Family Security Matters

The Right to Offend: Putting the Muhammad Cartoons in Context

By Nicholas Guariglia

Pity Sofia Karlberg, the spokeswoman of the Swedish foreign ministry, who was tasked with the highly weasel-like chore of expressing regret for something she was not responsible for; for something that need not be regretted. It seems that Lars Vilks, a cartoonist for the Swedish paper Nerikes Allenhanda, drew unflattering depictions of the Islamic prophet and seventh-century general Muhammad. Karlberg eulogized to the BBC that the Swedish government “expressed regret that the publication of the cartoons had hurt the feelings of Muslims,” but continued that the government “can’t apologize for the cartoons because (the government) did not publish them.” .....

 

Nor should we forget the visceral reaction to previous doodlings. The publisher of the first Muhammad cartoons in 2005, Jyllands-Posten of Denmark, had also published satirical cartoons of Jesus and (what were Iran-sponsored) Holocaust-denying cartoons. Nobody killed anyone. But once the Danish newspaper violated the “sanctity” of Islamic aniconism, embassies went aflame, civilians were butchered across the world, diplomats cowered and then were attacked for their perceived passivity, countless death warrants ordered by old men in robes were issued, and suicide bombs were discovered all over Europe.

The charade was entirely manufactured and stoked by the Iranian theocracy and various loose-end clerical theocrats jockeying for power. Boycotts on the small pacifistic European democracy were intended to destroy its economy. The majority of Western papers whimpered away from reprinting the drawings in solidarity with free expression (and one that did, Free Inquiry out of New York, was banned from Borders bookstores).

Apologies, mea culpas, and soft-spoken confessions continued for months, underscoring the necessity for a bit more stoicism and a lot less sentimentality in our society. “Perhaps the cartoons were tasteless? Maybe they were a tad too insulting? Was their publication really prudent?” The sniveling, self-loathing masochism entirely missed the point.

Family Security Matters

"Reform Conference Reaches Out to Muslims, Evangelicals - Forward.com"

 

Reform Conference Reaches Out to Muslims, Evangelicals

By Anthony Weiss
Thu. Dec 06, 2007

The head of the largest Muslim organization in the country is expected to address the national gathering of North America’s largest Jewish denomination at its annual conference next week. The speech is part of a broader push at the conference to elevate interfaith dialogue with Muslims and Christians.

Ingrid Mattson, president of the Islamic Society of North America, will appear at the Union for Reform Judaism’s biennial, which is being held in San Diego. The event comes three months after the URJ’s president, Rabbi Eric Yoffie, addressed ISNA at its annual convention. Building on Mattson’s appearance, Yoffie is planning to announce a national dialogue and education program that Jewish and Muslim scholars have been developing together.

“We feel that American Jews and American Muslims need to sit down together and get to know each other, so you need a congregational component to that,” Yoffie told the Forward. “It’s not just a matter of bringing together a few rabbis and a few imams.”

In the past, Muslim-Jewish interfaith efforts have taken place on a small scale or within individual communities. Last month, a meeting of imams and rabbis from across the country billed itself as the first national interfaith effort. The Reform movement’s push is an attempt to encourage interaction nationwide, not only between clergy but also between rank-and-file members.

The appearance of Mattson at the convention is a triumph for Yoffie, who had insisted, in the face of criticism from within the Reform movement and from outside it, that ISNA was not a viable, moderate partner. But by attempting to push the dialogue from the leadership level down to the grassroots, the URJ and ISNA are entering difficult territory, testing the notion that congregants are as eager to work together as their leaders.

ISNA has been criticized in the past for its positions on terrorism and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but the national umbrella organization has recently been moving toward more moderate positions — a shift symbolized by the leadership of Mattson, who is both a woman and a convert to Islam.

Mattson could not be reached for comment.

Reform movement leaders said that the response in the Reform movement to Yoffie’s ISNA speech was generally positive. Pre-registration levels for a panel discussion on Islam are among the highest of any session at the conference. Other Reform leaders caution, however, that Jews might not find the same level of interest in dialogue from the less-established American Muslim community.

“The American Muslim community is just not there yet. They’re still busy dealing with things that feel like survival issues to them,” said Mark Pelavin, associate director of the Religious Action Center, the Washington office of the Reform movement. “So much of that community is still first generation, second generation, and still feeling its way through the organizational structure.”

