 BY CHARLES KURZMAN, IJLAL NAQVI Do Muslims automatically vote Islamic? That's the concern conjured up by strongmen from Tunis to Tashkent, and plenty of Western experts agree. They point to the political victories of Islamic parties in Egypt, Palestine, and Turkey in recent years and warn that more elections across the Islamic world could turn power over to anti-democratic fundamentalists. But these victories turn out to be exceptions, not the political rule. When we examined results from parliamentary elections in all Muslim societies, we found a very different pattern: Given the choice, voters tend to go with secular parties, not religious ones.
Over the past 40 years, 86 parliamentary elections in 20 countries have included one or more Islamic parties, according to annual reports from the Inter-Parliamentary Union.
Voters in these places have overwhelmingly turned up their noses at such parties. Eighty percent of these Islamic parties earned less than 20 percent of the vote, and a majority got less than 10 percent -- hardly landslide victories. The same is true even over the last few years, with numbers barely changing since 2001. True, Islamic parties have won a few well-publicized breakthrough victories, such as in Algeria in 1991 and Palestine in 2006.
But far more often, Islamic parties tend to do very poorly. What's more, the more free and fair an election is, the worse the Islamic parties do. By our calculations, the average percentage of seats won by Islamic parties in relatively free elections is 10 points lower than in less free ones. Even if they don't win, Islamic parties often find themselves liberalized by the electoral process. We found that Islamic party platforms are less likely to focus on sharia law or armed jihad in freer elections and more likely to uphold democracy and women's rights.
And even in more authoritarian countries, Islamic party platforms have shifted over the course of multiple elections toward more liberal positions: Morocco's Justice and Development Party and Jordan's Islamic Action Front both stripped sharia law from their platforms over the last several years. These are still culturally conservative parties, by any standard, but their decision to run for office places them at odds with Islamic revolutionaries. In many cases, they're actually risking their lives. Almost two decades ago, even before his alliance with Osama bin Laden, Egyptian jihadist Ayman al-Zawahiri wrote a tract condemning the Muslim Brotherhood's abandonment of revolutionary methods in favor of electoral politics.
"Whoever labels himself as a Muslim democrat, or a Muslim who calls for democracy, is like saying he is a Jewish Muslim or a Christian Muslim," he wrote. In Iraq, Sunni Islamic revolutionaries recently renewed their campaign "to start killing all those participating in the political process," according to a warning received by a Sunni politician who was subsequently assassinated in Mosul. More at Foreign Policy
 The other day, a twenty-year-old woman was sold at an open auction in Badani Bhutto, Pakistan. Her brothers divided up the money. No one condemned this shameless and abominable act. It is an act that haunts me. For a long time now, similar kinds of people (yes, mainly Muslims) have invaded—no, immigrated to—Europe, where they have continued to engage in polygamy, arranged child marriage, forced veiling of women, honor-related violence, including honor murders (17,000 honor-related crimes of violence have been estimated to occur annually in the UK alone), and female genital mutilation.
According to my new (and about to be published) study, honor murders in Europe are especially savage—even more so than in developing Muslim countries. According to the Telegraf, “Dutch and foreign intelligence services are at high alert due to a five-day international Islamic conference in Eindhoven, starting today. The intelligence services fear that the congress participants will secretly collect funds for armed Islamic battle. It’s also feared that the speakers in the conference will reverse the integration of Muslims in the Netherlands.” (Thanks to Esther’s Islam in Europe blog for this information). In addition, just the other day, perhaps in response to the defacing of a mosque, a British war memorial was defaced with the slogan “Islam Will Dominate the World.” But some of us–Christians, Jews, Muslims, ex-Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs–are fighting back. Yesterday, for the first time ever, the American criminal justice system indicted a father for the “honor murder” of his daughter in Arizona. According to the Arizona Republic, “An Iraqi immigrant accused of slaying his daughter in an “honor killing” has been charged with first-degree murder and could face the death penalty, Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas said Monday…Prosecutors have labeled Noor Almaleki’s death an “honor killing,” saying the elder Almaleki killed his daughter because she dishonored the family by not following traditional Iraqi or Muslim values.” In Texas, Sarah and Amina Said were also honor-murdered; however, the climate of political correctness had a chilling effect on how this murder was portrayed both in the media and on the FBI’s Most Wanted List. Rather late in the day, perhaps too late, Europe has begun to fight back against its inevitable Islamification. Bat Ye’or, Bruce Bawer, Christopher Caldwell, Oriana Fallaci, Carol Gould, Melanie Phillips, Jean Raspail, Ibn Warraq, Geert Wilders, and I, among others, have all suggested that this is indeed the case. But prithee pause: There are stirrings of resistance yet in the Old World. In addition to the highly significant convictions of honor murderers in England, Holland, and Denmark, which I wrote about last week, did you know: That a man in Holland has just been refused welfare benefits because he refused to shorten his beard or to shake hands with women on the jobs that the government found for him? That a refugee from Afghanistan was about to get married in Denmark when the police broke up the wedding and arrested him? Apparently, his visa had been denied and the police did not want to allow him to gain Danish citizenship in this underhanded way. Indeed, Denmark may consider deporting immigrants who interfere with police work in the so-called “no go” zones. Apparently, the one thing that Muslim immigrants fear is being deported. That Denmark is offering to pay Muslim immigrants who do not really want to integrate to leave the country? That calls for the banning of either headscarves or burqas or both have rung out (like church bells, dare I say) all across France, Belgium, and Germany? I love Europe. I want it to remain European. It was the land of my bohemian dreams when I was young. I grew up reading poetry, novels, plays, and philosophical treatises by British, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Swedish, and Greek authors. I listened—I still do—to music most divine written by composers from all these countries and by Austrian, Polish, Norwegian, Hungarian, and Russian composers too. I have spent many happy hours viewing French, Dutch, Spanish, British, and Italian paintings. I used to love the Islamic world as well. I once traveled and lived within it. It called to me.
