 The battle which began in Egypt in December over a ban on the niqab in universities continues, with female students opposing the measure by Higher Education Minister Hani Helal alternating defeat and victory.
As it had done on January 3 for 55 petitioners, on Saturday in Cairo the State Council Administrative Court once again sided with the ministry against the appeal filed by 17 students, though on Friday the Mansoura (Nile Delta) court instead sided with that by 42 others.
The Egyptian daily Al Masri Al Yom reported that the Mansoura judges issued their sentence on the basis of Article 2 of the Constitution, which establishes Islam as the state religion and Sharia (Islamic law) as the main source of laws.
They added that neither the Koran nor the Sunna state in any explicit manner the need not to cover hands and face. Therefore, the use of the niqab, in their opinion, is not prohibited. They noted that a ban on it is therefore incompatible with the personal freedoms guaranteed in other Articles of the Constitution. It is a sentence that seems to give weight to the thesis expressed by Egyptian intellectual Nasr Abu Zayd, who said that if the debate has now shifted to the niqab, it is because the hijab - the veil covering only women's hair - is "a religious order" now taken for granted.
In his opinion, this is in part the direct responsibility of the Al Azhar University - the highest Sunni religious authority - despite the fact that the Grand Imam Mohammed Sayyed Tantawi has said that the niqab does not come into play as concerns religion, prohibiting it in schools linked to the institution.
On the other hand, Abu Zayd has also asked, "why is individual freedom only spoken of in terms of the niqab? I am prepared to stand up for it as such in Europe, where human rights are guaranteed and forcing a girl to get married - to take an example - is a crime.
But here in Egypt it is a different situation."
 Hmmm, let's see. An unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas terror funding case is complaining about a Muslim being subjected to a security search at an airport. Obviously CAIR would be happy if it succeeds in intimidating the TSA into relaxing searches of Muslims. And by sheer coincidence, the people today who are most intent on sneaking explosives onto airplanes and blowing them up are Muslims. So if CAIR gets its way here, everyone who flies an airplane will be at greater risk. And yet the mainstream media continues to portray this thuggish, dishonest, pro-jihad organization as a neutral American civil rights group -- as you can see right in the lead sentence of this Detroit News article. "Muslims question full-body search of woman in head scarf: Dearborn native says she was told she was singled out by security," by Oralandar Brand-Williams for The Detroit News, January 7
Detroit -- A national Muslim civil rights group is asking the Transportation Security Administration for clarification on whether Muslim women wearing Islamic head scarves, or hijabs, will be singled out for additional security checks after a traveler said she was targeted for a "humiliating" full-body search at an airport Tuesday. The Council on American-Islamic Relations office in Washington, D.C., sent the letter via e-mail Wednesday after a Muslim woman Tuesday from Washington's Dulles International Airport to Los Angeles said she was asked to remove her hijab and then put through a full-body pat-down search when she refused to take off the scarf. She said she did consent to a search. The woman told CAIR officials her clothes, luggage, laptop computer and cell phone were searched and tested for bomb-making materials. Nadia Hassan, 40, of Maryland said she was patted down in front of her daughter, 5, and several male TSA staffers. "It was very humiliating. It was very uncomfortable," Hassan told The Detroit News via a telephone interview from California. "I didn't say anything. I didn't want to cause any trouble. ... I'm an American. I'm not a foreigner. My country is treating me this way?" John Walker Lindh is an American. Adam Gadahn is an American. Anwar al-Awlaki was born in New Mexico. With American Muslims waging jihad warfare against the United States, what exactly does Hassan expect the TSA to do? Hassan, a Dearborn native, said she was told by one of the TSA guards that "I was singled out because I was wearing the hijab" and that the search was part of new rules that went into effect Tuesday. A spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the TSA, did not comment on the incident but said TSA screeners do not single out Muslim women wearing head scarves. "The Transportation Security Administration's current procedures for the screening of bulky clothing or headwear -- which have been in effect since 2007 -- remain unchanged. The wearing of a hijab itself does not automatically trigger security checks," said Sarah Horowitz in a written statement to The News. "To ensure the highest level of security, passengers wearing loose fitting or bulky clothing -- including headwear -- may be subject to additional screening." CAIR National Director Nihad Awad wrote to TSA Acting Director Gale D. Rossides on Wednesday, saying, "If this troubling new policy is indeed in effect, it represents religious profiling in its most egregious form. We respectfully request that you clarify whether Islamic head scarves will now trigger automatic secondary screening for Muslim travelers. "If so, does this new policy apply to all those who wear religious head coverings, such as Sikh men, Catholic nuns and Orthodox Jewish women, or will it apply exclusively to Muslim travelers?" Tell you what, Awad: as soon as a Sikh man, a Catholic nun or an Orthodox Jewish woman blows up an airplane, get back to me on this. With thanks to JihadWatch 
 BAGHDAD -- "You have to wear a hijab," my husband told me shortly after we got married. "Don't argue with me over this issue." With those words, he started imposing his will. It was the first tax I had to pay for getting married, the same one many of my female friends have had to pay in a country that sometimes pretends to be secular -- a country called Iraq. Feeling as if I was being chained, I reluctantly put on the black veil over my head before heading to work one morning. When I looked in the mirror, I saw another face, another person and I murmured to myself: "Who is this, and why do I have to accept this?" Having male relatives force women to wear the hijab is not new in Iraq. It began happening routinely during the final years of the regime of Saddam Hussein. He encouraged women to cover their heads and urged men to impose the hijab on mothers, wives and daughters. At the time, Hussein was pushing Iraqis to become more religious. Iraqis of different backgrounds tried to outdo each other to prove their religiosity in an effort to earn the praise of the dictator. Some wore the garment out of duress; others wore it willingly, as a sign of modesty and piety. After 2003, wearing the