know who fathered the children!

Are you in favour of the stoning [1] of women?

Yes, because beating one’s wife is allowed by the Koran, but under certain conditions, in particular if she betrays her husband.

Please note however: the man does not have the right to beat her everywhere: not on the face, but in the lower parts, her legs, her stomach, her bottom.

He can beat her vigorously so as to induce fear, so that she does not start again!

The Koran: wife beating is allowed

Various readers were up in arms, but in the end the imam defended himself saying that this is the Koran.

And he’s right.

If we open the Koran at Sura 4, verse 34, we can read:

“Men have authority over women due to the preference that Allah concedes to them over the other and because they spend their property [for women]; Good women are therefore obedient, guarding under secrecy that which Allah has preserved [sex]. [2] ; As for those on whose part you fear insubordination, admonish them, and leave them alone in the sleeping-places and beat them; then if they obey you, do nothing further against them; Allah is high and great.”

Last week on Al Jazeera, I heard another imam explain the four conditions for beating a wife: not on her face; without drawing blood; without breaking bones; not in the presence of children.

If all this is insufficient, one must resort to extreme punishment, i.e. the man deprives his wife of sexual relations.

The Koran is also explicit on the question of the superiority of men to women; according to the Koran, Charter 2 (The Cow), Verse 228:

“Divorced women should keep themselves in waiting for three periods; and it is not lawful for them to conceal what Allah has created in their wombs, if they believe in Allah and the Last Day.

And their husbands have priority to take them back during this time if they wish for reconciliation; and they [women] have rights equivalent to their duties, on the basis of good custom, but the men are superior. Allah is Mighty, Wise.”

The Italian edition published by the Union of Islamic Communities and Organizations in Italy (UCOII) includes a long footnote (absent on the on-line version) on the phrase “but men are superior”:

“In a pitiful effort to standardize Islam to Western culture, certain modernist commentators have written that superiority has only to do with the right of men to repudiate their wife, a faculty which is not reciprocal.

In reality, it is a much more important and fundamental matter for the maintaining of balance at the individual, family and social levels.

“Man and Woman are two complementary realities that exist unto each other.

If this were not so, Allah (glory be to Him the Most High) would not have formed Eve from Adam’s rib, he would have furnished each gender with complete reproductive organs, etc., etc.

“The physical structure of men is capable of great exertion and significant exploits, that of women, of steady labour and great endurance of pain.

“Male sensitivity is entirely exterior, projected outside the realm of family and tends to become public and political.

That of women is interior, careful of oneself, aimed at the protection of that which has been acquired and to the acquisition of simple means of sustenance and security.

“Male psychology is imaginative, creative, experimental, risk-loving, desirous of novelty, of affirming the Self, usually ample and superficial.

That of women is concrete, traditional, risk-hating, desirous of certainty, of conserving what is “mine”, usually profound and limited.

“In the realm of family, the respect of the Laws of Allah and of the Sunna of the Messenger can create situations that require an affirmation of power that mortifies the complementarity of spouses.

But apart from complementarity, there is the problem of leadership, in the family and in society, which does not mean predomination, oppression or the lack of recognition of female predominance in a number of sectors and circumstances.

Allah (Glory be to Him, the Most High) assigns this management role to the male.

It is an onerous and difficult task that men would often willingly do without, and for which he must respond before Allah.”

This apologetic comment, written by an Italian converted to Islam, mirrors the opinion of traditionalistic ulemas, avoiding their excesses.

It assigns specific tasks to men and to women, tasks which are unchangeable because determined by God, which claim to correspond to the nature of one and the other.

It is obvious that such a distribution of roles, established by God for eternity and valid for all times and cultures, is hardly compatible with Western mentality and is often incompatible with the laws and constitutions of Europe.

Conclusion

Is it possible to accept this teaching in the name of the respect for cultures and religious tolerance?

This is the serious question faced by all Western countries.

I don’t know if the flag-wavers of multiculturalism realize how much human damage they cause.