The light, heat, color, sounds, smells, foods, history, music, stories, poetry, exotic charm, and human as well as geographic beauty held me in thrall. That world is now gone. I will probably never again travel to a Muslim country in this lifetime. It, too, has been fundamentalized, Islamified in the worst way. Whatever tolerance may have once existed (and granted, it was not much) is either long gone or is now under siege. Today, many Muslims are also fighting over who controls their countries and their religion. In Iran, the bravest of pro-democracy and anti-regime activists are marching, marching, to their deaths.
All over the Islamic world, in groups and as individuals, Muslims are also marching against tyranny and for women’s rights, secular rights, and homosexual rights. Of course, many Muslim dissidents and feminists have also fled to Europe and America where they now live, write, and teach. I am glad they are here. I hope the “Europe” and the “America” where they sought asylum does not betray them and end up looking and acting like the countries they left behind—the kind of country that would sell a young woman at an open auction. Phyllis Chesler 
 By Nina Lakhani Hundreds of British schoolgirls are facing the terrifying prospect of female genital mutilation (FGM) over the Christmas holidays as experts warn the practice continues to flourish across the country. Parents typically take their daughters back to their country of origin for FGM during school holidays, but The Independent on Sunday has been told that "cutters" are being flown to the UK to carry out the mutilation at "parties" involving up to 20 girls to save money. The police face growing criticism for failing to prosecute a single person for carrying out FGM in 25 years; new legislation from 2003 which prohibits taking a girl overseas for FGM has also failed to secure a conviction. Experts say the lack of convictions, combined with the Government's failure to invest enough money in education and prevention strategies, mean the practice continues to thrive. Knowledge of the health risks and of the legislation remains patchy among practising communities, while beliefs about the supposed benefits for girls remain firm, according to research by the Foundation for Women's Health, Research and Development.
As a result, specialist doctors and midwives are struggling to cope with increasing numbers of women suffering from long-term health problems, including complications during pregnancy and childbirth. Campaigners are urging ministers to take co-ordinated steps to work with communities here and overseas to change deep-seated cultural attitudes and stamp out this extreme form of violence against women. The author and life peer Ruth Rendell, who has campaigned against FGM for 10 years, said: "When I helped take the Bill through Parliament seven years ago, I was very hopeful that we'd get convictions and that would then act as a deterrent for other people. But that has never happened and my heart bleeds for these girls.
This mutilation is forever; nothing can be done to restore the clitoris, and that is just very sad for them. I have repeatedly asked questions of ministers from all departments about why there has never been a prosecution and why we still do not have a register of cases. But while they are always very sympathetic, nothing ever seems to get done. Teachers must not be squeamish and must talk to their girls so we can try and prevent it from happening." FGM is classified into four types, of varying severity; type 3 is the most mutilating and involves total removal of the clitoris, labia and a narrowing of the whole vagina. An estimated 70,000 women living in the UK have undergone FGM, and 20,000 girls remain at risk, according to Forward.
The practice is common in 28 African countries, including Somalia, Sudan and Nigeria, as well as some Middle Eastern and Asian countries such as Malaysia and Yemen.