hijab became a means of protection. Many women opted to wear the veil to protect themselves from dogmatic militiamen who kidnapped and murdered people they deemed secular. Being beautiful or flashy made women particularly vulnerable to kidnappings and other attacks. In Basra province, in southern Iraq, this trend became so pervasive that some groups forced Christian women to cover up. Wearing a hijab during Baghdad's sweltering summers can be maddening. But there have been two silver linings in all of this: It protects my hair from sandstorms and rain, and it has pleased my husband, a reminder that sometimes we do things we don't like out of love. Still, I can't help but sigh each time I think about how I dressed just a year ago when I went to the market. I used to wear short skirts and shirts with short sleeves. It is especially frustrating to see the variety of modern clothes imported from Syria and Turkey on display in Iraqi stores: short skirts, sleeveless blouses. It is contradictory that those items have become fashionable, even as more women are covering up and the men in our society are telling us they are not appropriate. As the old saying goes, necessity is the mother of invention. In an effort to bridge societal norms with fashion trends, Iraqi girls are finding ways to discreetly push the envelope. Some wear shirts under bulkier ones. Wearing short skirts over pants has also become popular. "Do you know what I wish right now?" I asked my husband recently. "I wish I could force you to wear this hijab so you could experience my feelings." My husband remained silent, and his eyes reddened with anger. I knew better than to protest. It is useless to swim upstream in this country called Iraq. Washington Post
 by M. A. Khan French President Nicolas Sarkozy, in a rare speech to lawmakers of both Houses on June 22, 2009, kicked up a controversy by declaring the head-to-toe burka “not a sign of religion” but of “subservience,” which would not be welcome in France. Ignoring criticism, which divided the French, the Sarkozy administration pursued its intended burqa ban by forming a parliamentary committee consisting of 32 lawmakers to investigate whether wearing a burqa trampled Muslim women’s liberty and how the ban could be enacted. The committee, after a protracted investigation involving Muslim community leaders and intellectuals (including Tariq Ramadan), is about to deliver its verdict; recent statements by leading French politicians suggest that a recommendation banning the burqa in public spaces in France is on its way. Islam subjugated both non-Muslims (dhimmis) and the Muslim women. The West, including the French, spearheaded the liberation of dhimmis of the Islamic world in the so-called age of colonialism by direct intervention or through diplomatic pressure (e.g. Iran and Turkey). But the fate of oppressed Muslim women remained largely unchanged as colonial powers avoided intervening in the private affairs of Muslims. Ironically, Muslim women experienced bits of liberation, under the indirect influence of liberal thoughts brought to the Muslim world by the colonists and under their protection. But in the post-colonial world, it is being taken away from them. It should by now be obvious that Muslim societies will not liberate their women, despite the passive influence flowing in from the liberal West. A direct intervention from without remains to be tried. Whether it works or not, the pending French ban on the burqa would constitute the first substantial effort in liberating Muslim women. But this time the French would not be doing it not as a discredited colonial power, but to uphold the Human Rights of its citizens as demanded by both the United Nations and its own Constitution. The move was led by France in 2004, when it banned the wearing of headscarves by Muslim girls in schools (also Christian Crosses, Jewish skullcaps and Sikh Turbans) to keep secular institutions free from religious symbols. The Islamic veil, called the hijab, the niqab or the burqa, and seen by critics as a sign of religious fundamentalism and a tool of suppression of Muslim women, has been banned by various institutions in the European countries of France, Denmark, Netherlands and Belgium. Sarkozy’s comment ignited condemnations from Muslims, as well as non-Muslim leaders and intellectuals, all over the world. Muslims claimed the comment ‘stigmatized’ Islam. Even President Barack Obama, weeks earlier on June 4, 2009, indirectly condemned the limited ban on Muslim headscarves in his Cairo Speech: “ …it is important for western countries to avoid impeding Muslim citizens from practising religion as they see fit, for instance, by dictating what clothes a Muslim woman should wear. We cannot disguise hostility towards any religion behind the pretence of liberalism.” President Sarkozy reaffirmed his commitment to banning the burqa on November 12, saying: “France is a country where there is no place for the burqa, where there is no place for the subservience of women.” The French immigration minister, Eric Besson, said on December16, 2009, that he would like the head-to-toe Muslim veils to be legal grounds for denying citizenship and long-term residence in France. “I want the wearing of the full veil to be systematically considered as proof of insufficient integration into French society,” he said, “creating an obstacle to gaining (French) nationality.” More at Hudson New York
 HERE'S a provocative thought: if it weren't for the 2004 tsunami, Western aid workers in Banda Aceh city would not be the target of politically motivated drive-by shootings, and women in West Aceh regency would be free to wear trousers. As of Friday, any Muslim woman in the regency will be forced to change into a government-supplied long skirt if she dares step outside in tight pants. And after she takes the trousers off - and dons a jilbab, or Muslim head scarf - they will be publicly shredded. The new laws will add to recently enacted provincial legislation prescribing stoning as punishment for adultery or homosexual relations. The laws have attracted scorn and support in equal measure in Indonesia, but even they are mere pointers to a climate of uncertainty far outweighing simple questions of how Aceh has gone about rebuilding since December 26, 2004, when 170,000 of the 230,000 lives lost in the tsunami were from Aceh. Major agencies including AusAid and the International Organisation for Migration, were humiliated when it was discovered that reconstruction projects they managed had used asbestos-laden building materials. In Banda Aceh, emergency barracks built to house the homeless are still inhabited - not by refugees, but by hopefuls from the sticks who want to try their luck at work in the capital. For government and aid agency workers, these grifters have stories of sorrow and official bungling keeping them from homes they claim are rightfully theirs. A good number of people, especially Indonesians and particularly Acehnese with strong business connections, profited handsomely from the aid contract money. Much of this profit was through legitimate dealings. But plenty of it was not. Critics of this have sometimes had a hard time accepting that while capitalism and democracy - the latter having only had its birth in Indonesia with the fall of Suharto in 1998 - go hand-in-hand, they often do so in opaque ways, and it was never going to be a simple matter of overlaying foreign business practices on an Indonesian system. Tensions over the expectations for aid money and the reality were inevitable. Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, in one of the early astute appointments of his presidency, directed former mining tzar Kuntoro Mangkusubroto to oversee a new cabinet-level body, the Aceh and Nias Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Agency. The aim was not only to reduce corruption in the rebuilding effort but also to streamline the inefficient relationships between Indonesian government agencies. Dr Yudhoyono and his then-deputy, businessman Jusuf Kalla, also saw a grand political opportunity. They intervened in the civil war that had blighted Aceh for three decades. Dr Yudhoyono and Mr Kalla put themselves in serious consideration for the Nobel Peace Prize after an agreement to end the conflict was signed in Helsinki in 2005, leading to a self-governance deal for Aceh enjoyed by no other Indonesian province. This peace, and the political arrangements that flowed from it, would not have been possible without the tsunami. Indeed, the man elected governor in historic 2006 elections, former rebel fighter Irwandi Yusuf, was a political prisoner who escaped when the tsunami destroyed cell walls in the central Banda Aceh jail where he was held. The future leader's epic flight set him on a course that is only now being fully played out. The no-trousers edict is one of its manifestations. Sharia has become a watchword for Acehnese identity, even if, as Singapore-based analyst Farish A. Noor warns, its gradual imposition from within is in many ways a result of Jakarta's "complex and at times clumsy attempt to domesticate the forces of Acehnese resistance by playing the religious card". The shooting attacks on foreign aid workers are another manifestation of the contradictory tsunami recovery experience. Erhard Bauer, 50, the chief of the German Red Cross in Indonesia, was hit three times in the stomach and arm by two motorcycle-riding gunmen as he was being driven to the airport in early November. He survived after being flown to Singapore. Soon afterwards, the home of the European Union chief in Aceh, John Penny, was shot up while he and his wife were inside. And just a month ago gunmen opened fire on the home of two Americans who lecture in English literature at Banda Aceh's Syiah Kuala University. Mr Irwandi is furious, demanding privately that the Indonesian military, or TNI, pull its head in even as he knows full well he cannot accuse its leaders publicly. There is no direct proof that TNI elements are paying former Acehnese rebels - many now unemployed, and looking for new direction in their lives - to mount the attacks on foreign aid workers. There is no proof at all; but in the view of those from the well-informed Banda Aceh intelligentsia down to taxi drivers, there is little doubt that this is the TNI taking revenge on the former rebel party's almost clean sweep of power in the provincial elections, and showing its determination to steal things back. "The police believe it's the military, based on ballistics tests from the bullets used," political analyst Fajran Zein, from private policy think tank the Aceh Institute, told The Australian. "The assumption is it's intended to accelerate the departure of foreigners from Aceh." Indonesia's police and military have long been at each others' throats, of course, especially since the former were hived off from the military establishment in the immediate post-Suharto reforms. "All three attacks against foreigners are linked," spokesman Farid Ahmad Saleh said after the third shooting. "They were conducted by trained professionals . . . they want to terrorise foreigners working to heal Aceh." The rebuilding might be almost over, but by any political and civic measure, the building of Aceh has barely begun. The Australian
 A woman's place is in the home, not killing kuffar. "Wife of Qaeda number 2 urges women not to join jihad," from AFP, December 17 DUBAI -- The wife of Al-Qaeda's second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, has appealed to Muslim women not to join the jihad themselves but to support their menfolk in holy war, US monitoring groups said on Thursday. In a letter released by Al-Qaeda's media arm As-Sahab entitled "A Message to the Muslim Sisters," Omayma Hassan Ahmed Mohammed Hassan also called on the female faithful to resist Western pressure to shun the hijab, or headscarf, the monitors said. The SITE group said that Zawahiri's wife discouraged women from pursuing an active role in fighting, calling on them instead to support their husbands and male mujahedeen, and properly rear their children.... ...to be good mujahedin themselves. The boys, anyway. With thanks to JihadWatch
 Christian hoteliers accused of insulting a Muslim guest for wearing the hijab and berating her for her beliefs were dramatically cleared this afternoon. Benjamin and Sharon Vogelenzang denied using threatening, abusive or insulting words which were religiously aggravated against white British Muslim convert Ericka Tazi, 60.
District Judge Richard Clancy, who heard the case in the absence of a jury, told the couple that religion and politics was the 'tinderbox which set the whole thing alight and it would appear because of strongly entrenched positions that is what has happened here'. Explaining his reasons for dismissing the case, he said Mrs Tazi's claim that she was verbally attacked by the couple for up to an hour had not been borne out by other prosecution witnesses, who suggested that any discussions lasted around seven minutes.
Judge Clancy also highlighted Mrs Tazi's use of language. When describing how she was provoked by the couple about her hijab she used words to the effect of: 'Would you prefer it if I got my tits out?'
He said: 'I mention this because when I read that together with what she said about 'them taking the piss' it doesn't quite form the same religious view that was put to me on the stand'.
Judge Clancy said: 'I'm not satisfied on the facts that this case has been made out.'
His decision was greeted by prolonged applause from the couple's supporters in the public gallery.
Outside, Sharon Vogelenzang told reporters: 'We've been found innocent of any crime. It has been a very difficult nine months and we are looking forward to rebuilding our business and getting on with our lives.
'We would like to thank all those who have supported us, our family, our friends, our church and Christians all around the world, and non-Christians.