Actually, it is increasingly clear that so-called multicultural tolerance is only acquiescence to a subtle form of racism.

In the name of cultural difference, in fact, everything is left to proceed on parallel tracks, without envisaging any progress, integration or betterment in the name of human dignity.

It is time for Europe to understand that religious law cannot prevail over civil law and that, above every form of tolerance, there is a country’s constitution.

If this does not happen, Islam will be given carte blanche to colonize our customs.

NOTE :

1)

The imam, who had lived in France for 24 years, did not understand the word “stoning”, which he understood to mean “beating”.

Hence, his reply.

2) In UCOII’s translation, generally attributed to Hamza Piccardo (Imperia, 1994), the following note can be read “This is the ideal of the believing woman: ‘patient and modest.’

Says the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him): “The best of women is she who rejoices at your gaze, obeys you, guards her person and the property of the husband in his absence.”

03/07/2007 19:08

<http://www.asianews.it/index.php?l=en&art=8664&size=A>

Fifteen Royal Marines and sailors seized by Iranians

Fifteen Royal Marines and sailors seized by Iranians
Last updated at 13:42pm on 23rd March 2007

Fifteen British sailors and marines have been seized by an Iranian ship in Iraqi waters, the Ministry of Defence said today.
The British personnel from the frigate HMS Cornwall were “engaged in routine boarding operations of merchant shipping in Iraqi territorial waters,” and had completed their inspection of a merchant ship when they were accosted by Iranian vessels, the ministry said in a statement.

British Marines held hostage in 2004 were paraded on Iranian TV

“We are urgently pursuing this matter with the Iranian authorities at the highest level and … the Iranian ambassador has been summoned to the Foreign Office,” the ministry said.
“The British government is demanding the immediate and safe return of our people and equipment.”
A fisherman who said he was with a group of Iraqis from Basra in the northern area of the Gulf said he witnessed the event. The fisherman declined to be identified because of security concerns.
“Two boats, each with a crew of six to eight multinational forces, were searching Iraqi and Iranian boats Friday morning in Ras al-Beesha area in the northern entrance of the Arab Gulf, but big Iranian boats came and took the two boats with their crews to the Iranian waters,” said the fisherman.
The British Broadcasting Corp. said the British forces were inspecting a ship suspected of smuggling cars. It did not cite a source for the report.
BBC reporter Ian Pannell on HMS Cornwall said the sailors had just boarded a dhow when they were accosted.
“While they were on board, a number of Iranian boats approached the waters in which they were operating – the Royal Navy are insistent that they were operating in Iraqi waters and not Iranian waters – and essentially captured the Royal Navy and Royal Marine personnel at gunpoint,” Pannell said.
In June 2004, six British marines and two sailors were seized by Iran in the Shatt al-Arab between Iran and Iraq. It was claimed they had strayed into the Iranian side of the Shatt al Arab waterway.
They were presented blindfolded on Iranian television and admitted entering Iranian waters illegally. They were released unharmed after three days.
After the crisis, the then Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon said the crews were “forcibly escorted” into Iranian waters.
He said British personnel were issued with modern charts and equipment which should have been sufficient to prevent them straying across the border.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said British diplomats accepted that the men had strayed into Iranian territory.
Five of those held continued to work in Iraq, but one returned home for medical reasons and a further two went home because their tours of duty were over.
Even in 2004, diplomatic relations between Britain and Iran were already deeply strained. The Iranians were angry Britain helped draft a critical resolution condemning Tehran’s refusal to open up its controversial nuclear programme to inspection.
The Shatt al Arab waterway divides Iran from Iraq and is a crucial transport route for valuable oil supplies.

Muslim Violence — Crime or Jihad?

Friday, March 16, 2007
Muslim Violence — Crime or Jihad?
by Baron Bodissey

The noted blogger Fjordman is filing this report via Gates of Vienna.
For a complete Fjordman blogography, see The Fjordman Files. There is also a multi-index listing here.