It is generally considered to be an essential rite of passage to suppress sexual pleasure, preserve girls' purity and cleanliness, and is necessary for marriage in many communities even now. More at the Independent
 New York, 6 novembre 2009 : Au cours d’une cérémonie qui s’est tenue le 4 novembre au Metropolitan Museum of Art, le secteur hollandais des bulbes floraux a baptisé une tulipe Ayaan en hommage à Ayaan Hirsi Ali pour sa défense de la liberté et des droits humains des femmes musulmanes.Madame Hirsi Ali, féministe, écrivain, activiste et ancien membre du parlement hollandais a conclu la traditionnelle cérémonie de baptême en éclaboussant du champagne sur les bulbes et en proclamant « De ce jour, cette tulipe sera appelée Ayaan ». M. Thijs Leenders, président de l’association nord-américaine des grossistes en bulbes floraux représentait à cette occasion le secteur hollandais des bulbes floraux. Était également présent M. Wim Pijbes, directeur du Rijksmuseum d’Amsterdam. Ayaan Hirsi Ali est née à Mogadiscio, en Somalie. Elle a immigré aux Pays-Bas en 1992, bénéficiant de l’asile politique. Elle a étudié les sciences politiques à l’université de Leiden et obtenu une maîtrise. En 2003, elle a été élue au parlement hollandais, où elle a siégé jusqu’en 2006. Pendant son mandat législatif, elle s’est beaucoup impliquée dans les questions d’assimilation des immigrés non occidentaux au sein de la société néerlandaise et à travers le monde. En 2004, elle s’est associée au réalisateur hollandais Theo van Gogh pour créer le film Submission, un documentaire sur le traitement des femmes par l’islam conservateur. Le caractère polémique du film a suscité beaucoup de colère dans la communauté musulmane des Pays-Bas. En 2004, Theo van Gogh a été assassiné dans une rue d’Amsterdam par un extrémiste islamique déclaré. Mme Hirsi Ali réside actuellement aux États-Unis où elle collabore à l’American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, un think tank conservateur de Washington. Lire le reste...Source: Flora Culture via Islam in Europe (Traduction par Poste de veille) H/T: S.P.
 In a ceremony on November 4 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art the Dutch flower bulb sector named a tulip after Ayaan Hirsi Ali ‘Ayaan’ in recognition of Ms. Hirsi Ali’s defense of freedom and human rights for Muslim women.
Ms. Hirsi Ali, a feminist, author, activist and former member of the Dutch parliament completed the traditional naming ceremony by drizzling champagne over the bulbs and declaring, “From now on this Tulip has the name ‘Ayaan’.”
Mr. Thijs Leenders, president of the North American Flower Bulb Wholesalers Association represented the Dutch bulb sector in the event. Also in attendance was Mr. Wim Pijbes, director of Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a native of Mogadishu, Somalia. She immigrated to the Netherlands in 1992 receiving political asylum.
She studied political science at the University of Leiden, earning a Master of Arts degree. In 2003 she was elected a member of the Dutch parliament where she served until 2006. During her legislative tenure, she was very involved in the issues of assimilating non-Western immigrants into Dutch society.
She has long been a vocal defender of the rights of Muslim women in Dutch society and around the world. In 2004, she teamed with Dutch film director Theo van Gogh to create the film Submission, a documentary on the treatment of women by conservative Islam.
The film’s controversial nature angered many in Holland’s Islamic community. In 2004, Mr. van Gogh was murdered on an Amsterdam street by an avowed Islamic extremist. Ms. Hirsi Ali currently resides in the U.S. where she is a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, a conservative think tank in Washington, D.C.
Tulipa ‘Ayaan’ is a dark maroon/brown/purple Triumph tulip hybridized by Ms. Lydia Boots, of Lybo Hybridizing, Hem, NL. Ms Boots is one of few women working in the male dominated world of tulip hybridizing. The hybrid is a crossing of Tulipa ‘Gavota’ x a sport of Tulipa ‘Gander’s Rhapsody’.
The new deep purple tulip joins a group of tulips known in Holland as “black” tulips. The legendary quest of Dutch hybridizers to create a truly black tulip goes back centuries. Many experts consider Tulipa ‘Ayaan’ one of the finest and most successful results of this quest. The selection of the flower to be named in her honor was made by Ms. Hirsi Ali herself.
Upon receipt of the signed christening certificate, the tulip will be entered into the Classified List and International Register of Tulip Names, maintained by the Royal Dutch Bulb Growers Association (KAVB) in Hillegom, the Netherlands.
Supplies of the Ayaan tulip will be limited for several years, as it takes many seasons to build up stocks of new tulips. It is estimated that only 500 bulbs will be available for sale and planting in the fall of 2010. Visitors to Amsterdam in spring of 2010 will be able to view and enjoy the new tulip in the park adjacent to the Rijksmuseum, where 100 bulbs were planted in October in celebration of the upcoming tulip naming.
 RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — Saudi Arabia's king waived a flogging sentence on a female journalist charged for involvement in a risque TV show, the second such pardoning of such a high profile case by the monarch in recent years. King Abdullah's decision to waive 22-year-old journalist Rozanna al-Yami's sentence of 60 lashes by a judge in Jiddah follows intense international media attention. The journalist was charged with helping coordinate a talk show on a Lebanese channel featuring a Saudi man describing what appeared to be his active sex life. Though the charges against her were dropped, the judge ordered the flogging as a "deterent" al-Yami said. In November 2007, the king waived a flogging sentence of 90 lashes against a rape victim for being alone in a car with an unrelated man shortly before the two were attacked. The case also evoked international outrage over the Saudi judiciary. On Monday, Information Ministry spokesman Abdul-Rahman al-Hazza told The Associated Press that the king waived the sentence and ordered al-Yami's case and that of another journalist — a pregnant woman also accused of involvement in the program — be referred to a committee in the ministry. Al-Hazza said the king made his decision after he was briefed by Information Minister Abdel Aziz Khoja. The committee, which usually has a Justice Ministry representative but no judges sitting on it, deals with media-related violations, al-Hazza said. Al-Yami, 22, worked as a coordinator for the program but has denied involvement in the sex-related episode. The case started in July, when the Lebanese LBC satellite channel aired the sex talk episode as part of its program entitled "Bold Red Line." In the episode, a divorced Saudi father of four who works for the national airline, Mazen Abdul-Jawad, appears to describe an active sex life and shows sex toys that were blurred by the station in the footage shown on TV. The government moved swiftly in the wake of the case, shutting down LBC's two offices in the kingdom and arresting Abdul-Jawad. The same judge at the Jiddah court also sentenced Abdul-Jawad earlier this month to five years in jail and 1,000 lashes. Three other men who appeared on the show were also convicted of discussing sex publicly and sentenced to two years imprisonment and 300 lashes each. The man's lawyer, Sulaiman al-Jumeii, maintains his client was duped by the TV station and was unaware in many cases he was being recorded. On Monday, he urged Khoja to intercede with the king to include all those involved in the case under the same Information Ministry committee. "They are being tried by a court that is not specialized in this issue and has not even summoned LBC or watched the raw film," he said in a statement. "Justice should not be divided as long as it is one case," he added. Source: Foxnews
 Egypt's Centre for Women's Rights conducted a survey last year which revealed that 93 per cent of Egyptian women have endured harassment of some sort at least once. For some, what should be a leisurely stroll through the streets of Cairo, Egypt's capital, has become more like a gauntlet run. Campaigners say the male-dominated society leaves women feeling vulnerable and unprotected by traditional forces like the police. The problem has become so acute that the government is now considering making the abuse a criminal offence. Meanwhile, Al Jazeera's Amr el-Khaky meets a group of women in Cairo who are taking the fight in their own hands: they are taking lessons in karate. Mona Eltahawy, an Egyptian writer and activist, says that almost every woman she knows has been sexually harassed or groped. "It is no exaggeration to say this is an epidemic," she says. "This is much more than sexual frustration. "This is about power, about humiliation, about the way women have been portrayed, not just in the media but also through religious sermons. "… The respect that Islam gives to women ... is missing from a lot of religious discourse in Egypt." Source: Al Jazeera (English)
 By Ian SparksFrance's hardline immigration minister has launched a fresh demand to ban the burkha - decribed by president Nicolas Sarkozy a sign of 'subservience and debasement'. Eric Besson said the Islamic full head and body covers were 'unacceptable' and not welcome in France. His demand for a total ban comes after 58 French MPs called last June for a public inquiry on whether it should be illegal for women to hide their faces in public. Mr Sarkozy backed the move, saying at the time: 'This garment makes women prisoners and deprives them of their identity. 'I say solemnly that they are not welcome on the territory of the French Republic.' Women's rights groups and Left-wing MPs went even further, descibing the item as a 'walking coffin' and and a 'mobile prison'. A burkha refers to a full-body covering worn largely in Afghanistan with only a mesh screen over the eyes, while a niqab is a full-body veil, often in black, with slits for the eyes. France - home to Europe's largest five million Muslim population - already passed a law in 2004 forbidding students and staff from wearing veils and other religious symbols in schools as part of a drive to defend secularism. Earlier this year Mr Besson said he though a law banning burkhas and niqabs would only 'create tensions'. But he has now said he wants Islamic garments which cover the face - worn by an estimated 2,000 women in France - outlawed everywhere. He said yesterday: 'I recognise that my views have now evolved. 'The burkha is unacceptable and contrary to the principles of national identity, of sexual equality and of the French Republic.'
Mr Besson said: 'The burkha is unacceptable and contrary to the principles of national identity, of sexual equality and of the French Republic' Left-wing MP Andre Gerin, who is heading the government commission on burkhas and niqabs, added: 'We find it intolerable to see images of these imprisoned women when they come from Iran, Afghanistan or Saudi Arabia.
'They are totally unacceptable on the territory of the French Republic.'
The latest debate over the burkha comes after a French mother was last month banned from wearing a 'burkini' swimsuit at her local swimming pool. Carole, a 35-year-old Muslim convert, was told by the manager of pool in Emerainville, near Paris, that the garment was 'inappropriate' on hygiene grounds. The woman said she bought her burkini for £40 during a holiday in Dubai, adding: 'I was told that it would allow me the pleasure of bathing without showing off my body, which is what Islam recommends.'
She now intended to take her local council to court on the grounds that the ban was not a hygiene issue but a political issue. In July, Al Qaeda terrorists vowed revenge on France if it banned the burkha on its streets. Leaders of Al Qaeda's North African network wrote on an Islamic extremist website: 'French Muslims should react to this ban with the utmost hostility. 'We will seek dreadful revenge on France by all means at our disposal, for the honour of our daughters and sisters.'