'And as Christmas approaches we wish everybody peace and goodwill.'
Mrs Tazi told the court yesterday that she was left traumatised after being insulted by the couple while a guest at The Bounty House Hotel in Aintree, Liverpool, on March 20.
She said they laughed at her when she came down wearing a hijab on her final day at the hotel and shouted at her, saying her Islamic dress was a form of bondage and that she had provoked an argument by wearing it.
Mrs Tazi, who converted to Islam when she married a Muslim 18 months ago, was staying at the hotel while she attended a pain management clinic at Aintree Hospital for her fibromyalgia.
She claimed Mr Vogelenzang called the prophet Mohammed a murderer and a warlord and likened him to Saddam Hussein and Hitler.
But the couple denied her version of events and claimed Mrs Tazi told them Jesus was a minor prophet and that the Bible was untrue. More at Mail Online H/T: WomenAgainstSharia
 An update on this story. The court decided to uphold the constitution, despite pressure to ignore it in favor of Sharia (which sure seems to be happening in a lot of places lately). Not that this will stop Islamist legislators from harping on the issue in the future. "Court rules hijab optional for MPs," by James Calderwood for The National, October 29: KUWAIT CITY: Kuwait's female MPs will not be forced to wear a hijab or have their parliamentary membership invalidated after the Constitutional Court, the country's highest legal authority, rejected a case by a Kuwaiti man who said they broke rules relating to Islamic dress. The man, identified as Hamad al Nashi, urged the court to cancel the membership of the two female MPs - Aseel al Awadhi and Rola Dashti - who did not wear the hijab, thereby violating an article of the election law that states:
"A condition for women to vote and be elected is to abide by the rules and terms of Sharia law". Islamists say the Sharia clearly states that women must wear the hijab. In its ruling, the court said the article of the election law was not specific and therefore could be interpreted in different ways. It said Sharia could apply to many things, including beliefs, morals and actions, and comes from many sources such as the Quran, the Sunna, and other traditions and customs. That was the point: To use the lack of limitations on Sharia's scope to keep women legislators in line, or force them out of office. If the court had ruled that the women were in violation of the election law when they were elected, their membership in parliament could have been cancelled, legal experts said.
"I'm very happy it's been rejected," Ms al Awadhi, one of Kuwait's four female MPs, said after receiving the news of the court's decision. "So we're not going to wear the hijab in the Majlis," Ms al Awadhi said, using the first word of Majlis al Umma, the Arabic name for Kuwait's national assembly....
 Two female Kuwaiti MPs, Rola Dashti and Aseel Al-Awadhi, are defying the country's powerful Islamist movement by refusing to wear the hijab, or headscarf, in parliament. The MPs, who were among the first four women to be elected to the country's National Assembly in May, have angered their Islamist colleagues, who say they say they are flouting sharia, or Islamic law. One of the two is going further by demanding the scrapping of an amendment to electoral regulations that says they have to observe sharia in parliament. "You can't force a woman going to the mall to wear a hijab and you can't force a woman going to work to wear the hijab," the MP, Rola Dashti, told The Daily Telegraph. "This is not Iran or Saudi Arabia." The MPs' stand is part of a backlash against the fashion for stricter dress codes for women across the Arab world. Last week, the rector of al-Azhar University in Cairo, traditionally the principal seat of Sunni Islamic learning, banned women students from wearing the face veil in women-only classes and student dormitories, and was followed by other academic institutions there. Students at Khalifa University in Sharjah, the most conservative of the seven city-states that make up the United Arab Emirates, have also reportedly been told to stop wearing the veil, known in Arabic as the niqab. In Kuwait, the issue has arisen as part of a campaign by Dr Dashti, one of the country's leading economists as well as a women's rights activist and politician, against what she regards as unconstitutional implementation of sharia. As with all four women MPs, she has a doctorate from the United States. When electoral law was changed in 2005 to allow women in Kuwait to vote and stand for parliament, Islamists inserted a law-minute rider that "women as voters and MPs" would have to follow sharia.
It did not specify precisely where or how. Read more here,,,, Source: Telegraph
Discrimination Against Non-Muslims in U.S. Must Stop
Monday, September 21, 2009 - Tawfik Hamid
Upon landing in the United States on Sept. 13 after speaking at a conference in Poland, I noticed that the first picture welcoming international visitors at Washington Dulles International Airport was of two Muslim women wearing the hijab. The photo also portrayed a mosque and the crescent as a symbol for Islam. I have noticed on other visits to the airport that the same photo is in the same position at Window A1 of the immigration hall, where travelers show customs officials their documentation. I have checked the other pictures in the hall to see if other religions are represented in the same manner. To my surprise, there are none. The only religious symbols that exist in such a manifest manner are Islamic. This situation raises an important question: Why don't airport authorities acknowledge other faiths as well? If the answer is that Muslims are a minority, then why aren’t other religious minorities acknowledged? Aren't they humans who deserve respect for their faiths, too? Jews, Hindus, and Buddhists are also minorities in the U.S., yet their faiths are neither recognized nor respected by the airport authorities to the same extent that the Muslim faith is. It is not only unfair but also discriminatory when Islam is the ONLY faith that is respected in such a manner, while other faiths are ignored. Read more: http://www.newsmax.com/tawfik_hamid/muslims_islam_dulles/2009/09/21/262671.html
Hijab (The Headscarf)—Yes; The Burqa—No
Pajamas Media 15 September 2009 Banning the burqa in the West might be one way to ban Islamist fundamentalism and the barbaric subordination of girls and women in certain immigrant communities. For this reason, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and French Minister Fadela Amara have again called for this ban. Earlier today, French immigration Minister, Eric Besson, called the burqa “debased.” I would hope that the French take their argument further. In the past, they have mainly cited security concerns: Burqa wearing women might be “racially” attacked or burqa wearers themselves might be terrorists or criminals who are planning to attack or rob civilians. I would hope that the French also argue for such a ban on women’s rights/human rights grounds, as I have already proposed. Thus, clothing which completely covers the face and head in a way which muffles speech, hearing, and vision, which limits or prevents all human communication and identification, and which, in effect, functions like an isolation chamber is, by definition, a violation of human rights. None of this applies to hijab, the Islamic headscarf, which has already been banned in France in school and which is the subject of protest and controversy across Europe.