Although the European Union warns against “,” those who live in the real world know that there has been an explosion of violent infidelophobia in Western Europe staged by Muslim immigrants. This wave of violence especially targets
Jews, but the attacks against Christians that are going on in the the Middle East, where there may soon be no Christians left in the cradle of Christianity, are increasingly spreading to Europe as well. In more and more cities across the continent, non-Muslims are being harassed, robbed, mugged, raped, stabbed and even killed by Muslims, yet EU leaders continue their quest to merge Europe and the Arab world by making it easier for Muslims to enter and settle in Europe.
The fact that European leaders and media voice such concern for “Islamophobia” yet do very little to stop attacks against Christian Europeans demonstrates the creeping dhimmitude in Europe which has been accurately predicted by Bat Ye’or. Native Europeans are slowly becoming second-rate citizens in their own countries.
This violence by Muslims is usually labelled simply as “crime,” but I believe it should more accurately be called Jihad. Those who know early Islamic history, as described in books such as The Truth About Muhammad by Robert Spencer, know that looting and stealing the property of non-Muslims has been part and parcel of Jihad from the very beginning. In fact, so much of the behavior of Muhammad himself and the early Muslims could be deemed criminal that it is difficult to know exactly where crime ends and Jihad begins. In the city of Oslo, for instance, it is documented that some of the criminal Muslim gangs also have close ties to radical religious groups at home and abroad. As Dutch Arabist Hans Jansen points out, the Koran is seen by some Muslims as a God-given “hunting licence,” granting them the right to assault and even murder non-Muslims.
It is hardly accidental that while Muslims make up about tem percent of the population in France, they make up an estimated seventy percent of French prison inmates. Muslims are over-represented in jails in countries all over the world, and a striking number of non-Muslims in jail also convert to Islam. There could be many reasons for this. Some observers have suggested that prison inmates generally lack control over their personal lives, and thus seek a strict code which provides them with the discipline they themselves don’t have. Perhaps, but personally I suspect that the most important reason is much more simple: If you’re a Muslim you can continue doing criminal things yet at the same time claim to be morally superior. If you rob and mug non-Muslims you are not a thief or a thug, you are in fact a brave Jihadist doing God’s noble work:

Tariq Ramadan and Islam’s Future in Europe

Non-Muslims are lesser people. By saying this they justify the behaviour of young Muslim criminals who target the non-Muslims whilst they never touch fellow Muslims. They told me that drug trafficking is perfectly acceptable as long as one only sells to non-Muslims. They told me that stealing from non-Muslims is allowed as long as one does not harm fellow Muslims. One day our office was burgled and our computers were stolen. All except the two computers belonging to our two Muslim colleagues. You don’t steal from brothers or sisters! …
Many victims of burglaries in houses and cars, of steaming and other forms of violence, can testify that aggression by Muslims is not directed against brothers and sisters, but against whoever is a kafir, a non-believer. Young Muslims justify their behaviour towards women who do not wear the headscarf, whether Muslim or non-Muslim, by referring to the Salafist teaching which says that these women are whores and should be treated as such. They told me this. I wrote it down in my reports, but the authorities refuse to hear it.
Andrew Bostom has demonstrated in his book The Legacy of Jihad that the basic patterns have remained remarkably similar throughout the centuries, regardless of whether the non-Muslims in question were Christians, Jews, Hindus, Sikhs or Buddhists. Jihad and dhimmitude frequently have less to do with huge terror attacks or spectacular invasions than with accumulated daily humiliations and insults. A small group of Muslims move into an area, then gradually expand their numbers and with continuous verbal and physical harassment of non-Muslims and sexual harassment of their women force them to leave their homes or convert to Islam. Here is an example from Iran where the non-Muslims are Zoroastrians, but it might as well have been certain areas of Amsterdam, Birmingham or the suburbs of of Paris today:
The Islamization of Europe
Mary Boyce, Emeritus Professor of Iranian Studies at the University of London, has confirmed the external validity of Bat Ye’or’s analytical approach in her description of how jihad and dhimmitude (without the latter being specifically identified as such) transformed Zoroastrian society in an analogous manner. Boyce has written definitive assessments of those Zoroastrian communities which survived the devastating jihad conquests of the mid 7th through early 8th centuries 20. The Zoroastrians experienced an ongoing, inexorable decline over the next millennium due to constant sociopolitical and economic pressures exerted by their Muslim rulers, and neighbors… Boyce describes these complementary phenomena based on an historical analysis, and her personal observations living in the (central Iranian) Yezd area during the 1960s:

…Either a few Moslems settled on the outskirts of a Zoroastrian village, or one or two Zoroastrian families adopted Islam. Once the dominant faith had made a breach, it pressed in remorselessly, like a rising tide. More Moslems came, and soon a small mosque was built, which attracted yet others. As long as Zoroastrians remained in the majority, their lives were tolerable; but once the Moslems became the more numerous, a petty but pervasive harassment was apt to develop. This was partly verbal, with taunts about fire-worship, and comments on how few Zoroastrians there were in the world, and how many Moslems, who must therefore posses the truth; and also on how many material advantages lay with Islam. The harassment was often also physical; boys fought, and gangs of youth waylaid and bullied individual Zoroastrians. They also diverted themselves by climbing into the local tower of silence and desecrating it, and they might even break into the fire-temple and seek to pollute or extinguish the sacred flame. Those with criminal leanings found too that a religious minority provided tempting opportunities for theft, pilfering from the open fields, and sometimes rape and arson. Those Zoroastrians who resisted all these pressures often preferred therefore in the end to sell out and move to some other place where their co-religionists were still relatively numerous, and they could live at peace; and so another village was lot to the old faith. Several of the leading families in Sharifabad and forebears who were driven away by intense Moslem pressure from Abshahi, once a very devout and orthodox village on the southern outskirts of Yazd; and a shorter migration had been made by the family of the centenarian ‘Hajji’ Khodabakhsh, who had himself been born in the 1850s and was still alert and vigorous in 1964. His family, who were very pious, had left their home in Ahmedabad (just to the north of Turkabad) when he was a small boy, and had come to settle in Sharifabad to escape persecution and the threats to their orthodox way of life. Other Zoroastrians held out there for a few decades longer, but by the end of the century Ahmedabad was wholly Moslem, as Abshahi become in 1961. [Boyce’s footnote: The last Zoroastrian family left Abshahi in 1961, after the rape and subsequent suicide of one of their daughters.] It was noticeable that the villages which were left to the Zoroastrians were in the main those with poor supplies of water, where farming conditions were hard.
- – - – - – - – - -
Note: The following examples are all from Sweden, which is probably the most politically repressive and totalitarian country in the Western world, with virtually no public debate about immigration. Still, the muggings, rapes, beatings, murders and daily harassment described here could be from virtually any country in Western Europe, and indeed from any region in the world where Muslims are numerous enough to harass their non-Muslim neighbors:
Veiled girl gang in Stockholm attacks old ladies
A group of five teenage girls have been accused of a wave of vicious attacks against old women in Stockholm…

The girls, aged 17 and 18, have been remanded in custody for attacking the women in Tensta and Rinkeby, suburbs of the capital.
Their victims, mostly in their seventies and eighties, were usually mugged outside their homes…
In one of the muggings, the girls stole a 71-year-old’s handbag and pushed her down a flight of steps. In another case, a 78-year old woman was pushed to the ground and kicked where she lay.
The girls worked in groups and wore veils during the attacks, making it harder for the police to identify them.