The government inquiry in the legality of the burkha and niqab is due to reveal its findings next month. Source: Mail Online
 By Mona Sarika "On the election day, I went to vote. I went with my husband ... his sister Naseema, and my babysitter Nafis Gul. ... While I was at the polls there were no other women there besides us," wrote Manizha Naderi, executive director of Women for Afghan Women, on Aug. 20. Although the August elections may have been a democratic step forward for Afghanistan, they were ultimately a step backward for Afghan women. In a war-ravaged country, where women have few rights, millions of Afghan women were denied their chance to vote in the presidential election. Gretchen Birkle, who runs a non-profit organization and served as a monitor for Afghanistan's August presidential and provincial council elections, writes that according to Ruqiya Nayel, an Afghan member of parliament from Ghor, "about 40 percent of women were registered to vote, however the final numbers on how many women actually voted are not expected for several days." According to the New York Times, women voted in higher numbers in the northern region of Afghanistan -- Bamiyan and Kabul -- compared with Taliban-dominated southern areas like Kandahar. From the numbers coming out of these elections it appears that women voted in fewer numbers than in previous elections. Nahal Toosi and Noor Khan of the Associated Press estimated overall turnout ranged from 40 to 50 percent, down from 70 percent in the last presidential election in 2004. This should come as no surprise considering the additional obstacles those women voters had to face: In addition to Taliban violence and intimidation that threatened the entire population, including the killing of election officials and threats to any Afghans with ink on their fingers, there were other insurmountable obstacles that contributed specifically to the low turnout among women. Read more here,,,, Source: Foreign Policy
 Tristan McConnell Sudan is facing international condemnation as the trial resumes today of Lubna Hussein, a Muslim woman who faces a flogging for breaking indecency laws by wearing trousers. Speaking to The Times before her court appearance, Ms Hussein, 34, a widow, said that she was overwhelmed by the public support she has received in her fight to change a law that she says discriminates against women. “I am so happy when I see all of the support from around the world,” she said by telephone from the Sudanese capital Khartoum. “It is not support for Lubna Hussein but for human rights and women’s rights in Sudan and elsewhere in the world.” Ms Hussein wants to force the repeal of Article 152 of Sudan’s penal code, which orders a fine and flogging for women dressed in an “indecent” manner. Ten of the women were flogged and fined, but Ms Hussein, a former journalist, and two others demanded to see a lawyer. Ms Hussein has sought to publicise her case and resigned from her job with the UN, which would have afforded her immunity from prosecution. “I wanted to be treated as any other Sudanese woman,” she said. Ms Hussein is being lauded as a human rights campaigner and for her refusal to accept the punishment quietly. It has also shaken the Islamic establishment in Khartoum. At her court appearance in August riot police used teargas to disperse a crowd of mostly female supporters. “I want to campaign for women’s rights, because as a Muslim and a woman in an Arab country I know how hard it can be. We women try to get an education, to work, but the Government doesn’t support us,” she said. Read more here,,,, Source: Times Online
 Bangladeshi women scarred by acid attacks are refusing to withdraw from society.
Fozila was attacked because she refused a marriage proposal. Hasina was set upon after an argument over a bucket of water. Two women in the seething Bangladesh capital Dhaka whose lives changed in a blinding flash. They were attacked with acid.
Last year in Bangladesh there were 179 recorded cases of acid attacks. Hydrochloric and nitric acid are cheap and readily available - used by the gallon in the grimy jewellery workshops in the backstreets of the city. In the wrong hands though, it can be devastating. Eating quickly through skin and bone and doing irreparable damage. The victims are targeted usually over land disputes or spurned advances.
And while women are the main targets of a despicable crime, children – even babies – are also often in the line of fire, attacked for being born female or boys splashed with acid because of petty inter-family jealousy.
In a powerful and confronting report South Asia correspondent Sally Sara investigates acid attacks in Bangladesh and asks what’s being done to arrest this shameful phenomenon.
Sara discovers Bangladesh is trying to reform itself. Police have been told to crack down on the acid throwers, and the death penalty has been introduced. The message is that these attacks should no longer be considered just family business.
‘Our face is our identity. When it is changed our whole identity is changed.
Women and girls are so cheap in this society, so men can destroy them’.
MONIRA RAHMAN, ACID SURVIVORS FOUNDATION
In a society that shuns people with disabilities it would appear impossible for some of these women to survive let alone prosper but some do through remarkable strength and determination. They have landed good jobs and now can afford to live independently in the city, building a new life they may have only dreamed of in their villages.
They’re sustained by a new self belief, drawing courage and confidence from an inner beauty.
‘Beautiful is what’s inside, what’s there in your heart. My heart is beautiful. I can feel that.’