With all due respect for the good intentions of the French, perhaps Western governments should not automatically or necessarily ban hijab for women; the matter is tricky and complicated for girls as we have seen, as city after city across Europe has discovered. Indeed, this is a complex and challenging matter. Today, in Holland, in the very country that is putting the sober and very brave parliamentarian,Geert Wilders on trial for exercising his political free speech—another bright Dutch light, Trouw historian Tineke Bennema has called on “women who were born in the Netherlands to voluntarily put on a headscarf ‘out of solidarity’ with the hijab wearers.” You know, like the Danes allegedly once wore the yellow Jewish star. Read All here: http://europenews.dk/en/node/26287
 A report by Abdelai Ragad Bin Laden Naked is a comic book that illustrates the humorous contradictions of religious extremism. The graphic work provides insight into the religious extremism that is spreading in some Islamic countries, particularly after the rise of al-Qaeda and Bin Laden.
Radio Netherlands Worldwide was given an exclusive pre-publication look.
Algerian born Mohammed Sifaoui, a specialist in European Islam and the political Islamic groups, is the book's author. Bin Laden Naked will be published by a Parisian publishing house on 11 September. Mr Sifaoui says it was no small feat creating Bin Laden Naked: "I had to exert a lot of effort in the few past months in order to make the book available for readers by September.
It's the comic side of those who use Islam for political ends". Cartoon characters
The idea of resorting to cartoons when writing about al-Qaeda and Bin Laden came to Mr Sifaoui in 2003. "It was an idea that came to me while studying in Pakistan and Afghanistan, preparing to produce a documentary film and a book, both entitled The Search for Bin Laden.
The extremists I met during my trips were, I believe, like cartoon characters. My book consists of real incidents and not merely jokes about al-Qaeda and Bin Laden". Sifaoui, who is an opponent of armed political Islamic groups, adds: "Those dark-minded people prove in every word and deed that they are comic and a source of amusement. It is this essential aspect that makes it easy for me to present the story of Islamic extremists and al-Qaeda in cartoons and pictures". Prophet Mohammed cartoons
Mohammed Sifaoui began his work after the civil war in Algeria in the 1990s. He then fled to Paris, where he has been living for five years under the protection of the French police because of death threats. Mr Sifaoui says the Danish cartoons of the prophet Mohammed and the subsequent reactions from radical Islamists inspired him to write the story of al-Qaeda and Bin Laden in comic form. The author believes that despite the serious and fearful face of the al-Qaeda and religious extremism issue, there is a comic byproduct of the contradictions and lack of logical reasoning seen in Islamic extremists. He also believes Bin Laden Naked is the first book of its kind. The veil and mobile phone
Mr Sifaoui sees the Islamic veil, 'hijab,' as one of the most important and sensitive issues in the fundamentalist Islamic thinking. He says: "The attitude of the extremists towards women is psychologically deformed, because, on the one hand, they deny her very existence, hide her behind the burque or the garment, deny her independence and deal with her as a material object, but on the other hand they marry four women. Bin Laden himself has four wives." And the writer believes that one of the most important sources of irony is that the extremist leaders never risk their own lives. This leads to the cynical throught: Will the suicide attackers be ushered into paradise while Bin Laden and his sons will be deprived of this enjoyment? With this book, the author wants to send a message to Muslim youths, especially in Europe, that extremism can never co-exist with modernism. He says his book is a new and unique way to understand the nature of what he calls Islamism. It is "a text that helps us laugh at those who want to terrorize us". Read more here,,,, Source: Radio Netherlands
 President Obama's desire to make the U.S. more accepting of Islam, and make Muslims around the world more accepting of the U.S., is too reliant on advisors with an extremist viewpoint. So says a Yemeni feminist who is disturbed by the President's ardent defense of women who wear the hijab. According to a translation by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), Elham Mane'a takes issue with Obama's appointment of Dalia Mogahed to his Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. Mane'a, who writes for the liberal www.metransparent.com website, argues Mogahed does not offer a representative viewpoint. Obama's reference to the hijab in his June 5 Cairo speech proved Mogahed's negative influence, Mane'a writes. In the speech, Obama boasted that the U.S. has litigated cases "to protect the right of women and girls to wear the hijab, and to punish those who would deny it." But the wearing of the hijab outside of a Muslim country, Mane'a writes, is a sign of inculcation and coercion, rather than free expression. Read more ...Source: IPT Blog
 by Daniel Greenfield More than 5000 women are victims of honor killings each year. Most of those women are Muslim, and while most of them are killed in Muslim countries-- more and more of them are being killed in Europe, Canada and America.
A 2007 study by Dr. Amin Muhammad and Dr. Sujay Patel in Canada's Memorial Hospital observed that honor killing spreads when those whose who practice it emigrate to Western countries. Honor killings however are only the final act in the drama of a Muslim woman's life. Before that she is expected to walk behind a man, to be a second class citizen, to cover herself as much as possible in order to deflect male desire and to take the blame for the sexual intentions that men have toward her.
She knows that if she fails to deflect male desire, she may suffer a variety of penalties from imprisonment to death. In countries like Saudi Arabia or Iran, those penalties are imposed by courts. In countries like Afghanistan or Pakistan, they are imposed by rough tribal justice. In the West, where there is no Islamic court system or tribal courts, they are imposed by the family.