Judge Tells Battered Muslim Wife: Koran Says ‘Men Are in Charge of Women’

Judge Tells Battered Muslim Wife: Koran Says ‘Men Are in Charge of Women’
Friday, March 23, 2007

·
BERLIN — Politicians and Muslim leaders denounced a German judge for citing the Koran in her rejection of a Muslim woman’s request for a quick divorce on grounds she was abused by her husband.
JudgeChrista Datz-Winter said in a recommendation earlier this year that both partners came from a “Moroccan cultural environment in which it is not uncommon for a man to exert a right of corporal punishment over his wife,” according to the court. The woman is a German of Moroccan descent married to a Moroccan citizen.
The judge argued that her case was not one of exceptional hardship in which fast-track divorce proceedings would be justified. When the woman protested, Datz-Winter cited a passage from the Koran that reads in part, “men are in charge of women.”
The judge was removed from the case on Wednesday and the Frankfurt administrative court said it was considering disciplinary action.
Court vice president Bernhard Olp said Thursday the judge “regrets that the impression arose that she approves of violence in marriage.”

While the Koranic verse cited does say that husbands are allowed to beat their wives if they are disobedient, Germany’s Institute for Islamic Questions noted that such an interpretation was no longer standard.
“Of course not all Muslims use violence against their wives,” the group said in a statement.
Olp said the judge thought she was protecting the woman, who had been granted a restraining order against her husband. She had seen no reason to grant help in paying court costs for a fast-track divorce.
Olp said her reasoning was unacceptable, but insisted it was a “one-time event” that would not have an effect on other cases, or on the final ruling in the divorce proceedings.
The latest uproar comes amid an ongoing debate in Germany about integrating its more than 3 million Muslims, most of them from Turkey. A decision last year to cancel an opera featuring the severed heads of the Prophet Muhammad and other religious figures out of security concerns caused a furor and was later retracted.
Justice Minister Brigitte Zypries condemned the judge’s decision.
“Every so often, there are individual rulings that seem completely incomprehensible,” she said.
Lawmakers from Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats said traditional Islamic law, or Sharia, had no place in Germany.
“The legal and moral concepts of Sharia have nothing to do with German jurisprudence,” Wolfgang Bosbach, a lawmaker with the Christian Democrats, told N24 television.
“One thing must be clear: In Germany, only German law applies. Period.”
Ronald Pofalla, the party’s general secretary, told Bild: “When the Koran is put above the German constitution, I can only say: Good night, Germany.”
Representatives of Germany’s Muslim population were also critical of the ruling.
“Violence and abuse of people — whether against men or women — are, of course, naturally reasons to warrant a divorce in Islam as well,” the country’s Central Council of Muslims said in a statement.
The mass-circulation Bild daily asked in a front-page article: “Where are we living?” The left-leaning Tageszeitung headlined its Thursday edition: “In the name of the people: Beating allowed.”