HASINA AKTER, ACID SURVIVOR
 By Nonie Darwish On June 24, 2009, the Huffington Post ran an article, “Sensational Film Exploits Human Rights Issues in Iran,” by Elise Auerbach, Amnesty International USA’s Iran specialist. The author criticizes the new film, The Stoning of Soraya M, arguing that it does more harm than good. But perhaps she should tell that to her own organization, which recently hosted a screening in supporting the film. To Ms. Auerbach, I would like to say that the act of stoning is sensational to all those who cheer and participate in it. As a “specialist,” perhaps she can compare the movie to videos of actual stonings, noting not just the horrific violence upon the victim, but also the chilling enthusiasm of the crowd. The director of the movie, Cyrus Nowrasteh, simply showed the truth that no one in Hollywood dares to touch. Stoning is one of the most horrific acts committed against humanity. I want to thank Mr. Nowrasteh from the bottom of my heart, not just for the realistic stoning scene, but also for his portrayal of the Muslim culture of secrecy, pride and shame which condones, indeed encourages, such actions. When I lived as a Muslim in the Middle East, I personally knew victims of honor killings, and heard about the bodies of women floating in the Nile that no one cared to report. Even the police ignored such horrific murders. In Muslim culture, women’s bodies belong to men. If they are shamed, men cannot live with dignity and respect in society unless they kill the suspected wife or daughter. One of the most moving parts in the movie was the pressure placed on Soraya’s father to throw the first stone. That father could not have survived in dignity if he had refused. It was brilliantly done and so true. Read more ...Source: FPM
 By Phyllis Chesler As far as I’m concerned, Frenchmen are back in vogue. Who could ever have predicted that the French president would stand up for women’s universal rights and for freedom as a universal right — while the American president would hang back, wait, temporize? It’s almost as if we’ve elected a Frenchman president of the United States — and an American-style president is ruling France. Please contrast the following two speeches. On June 22th, 2009, President Nicholas Sarkozy stated that he viewed the full-body burqa and niquab as a sign of the “debasement” of women and that it won’t be welcome in France. According to the glorious Sarkozy: “In our country, we cannot accept that women be prisoners behind a screen, cut off from all social life, deprived of all identity … The burqa is not a religious sign, it’s a sign of subservience, a sign of debasement — I want to say it solemnly, it will not be welcome on the territory of the French Republic.” France has Europe’s largest Muslim population, an estimated 5 million people. Many are hostile to the western enterprise, but some are in the vocal forefront of the fight for women’s and human rights. In 2004, France passed a law “banning the Islamic headscarf and other conspicuous religious symbols from public schools, sparking fierce debate at home and abroad.” Now, contrast Sarkozy’s words with what President Obama said in Cairo on June 4th, 2009. “Moreover, freedom in America is indivisible from the freedom to practice one’s religion. That is why there is a mosque in every state of our union, and over 1,200 mosques within our borders. That is why the U.S. government has gone to court to protect the right of women and girls to wear the hijab, and to punish those who would deny it. So let there be no doubt: Islam is a part of America. And I believe that America holds within her the truth that regardless of race, religion, or station in life, all of us share common aspirations — to live in peace and security; to get an education and to work with dignity; to love our families, our communities, and our God. These things we share. This is the hope of all humanity.” Read more ...Source: Pajamas MediaPresident Nicolas Sarkozy
Latest recipients of The MASH Award
 Iranian women demonstrate Thursday in the streets of TehranBy Moni Basu Like thousands of other Iranian women, Parisa took to Tehran's streets this week, her heart brimming with hope. "Change," said the placards around her. The young Iranian woman eyed the crowd and pondered the possibility that the rest of her life might be different from her mother's. She could see glimmers of a future free from discrimination -- and all the symbols of it, including the head-covering the government requires her to wear every day. Women, regarded as second-class citizens under Iranian law, have been noticeably front and center of the massive demonstrations that have unfolded since the presidential election a week ago. Iranians are protesting what they consider a fraudulent vote count favoring hardline incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but for many women like Parisa, the demonstrations are just as much about taking Iran one step closer to democracy. "Women have become primary agents of change in Iran," said Nayereh Tohidi, chairwoman of the Gender and Women's Studies Department at California State University, Northridge. Read more ...Source: CNNH/T: Jihad Watch
 By Robert Spencer A feminist professor has once again passed up an opportunity to stand up for the human rights of Muslims women. Recently Dr. Laura Briggs, Associate Professor of Women’s Studies and Head of the Department of Women’s Studies at the University of Arizona, welcomed new Ph.D. students to the department. In the course of her address, Briggs, author of Reproducing Empire: Race, Sex, Science, and U.S. Imperialism in Puerto Rico, praised the work of other professors, including that of Saba Mahmood, Associate Professor of Social Cultural Anthropology at the University of California at Berkeley. Mahmood, said Briggs, “confronted one of the legacies of a long history of orientalism and the recent wars in the Middle East: the way we are invited to see Muslim women as hopelessly, painfully oppressed, without their own autonomy, will, or individual rights.” So apparently the oppression of Muslim women has nothing to do with Islamic law or culture; it is merely a byproduct of “orientalism and the recent wars in the Middle East” – in other words, it is the West’s fault. “If we sometimes notice other Middle Eastern women—women’s rights activists, for example,” Briggs continued, “it is only to reinforce the notion that the great mass of Muslim women are terribly oppressed by the rise of conservative religiosity, by their husbands, by the ways they are compelled to dress.” Briggs has good news: Mahmood spent two years – two years! – in Egypt and discovered that that oppression is just a mirage: “But after two years of fieldwork in the women’s mosque movement in Egypt, Mahmood asks us to consider a new question: what if community, as much as or more than the notions of individual rights, is a route to living meaningfully? Perhaps we ought to rethink the idea that women’s agency and personhood spring from resistance to subjection, and attend to the ways that in conservative religious communities, the cultivation of virtue and of closeness to God, of certain emotions and of forms of embodiment, are challenging but hardly one-dimensional ways of producing the self.” Read more ...Source: FrontPage Magazine