The burka, the chador, the hijab or any of the other covering garments are assigned to Muslim women to "protect" them from men, and to protect men from them. These garments are meant to cover their "Awrah", which in Arabic means nakedness, fault or defect. While for a Muslim man "Awrah" is only the swimsuit region, a Muslim woman is entirely "Awrah".
Al-Qadhi Ibn-Al-Arabi Maliki states: “And all of a woman is ‘awrah; her body, her voice, and it is not permissible for her to uncover that unless out of necessity, or need such as witnessing in court, or a disease that is affecting her body…” [Ahkam Al Quran 3/1579]
Imam Al-Qurtubi stated went even further stating; “It is forbidden for a woman to speak when non-related men are present and it is forbidden for men to hear the voice of a non-mahram woman as long as there is no need for that.”
What that means is that all of a woman is "a zone of shame" and obscene. Even the sound of her voice is a form of "nakedness" or "lewdness". Various Muslim authorities claim that this applies to even a woman's fingernails and eyes. A woman who fails to dress this way is behaving obscenely and is open to being assaulted, as the Koranic verse which orders Muslim women to cover themselves makes clear.
H/T: Gramfan
August 31st, 2009 8:10 am - Phyllis Chesler
The Burqa: Ultimate Feminist Choice?
Naomi Wolf Discovers That Shrouds Are Sexy Women in chadors are really feminist ninja warriors. Rather than allow themselves to be gawked at by male strangers, they choose to defeat the “male gaze” by hiding from it in plain view.
But don’t you worry: Beneath that chador, abaya, burqa, or veil, there is a sexy courtesan wearing “Victoria Secret, elegant fashion, and skin care lotion,” just waiting for her husband to come home for a night of wild and sensuous marital lovemaking.
Obviously, these are not my ideas. I am quoting from a piece by Naomi Wolf that appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald a few days ago. Yes, Wolf is the bubbly, feminist author who once advised Vice President Al “The Climate” Gore on what colors he should wear while campaigning and who is or was friendly with Gore’s daughter. Full disclosure: I have casually known Wolf and her parents for more than a quarter-century.
Wolf recently traveled to Morocco, Jordan, and Eygpt, where she found the women “as interested in allure, seduction, and pleasure as women anywhere in the world.” Whew! What a relief. She writes:
“Many Muslim women I spoke with did not feel at all subjugated by the chador or the headscarf. On the contrary, they felt liberated from what they experienced as the intrusive, commodifying, basely sexualizing Western gaze. … Many women said something like this: …’how tiring it can be to be on display all the time. When I wear my headscarf or chador, people relate to me as an individual, not an object; I feel respected.’ This may not be expressed in a traditional Western feminist set of images, but it is a recognizably Western feminist set of feelings.”
Really? If so, I’m the Queen of England.
Now that Wolf is no longer the doe-eyed ingenue of yesteryear, she sees the advantage of not being on view at all times. A Westerner, “playing” Muslim-dress up, Wolf claims that hiding in plain view gave her “a novel sense of calm and serenity. I felt, yes, in certain ways, free.” In addition, Wolf believes that the marital sex is hotter when women “cover” and reveal their faces and bodies only to their husbands.
Marabel Morgan lives! In the mid-1970s, Morgan advised wives to greet their husbands at the door wearing sexy clothing and/or transparent saran wrap with only themselves underneath. Her book, Total Woman, sold more than ten million copies. According to Morgan, a Christian, “It’s only when a woman surrenders her life to her husband, reveres and worships him and is willing to serve him, that she becomes really beautiful to him.”
Well, what can I say? Here’s a few things.
Most Muslim girls and women are not given a choice about wearing the chador, burqa, abaya, niqab, jilbab, or hijab (headscarf), and those who resist are beaten, threatened with death, arrested, caned or lashed, jailed, or honor murdered by their own families. Is Wolfe thoroughly unfamiliar with the news coming out of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Sudan on these very subjects? Has she forgotten the tragic, fiery deaths of those schoolgirls in Saudi Arabia who, in trying to flee their burning schoolhouse, were improperly veiled and who were beaten back by the all-powerful Saudi Morality Police? Most Muslim girls and women are impoverished and wear rags, not expensive Western clothing beneath their coverings. Only the pampered, super-controlled, often isolated, and uber-materialistic daughters of wealth, mainly in the Gulf states, but also among the ruling classes in the Islamic world, match Wolf’s portrait of well kept courtesan-wives.
Being veiled and obedient does not save a Muslim girl or woman from being incested, battered, stalked, gang-raped, or maritally raped nor does it stop her husband from taking multiple wives and girlfriends or from frequenting brothels. A fully “covered” girl-child, anywhere between the ages of 10-15, may still be forced into an arranged marriage, perhaps with her first cousin, perhaps with a man old enough to be her grandfather, and she is not allowed to leave him, not even if he beats her black and blue every single day.
Wolf claims that she donned a “shalwar kameez and a headscarf” for a trip to the bazaar. I suggest that Wolf understand that the shalwar kameez and headscarf that she playfully wore in Morocco are not the problem.
I wonder how Wolf would feel if she’d donned a burqa, chador (full body bags) or niqab (face mask) for that same trip; how well she would do in an isolation chamber that effectively blocked her five senses and made it difficult, if not impossible, for her to communicate with others?
And, by the way, the eerie effect, ultimately, of shrouded women is that they become invisible. They cease to exist. They are literally ghosts.
Wolf presents the West as anti-woman because it treats women as sex objects. Am I happy about pornography and prostitution in the West? Hell no and, unlike Wolf, I’ve fought against them–but to portray these vices as a “Western” evil, and one that the Islamic world opposes, is sheer madness.