A more Islamic Islam

A more Islamic Islam

By Geneive Abdo

A small group of self-proclaimed secular Muslims from North America and elsewhere gathered in St. Petersburg recently for what they billed as a new global movement to correct the assumed wrongs of Islam and call for an Islamic Reformation.
Across the state in Fort Lauderdale, Muslim leaders from the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the Washington-based advocacy group whose members the “secular” Muslims claim are radicals, denounced any notion of a Reformation as another attempt by the West to impose its history and philosophy on the Islamic world.
The self-proclaimed secularists represent only a small minority of Muslims. The views among religious Muslims from CAIR more closely reflect the views of the majority, not only in the United States but worldwide. Yet Western media, governments and neoconservative pundits pay more attention to the secular minority.
The St. Petersburg convention is but one example: It was carried live on Glenn Beck’s conservative CNN show. Some of the organizers and speakers at the convention are well known thanks to the media spotlight: Author Irshad Manji, former Dutch parliamentarian Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and Wafa Sultan, who declared on Glenn Beck’s show that she doesn’t “see any difference between radical Islam and regular Islam”.
The secular Muslim agenda is promoted because these ideas reflect a Western vision for the future of Islam. Since the Sept. 11 attacks, everyone from high-ranking officials in the Bush administration to the author Salman Rushdie has prescribed a preferred remedy for Islam: Reform the faith so it is imbued with Western values—the privatization of religion, the flourishing of Western-style democracy—and rulers who are secular, not religious, Muslims. The problem with this prescription is that it is divorced from reality. It is built upon the principle that if Muslims are fed a steady diet of Western influence, they, too, will embrace modernity, secularism and everything else the West has to offer.
Consider the facts: Islamic revivalism has spread across the globe in the past 30 years from the Middle East to parts of Africa. In Egypt, it is hard to find a woman on the street who does not wear a headscarf. Islamic political groups and movements are on the rise—from Hezbollah in Lebanon, to Hamas in the Gaza Strip and West Bank, to the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. Even in the United States, more and more American Muslims, particularly the young, are embracing Islam and religious symbolism in ways their more secular, immigrant parents did not.
I traveled to Florida to serve as the keynote speaker at an annual convention hosted by CAIR. On my way to the event, I spoke with Imam Siraj Wahaj, a charismatic intellectual from the Masjid al-Taqwa in Brooklyn who has thousands of followers here and abroad. His words summarized the aspirations of mainstream Muslims in the United States and around the globe: “What we need to do is borrow those attributes from the West that we admire and reject those that we don’t. That is the wave of the future.”
Already, signs support Imam Wahaj’s words. Muslims living in the West and those in the Islamic world are searching for this middle ground—one that fuses aspects of globalization with the Islamic tradition. For example, Muslim women have far greater access to higher education today than ever before. In Iran, there are more women than men in universities, a first in the country’s history. But as increasing numbers of Muslim women become more educated, majorities are becoming more religious while also taking part in what are called Islamic feminist movements, which stretch from Egypt to Turkey and Morocco.
These women, who often wear headscarves to express their religiosity, have found this gray area between modernity and traditionalism. They are fighting for more rights to participate in politics and greater equality in “personal status” laws—the right to gain custody of children or to initiate divorce—but also view Islam as their moral compass.
Similarly, the political future of the Arab world is likely to consist of Islamic parties that are far less tolerant of what has historically been the US foreign policy agenda in the region and that domestically are far more committed to implementing sharia law in varying degrees.
In Europe and the United States, where Muslims have maximum exposure to Western culture, they are increasingly embracing Islamic values. In Britain, a growing number of Muslims advocate creating a court system based upon Islamic principles.
What all this means is that Western hopes for full integration by Muslims in the West are unlikely to be realized and that the future of the Islamic world will be much more Islamic than Western.
Instead of championing the loud voices of the secular minority who are capturing media attention with their conferences, manifestos and memoirs, the United States would be wise instead to pay more attention to the far less loquacious majority.

New Bosnian Muslim-Croat Federation government suspended

New Bosnian Muslim-Croat Federation government suspended
dpa German Press Agency

Published: Friday March 23, 2007

dpa German Press Agency

Published: Friday March 23, 2007

Sarajevo- International administrator in Bosnia Christian
Schwarz-Schilling suspended Friday in Sarajevo the vote of the
Bosnian Muslim-Croat Federation entity’s parliament to install a new
government.
The parliament of the Muslim-Croat Federation gave Thursday the
green light for a new government and the new premier and ministers
were sworn in following the vote.
The 16-ministries government was formed six months after general
elections in Bosnia-Herzegovina held in October last year, due to the
inability of Muslim and Croat political parties to agree on the
distribution of the ministerial posts.
Schwarz-Schilling suspended the decision, stressing that the
government of the Muslim-Croat entity was formed before all the
nominated ministers went through a vetting process by his office.
The vetting process was introduced in 2005 with the agreement of
Bosnia-Herzegovina’s political parties to strengthen the systems that
scrutinize government and prevent abuses of power.
The previous government of the Muslim-Croat Federation is to
continue operating in a technical mandate until Schwarz-Schilling’s
office completes the checking of the new ministers’ backgrounds and
gives the new government a green light to start working, which may
happen next week.
Another Bosnian entity, the Serb-run Srpska Republic, formed its
government last November.
Bosnia-Herzegovina was administratively divided into two entities,
the Srpska Republic and the Muslim-Croat Federation, by the Dayton
Peace Agreement which brought an end to the country’s 1992-1995 war.
Though each entity has its own president, government and
parliament, the country is run by the central authorities – a
tripartite state Presidency, a Council of Ministers and the
Parliamentary Assembly of Bosnia-Herzegovina.