| Koran 4.34: Men are the maintainers of women because Allah has made some of them to excel others and because they spend out of their property; the good women are therefore obedient, guarding the unseen as Allah has guarded; and (as to) those on whose part you fear desertion, admonish them, and leave them alone in the sleeping-places and beat them; then if they obey you, do not seek a way against them; surely Allah is High, Great. |
By Hayat Al-Ghamdi ABHA: A Jeddah court judge’s approval of husbands slapping their wives on the face if they spend money lavishly on unnecessary things triggered a hue and cry during a seminar on domestic violence here recently. “If a person gives SR1,200 to his wife and she spends SR900 to purchase an abaya (the black gown) from a brand shop and if her husband slaps her on the face as a reaction to her action, she deserves that punishment,” said Judge Hamad Al-Razine. The judge made this comment in the presence of Princess Adila bint Abdullah, deputy chairperson of the National Family Safety Program, who attended the seminar on the role of judicial and security institutions in preventing domestic violence. Al-Razine was explaining the causes of an increase in domestic violence in the country, adding that women were also equally responsible. “But nobody puts even a fraction of blame on them,” he said before making the controversial comment. Read more ...Source: Arab News
By Phyllis Chesler My Speech for the Human Rights Rally Against Radical Fundamentalist Islam Today in Times Square, New York Radical, fundamentalist Islam is the world’s largest practioner of both gender and religious apartheid. Others are speaking here today about Islamic religious apartheid. I have been asked to focus on Islamic gender apartheid. We who live in the West, and who have learned how to analyze and protest gender inequality here, simply have no idea how much free-er and safer women are in the West than in Muslim countries. I once lived in the Islamic world, in Afghanistan. What I learned in Kabul rendered me immune to the romanticization of the Third World or to the glamorization of tyrants and terrorists that defined my generation of 1960s and 1970s radicals. Being born female and Muslim, especially today, under radical Islamic rule, is potentially a capital crime. The warnings and the punishment begin early on and are both relentless and normalized. Read more ...Source: Pajamas Media
 A Moslem evil stepmother persuades rape victims to “cleanse” their shame by becoming suicide bombers.By Phyllis Chesler While I was enjoying some sunshine in Savannah, (more to come about that), World War Four continued to rage blithely on. Al-Qaeda in Uzbekistan, Pakistan, and North Africa, threatened terrorist attacks against Germany and Holland and threatened to kill a British hostage (captured on the border between Niger and Mali), if Britain does not release a radical Muslim preacher. The Pakistani Taliban shot a couple dead for alleged adultery and their execution in Islamabad was captured on a cellphone; Egyptian police arrested a Muslim woman for having married a Coptic Christian; in Lahore, a Muslim husband killed his wife for failing to bear a son; in the Punjab, a Sikh physician-husband amputated his wife’s hand and that of her cousin with whom he suspected she was having an affair. So much for male terrorists in foreign lands. Last week, as I carefully smelled the roses in Georgia, there were three carefully organized explosions on one day in Iraq, which killed a total of 80 civilians. One explosion was carried out by a woman in a black abaya, holding a 5 year-old child’s hand, (probably not her own). She killed herself and 28 other Muslims in a crowded market in a Baghdad slum. The civilians, many of whom were other women, were waiting on line for free flour, cooking oil, tea, macaroni, and other staples that the police were handing out. Of course, police officers died as well. Read more ... Source: Pajamas MediaFemale Homicide Bomber
Latest recipient of The Face of Evil Award
 By A. Faizur Rahman
The passage of a law in Afghanistan asking Muslim women to unconditionally submit to the sexual whims of their husbands once in four days is a shocking piece of legislation that seeks to dehumanise women reducing them to mere chattels devoid of human rights. Although this law applies only to the Shia minority, it is outrageous that the Afghan mullahs thought it Islamic to legislate on a private relationship which is confined to the four walls of a bedroom. To add insult to injury the 300 women who were bold enough to protest against this inhuman law were pelted with stones and called “dogs” and “slaves of the Christians.” One fails to understand why motives should be attributed to a democratic protest. How can the moderate Muslims who have always been part of the larger Muslim society suddenly become agents of the West “which is out to destroy Islam?” The truth is that it is the bigoted Talibanised Muslims who are destroying Islam through their misinterpretations and intolerance for progressive ideas. It is they who need to be treated for their fossilized mind-set. It is strange the puppet regime of Hamid Karzai, which was installed by the US and its allies to replace the Taliban, is doing exactly what the Taliban would have done if they were in power. If this was what was in store for Afghanistan why were the Taliban replaced at all? Infact, the entire region seems to be relapsing into medievalism with Pakistan signing a deal with the terrorists of the Swat valley to implement their version of the shariah which is symbolized by the brutal and arbitrary public flogging of an young girl without establishing her guilt in a proper court of law, to say nothing about the recent refusal of a Saudi judge to annul the marriage of an eight year old child to a forty seven year old man. A deeper probe into the psyche of most of the narrow-minded radicalized jurists would reveal that their interpretations are based on traditional tafsirs (commentaries) written by patriarchal males representing only the experiences of men with either the total exclusion of experiences of women, or their interpretation through the coloured vision of men. This has resulted in women being brought under the control of men to be exploited at will. For instance, ininteresting incident concerning the shariah, The New York Times on March 22, 2007 reported that a German Judge turned down citing the Quran, a Muslim wife's request for a fast-track divorce on the ground that her husband beat her from the beginning of their marriage. The Judge justified her ruling by saying that the couple came from a Moroccan cultural milieu in which it is common for husbands to beat their wives because the Quran sanctions such physical abuse.