It is well known that the Arabs and Muslims kept and still keep sex slaves–they are very involved in the global trafficking in girls and women and frequent prostitutes on every continent. You will find pornography magazines in every princely tent–those for boys as well as for girls. I am told that the Saudis fly in fresh planeloads of Parisian prostitutes every week. Perhaps they veil them before they conduct their all-night and all-day orgies. Or, perhaps they view them as natural, “infidel” prey.
Let me suggest that Wolf read a book that is coming out in September, written by a Christian-American woman, Mary Laurel Ross, whose American Air Force husband trained the Saudi Air Force. It is called Veiled Honor and is a timely, comprehensive, “nuanced” (Wolf calls for “nuance” in our understanding of “female freedom”) account of her approximately fifteen year sojourn in Saudi Arabia. I would also suggest that Wolf read the works of Ayaan Hirsi Ali (Infidel) and Nonie Darwish (Cruel and Usual Punishment) for starters.
Then again, I suspect that Wolf is not necessarily looking for any “nuanced” truths about “female freedom” but is, rather, fishing for Saudi gold and positioning herself within the Democratic Party. After all, what she has written in this brief article supports President Obama’s position vis a vis the Muslim world. Source: http://pajamasmedia.com/phyllischesler/2009/08/31/the-burqa-the-ultimate-feminist-choice/
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
British Muslim takes off her Hijab after realizing it is worn for social reasons, not religious as claimed by Islamists Video: http://www.averroespress.com/AverroesPress/Main/Entries/2009/8/5_British_Muslim_takes_off_her_Hijab_after_realizing_it_is_worn_for_social_reasons,_not_religious_as_claimed_by_Islamists.html Jobeda Ali, a British Muslim, bravely rebels against the recent acceptance of the hijab and embarks on a journey to unwrap the liberal western tolerance of the hijab and discover the degree to which women in the Muslim world are prepared to rebel against the hijab.
Muslim women in the west defend their right to veil themselves only because they already benefit from the privileges of western liberalism and feminism. The debate is overshadowed by French, British and American Muslim women, who have portrayed the hijab is an acceptable cultural norm. But by wearing the hijab, they actually do a disservice to women in the Muslim world, for whom one of the effects of wearing the hijab is to be denied equality and freedom. Do women in Turkey defend the hijab as passionately as their western counterparts? Source: http://www.averroespress.com/AverroesPress/Main/Entries/2009/8/5_British_Muslim_takes_off_her_Hijab_after_realizing_it_is_worn_for_social_reasons,_not_religious_as_claimed_by_Islamists.html
Khadiga Mubarak, wife of Gamal Mubarak, daughter-in-law of Husni Mubarak, and possible future first lady of Egypt
Queen Rania of Jordan
Mehriban Aliyeva, wife of the president of Azerbaijan
Asma Al Assad, wife of Bashar Al-Assad, ruler of Syria
Princess Consort Lalla Salma, wife of Muhammad VI, King of Morocco
Sheikha Hiya of Dubai
Aesha Qaddafi, daughter of Mu'ammar
More Glamorous Muslim Political Women | 
Princess Diana during a 1996 visit to a cancer hospital in Pakistan
Interesting that Hilary and Clelsea should be wearing headcovers while with Yasir Arafat
Mona Sahlin, elected just two days ago the leader of Sweden's Social Democratic Party, famously donned a head piece when visiting a mosque on September 14, 2001
Prince Charles' wife, Camilla Parker Bowles, got into complete Egyptian Muslim garb, including hijab, on a visit to Al-Azhar
Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, donned a headscarf when she visited Damascus in April 2007
Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism Fran Townsend (far left), NSC Senior Director for European Affairs Judy Ansley (left), and Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Karen Hughes (right) listen to President Bush wearing makeshift hijabs
On a trip to Saudi Arabia in October 2007, George W. Bush's wife Laura wore a particularly severe-looking hijab
More Hijabs on Western Political Women |
Source: Daniel Pipes - Glamorous Muslim Political Women, Hijabs on Western Political Women
 At the WISE Conference the veil was glamorized to a point where it almost seemed like a defense of misogyny and patriarchyBy Farzana Hassan KUALA LUMPUR - The Second Women's Islamic Initiative in Spirituality and Equality (WISE) conference kicked off on July 16 2009 with high hopes. Eminent women from all walks of life and all corners of the globe gathered to brainstorm ideas on how to improve conditions for Muslim women across the world. Artists, musicians, writers, authors, journalists and activists brought along their passion for gender equality - and for their cherished faith - to the event in the hopes of improving the lives of their less fortunate Muslim sisters. Among the 250 or so attendees was the pioneer feminist theologian Amina Wadud, acclaimed Islamic scholar and author Asma Asfuruddin, award-winning journalist Mona Eltahawi and of course the host, Daisy Khan, the Executive Director of the ASMA Society. Yet, despite the glamour and glitz, and despite the conference's aspirations of being an edifying experience for its participants, something seemed amiss. Throughout the conference, I could not help feel uneasy that things were headed in the wrong direction when it came to articulating a true vision for women's equality in Islam. Read more ... Source: Averroes Press
" Showing a woman's hair is forbidden (in Islam) ... We will not allow people to corrupt morals. This (dress code) will improve work in the courts." In June 2007. the “Swords of Islamic Enlightement” sent a chilling letter to Palestinian TV newscasters, ordering them to wear the hijab. The letter said, if the women refused to obey the command, the Islamist group would “cut throats vein from vein, if needed to protect the spirit and morals of this nation [Palestine].” That was two years ago. Now it seems the madness imposed by the Islamic regime in Iran has permeated into the most upper echelons of Gazan society. What vigilantes said in the crudeness of their rhetoric is now being blurted out by Hamas appointed judges in the Palestinians territory. Supreme Court chief justice Abdul-Raouf Halabi told AP, “Showing a woman's hair is forbidden (in Islam) ... We will not allow people to corrupt morals. This (dress code) will improve work in the courts." Read more ...Source: Tarek Fatah / Washington Post
By Saira Khan | 24th June Shopping in Harrods last week, I came across a group of women wearing black burkhas, browsing the latest designs in the fashion department. The irony of the situation was almost laughable. Here was a group of affluent women window shopping for designs that they would never once be able to wear in public. Yet it's a sight that's becoming more and more commonplace. In hardline Muslim communities right across Britain, the burkha and hijab - the Muslim headscarf - are becoming the norm.