http://rawstory.com/news/dpa/New_Bosnian_Muslim_Croat_Federation_03232007.html&gt;

ANALYSIS – Britain may try to revive nuclear pact to curb Iran

ANALYSIS – Britain may try to revive nuclear pact to curb Iran
Thu. 22 Mar 2007
By Sophie Walker

LONDON (Reuters) – Gordon Brown may lead efforts to revive the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty as a way of tackling Iran’s atomic ambitions, his most pressing foreign policy challenge once he becomes British prime minister.
After 10 years as finance minister, Brown is widely expected to succeed Tony Blair in June or July. Government and diplomatic sources say he may have less than a year to influence policy on Iran as Washington’s patience with Tehran wears thin.
Western relations with Iran are fraught because of concern it may be trying to build nuclear bombs under cover of an atomic energy programme, and threats of U.N. sanctions appear so far to have done nothing to dissuade it from pressing on.
“There are things Brown can do and things he can’t do. Iran is the thing he can’t not do,” said one government source.
Experts believe Iran is close to enriching industrial quantities of uranium, which can be used to generate electricity or, if highly enriched, to make nuclear bombs.
Sources close to Brown say his aides are discussing ways of reinforcing the NPT, a pact which has neither prevented several states acquiring nuclear arms nor persuaded others to disarm.
“We need to think about whether we want to take a more internationalist approach to the counter-proliferation agenda and look at steps that could be taken by nuclear-possessing countries to get the process going again,” said one source.
The treaty dates back to 1968 but four states known, or believed, to have nuclear weapons — India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea — stand outside of it and in this context some see the Western campaign against Iran as hypocritical.
NEW MESSAGE
“You cannot have a world of nuclear haves and have-nots and there is a huge audience for this message right now,” said Dan Plesch, author and commentator on nuclear proliferation.
A call this year by former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger for Washington to lead a consensus to reverse global reliance on nuclear weapons caused a stir.
A meeting in Vienna in May will review the NPT and while Britain decided last week to renew its Trident nuclear weapons system, analysts reckon Brown could play into a shift in sentiment in parts of the U.S. political establishment.
While Iran has denounced Britain’s renewal as a serious setback to disarmament efforts, London plans to cut its warheads by 20 percent, in line with its obligations under the NPT, and government sources say there is scope to ditch more.
Getting fresh commitment to a truly inclusive pact to limit the proliferation of nuclear weapons might then help the U.N. Security Council in its bid to curb Iran’s ambitions.
Brown will be keen not to be seen as subservient to Washington — a perceived failing which hurt Blair — but he is committed to maintaining strong ties with the United States.
Britain sees itself as a trusted interlocutor, a role which analysts say could be vital because the U.S. government is seen to have little ideological room for manoeuvre over Iran and those backing military strikes want to ratchet up the pressure during the final years of George W. Bush’s presidency.
“Washington is boxed into a corner,” said Robin Niblett, director of Chatham House, an international affairs think-tank.
“The Bush administration can’t discuss Iran without going back on their perception that it is at the heart of an existential threat to Israel because it is seen as supporting terrorist groups like Hezbollah and working on nuclear weapons.”
“That makes it just impossible for the Bush administration to talk to them. The UK has to lead,” Niblett said.
But Brown, who has relatively little experience of dealing with Middle Eastern policy issues, would have to act fast.
“The Israelis seem to have set a timetable of six to nine months, in terms of the intelligence they are pushing about when Iran will have industrial-level enriching capacity,” said Alex Bigham, Iran analyst at the Foreign Policy Centre in London.
“Then there will be a lot of pressure on the United States — and by default Britain — to take action.”