The Judge was obviously quoting one of the most mistranslated verses of the Quran (4:34) which supposedly allows wife beating. The mistranslated word is wazribuhunna which is derived from the root zaraba. Major commentators of the Quran including Ibn Kasir, Pickthall, and Maulana Maududi, the founder of Jamaat-e-Islami, have rendered this word as "beat them" ignoring the fact that the wordzaraba has various other shades of meaning. Out of the 50 times it occurs in the Quran, 31 times it has been used in the meaning of "to explain by giving an example." Only 10 times it has used to mean "to strike" but mostly in the context of Moses "striking the rock" or the sea, and angels "striking the faces" of the sinners.The verse 4:34 actually talks about the various means at the disposal of a husband to bring about a reconciliation with his wife and obviously beating the wife cannot be an option to sort out differences. Thus, the translation "beat them" is clearly not justified in this context. But unfortunately even today most Muslim societies consider it their Islamic right to beat their wives for disobedience. In other words, the passage of the controversial Afghan law would allow husbands to beat their wives if they refuse sex or step out of the house without their permission. For Islam to be exploited in this manner is indeed shocking given the fact that the Prophet was one of the greatest promoters of women’s rights.
The same holds true for the punishment of stoning to death for adultery. The primary source of Islamic law, the Quran, does not prescribe stoning as a punishment for any crime much less adultery. It only authorizes the Muslim state to flog those guilty of adultery or fornication but only after the case has been proved by four eyewitnesses which is a near impossibility. Even here the flogging is not meant to hurt the person but only to humiliate him. A report in Kitabul Hudud of Bukhari says that when a man was brought before the Prophet for habitual drinking he was asked to be flogged. And it was done with a lash made out of twisted clothing which could not have hurt him. Interestingly, when someone in the group cursed the drunken man saying “May Allah disgrace you” he was chided by the Prophet.
Compare this to the brutality of what is being done in the name of Islam today. It is time the ulema worldwide collaborated on a liberal interpretation of Islam in the modern context. The author is student of comparative study of religions. He may be reached at faizz@rocketmail.com Source: The Hindustan Times, April 18, 2009 H/T: A.S.
 Afghan cleric Ayatollah Mohammed Asef Mohseni
claimed the law he devised
did not condone marital rapeA new Afghan law that has drawn Western condemnation for restricting women's rights does not allow marital rape as its critics claim, but lets men refuse to feed wives who deny them sex, the cleric behind it says. Ayatollah Mohammed Asef Mohseni's Shi'ite personal status law sparked controversy abroad because of a provision that 'a wife is obliged to fulfil the sexual desires of her husband'. This was read by some as an open door to marital rape, and together with clauses restricting women's freedom of movement denounced as reminiscent of harsh Taliban-era rules. The law has been criticised by Western leaders with troops fighting in Afghanistan, including U.S. President Barack Obama, who called it 'abhorrent'. Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai, who signed the law last month, has since put it under review. But Mohseni said the law - which only applies to the 15 percent of Afghans who are Shi'a muslims - has been misinterpreted by critics. Its sexual clauses aimed only to ensure men's sexual needs were met within marriage, because Islam prohibited them seeking satisfaction with other women. 'Why should a man and woman get married if there is no need for a sexual relationship? Then they are like brother and sister,' he told Reuters in an interview in his recently built central Kabul mosque and university complex. 'A man and wife can negotiate how often it is reasonable to sleep together, based on his sex drive, and a woman has a right to refuse if she has a good reason,' said the bearded cleric. Read more ...Source: Daily MailH/T: Jihad Watch
 |
|
|
Copyright Muslims Against Sharia 2008. All rights reserved.
E-mail: info AT ReformIslam.org
|
|
|
BY CHARLES KURZMAN, IJLAL NAQVI
Posts