Saira Khan, runner up in the first series of The Apprentice, believes the burkha is an oppressive tool and says it is time to ban it from the streets of Britain
In the predominantly Muslim enclaves of Derby near my childhood home, you now see women hidden behind the full-length robe, their faces completely shielded from view. In London, I see an increasing number of young girls, aged four and five, being made to wear the hijab to school. Shockingly, the Dickensian bone disease rickets has reemerged in the British Muslim community because women are not getting enough vital vitamin D from sunlight because they are being consigned to life under a shroud. Thanks to fundamentalist Muslims and 'hate' preachers working in Britain, the veiling of women is suddenly all-pervasive and promoted as a basic religious right. We are led to believe that we must live with this in the name of 'tolerance'. And yet, as a British Muslim woman, I abhor the practice and am calling on the Government to follow the lead of French President Nicolas Sarkozy and ban the burkha in our country. The veil is simply a tool of oppression which is being used to alienate and control women under the guise of religious freedom. My parents moved here from Kashmir in the 1960s. They brought with them their faith and their traditions - but they also understood that they were starting a new life in a country where Islam was not the main religion. My mother has always worn traditional Kashmiri clothes - the salwar kameez, a long tunic worn over trousers, and the chador, which is like a pashmina worn around the neck or over the hair. When she found work in England, she adapted her dress without making a fuss. She is still very much a traditional Muslim woman, but she swims in a normal swimming costume and jogs in a tracksuit. I was born in this country, and my parents' greatest desire for me was that I would integrate and take advantage of the British education system.  East meets West: A pair of women walk down the high street in Birmingham in full Muslim dress
They wanted me to make friends at school, and be able to take part in PE lessons - not feel alienated and cut off from my peers. So at home, I wore the salwar kameez, while at school I wore a wore a typical English school uniform. Now, to some fundamentalists, that made us not proper Muslims. Really? I have read the Koran. Nowhere in the Koran does it state that a woman's face and body must be covered in a layer of heavy black cloth. Instead, Muslim women should dress modestly, covering their arms and legs. Many of my adult British Muslim friends cover their heads with a headscarf - and I have no problem with that. The burkha is an entirely different matter. It is an imported Saudi Arabian tradition, and the growing number of women veiling their faces in Britain is a sign of creeping radicalisation, which is not just regressive, it is oppressive and downright dangerous. The burkha is an extreme practice. It is never right for a woman to hide behind a veil and shut herself off from people in the community. But it is particularly wrong in Britain, where it is alien to the mainstream culture for someone to walk around wearing a mask. The veil restricts women. It stops them achieving their full potential in all areas of their life, and it stops them communicating. It sends out a clear message: 'I do not want to be part of your society.' Every time the burkha is debated, Muslim fundamentalists bring out all these women who say: 'It's my choice to wear this.' Perhaps so - but what pressures have been brought to bear on them? The reality, surely, is that a lot of women are not free to choose. Girls as young as four are wearing the hijab to school: that is not a freely made choice. It stops them taking part in education and reaching their potential, and the idea that tiny children need to protect their modesty is abhorrent. And behind the closed doors of some Muslim houses, countless young women are told to wear the hijab and the veil. These are the girls who are hidden away, they are not allowed to go to university or choose who they marry. In many cases, they are kept down by the threat of violence. The burkha is the ultimate visual symbol of female oppression. It is the weapon of radical Muslim men who want to see Sharia law on Britain's streets, and would love women to be hidden, unseen and unheard. It is totally out of place in a civilised country. Precisely because it is impossible to distinguish between the woman who is choosing to wear a burkha and the girl who has been forced to cover herself and live behind a veil, I believe it should be banned.
French President Sarkozy has backed moves to outlaw burkhas in France
President Sarkozy is absolutely right to say: 'If you want to live here, live like us.' He went on to say that the burkha is not a religious sign, 'it's a sign of subservience, a sign of debasement... In our country, we cannot accept that women be prisoners behind a screen, cut off from all social life, deprived of all identity.' So what should we do in Britain? For decades, Muslim fundamentalists, using the human rights laws, have been allowed to get their own way. It is time for ministers and ordinary British Muslims to say, 'Enough is enough'. For the sake of women and children, the Government must ban the wearing of the hijab in school and the burkha in public places. To do so is not racist, as extremists would have us believe. After all, when I go to Pakistan or Middle Eastern countries, I respect the way they live. Two years ago, I wore a burkha for the first time for a television programme. It was the most horrid experience. It restricted the way I walked, what I saw, and how I interacted with the world. It took away my personality. I felt alienated and like a freak. It was hot and uncomfortable, and I was unable to see behind me, exchange a smile with people, or shake hands. If I had been forced to wear a veil, I would certainly not be free to write this article. Nor would I have run a marathon, become an aerobics teacher or set up a business. We must unite against the radical Muslim men who love to control women. My message to those Muslims who want to live in a Talibanised society, and turn their face against Britain, is this: 'If you don't like living here and don't want to integrate, then what the hell are you doing here? Why don't you just go and live in an Islamic country?' Source: Daily Mail
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