Jewish and Muslim scholars have put together academic materials for congregations interested in pursuing a dialogue, or for those who, lacking a dialogue partner, wanted to educate themselves. But Rabbi Laura Geller, of Temple Emmanuel in Los Angeles, stressed that dialogue, by itself, wasn’t a sufficient basis for a connection.

“It used to be there was a Jewish-Catholic dialogue, there was a Muslim-Jewish dialogue, and the point was dialogue,” she said. “It’s important, but isn’t sufficient. I think what is really the goal of all of these connections is working together.”

The Reform movement’s interest in reaching out to religious groups with which the Jewish community has sometimes had contentious relations will also extend to evangelical Christians. Pastor Rick Warren, founder of the evangelical Saddleback mega-church in Orange County, Calif., and author of the mega-bestseller “The Purpose-Driven Life,” will be speaking at a workshop about community building, drawing on the enormous success of his own church.

The Rev. Jim Wallis, author of his own bestseller, “God’s Politics,” will be appearing on a panel about progressive religion and social action. Wallis has risen to prominence by arguing that evangelical values such as concern for poverty dictate a break with the religious right. More recently, Warren, too, has begun to speak about the importance of combating AIDS and global poverty.

"Reform Conference Reaches Out to Muslims, Evangelicals - Forward.com"

Muslim community growing in Connecticut -- Newsday.com

 

"This is a national effort to establish some understanding of Islam, to start an interfaith dialogue"

 

HARTFORD, Conn. - The Muslim community in Connecticut is growing, drawing more faithful to a mosque that provides room to expand and prompting efforts to reach out to others.
For example, a billboard on Interstate 84 west near Cheshire invites motorists to turn east, or toward Mecca.
The Connecticut chapter of the Islamic Circle of North America that paid for the billboard has sponsored similar highway messages nationwide to inform non-Muslims about Islam and counter negative images that followed the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

"This is a national effort to establish some understanding of Islam, to start an interfaith dialogue," said Naveed Khan, a member of the United Muslim Masjid, a Waterbury mosque under construction. "There is a great need to educate people about Islam after 9/11. As a community we need to address this issue."
Islamic Circle's national convention in July at the Connecticut Convention Center in Hartford was attended by about 15,000 people.
"What we see in the news media and television is a picture of Muslims that is far from reality," said Muhammad Ahmad, a member of the Islamic Circle of North America and a doctor who practices internal medicine in Chicago. "Unless we go out and tell our neighbors who we are, there is no one who will correct the image."
Ahmad, who answers phone lines that inform callers about Islam, said he's received calls from curious priests, students, Muslims, non-Muslims and news reporters. Some callers have even tried to convert him to their faith.
"We are giving out information. What people want to do with that information is their problem," he said.
Construction of the United Muslim Masjid in Waterbury is more evidence of the growing Muslim community in Connecticut. Khan said the group is building a 24,000-square-foot building because its current mosque can no longer fit the growing number of Muslims in the Waterbury area who pray there five times a day and gather for Islamic holidays.
Attendance at the mosque has grown in the last decade as a rising number of Muslims have arrived in the Waterbury area from Albania, Ghana and elsewhere.
The new mosque will have a community hall, library, gymnasium, learning center and a minaret tall enough to be seen from I-84. The new mosque also will allow its members to hold more outreach activities to educate the public about Islam and Muslims.
___
Information from: The Hartford Courant, http://www.courant.com

Muslim community growing in Connecticut -- Newsday.com

Be the moderate you're looking for | Indian Muslims

 

"O ye who believe! Stand out firmly for justice, as witnesses to God, though it may be against yourselves"

By Kareem Elbayar

"O ye who believe! Stand out firmly for justice, as witnesses to God, though it may be against yourselves, or your parents, or your kin, and whether it be against rich or poor: for God can best protect both. Follow not the lusts of your hearts, lest ye swerve, and if ye distort justice or decline to do justice, verily God is well-acquainted with all that ye do." (Qur'an 4:135)

Washington, DC - In a 7 December op-ed in The New York Times, Ayaan Hirsi Ali asked where the moderate Muslims were, and concluded that the very notion of a moderate Muslim majority was "wishful thinking". Ali's claims are echoed by many prominent commentators on the American right, and judging by the comments left on The New York Times website, by many average Americans as well. But the popular idea that mainstream Muslims either do nothing to condemn (or worse, secretly applaud) the outrages perpetrated in the name of our religion is not only reductive and misinformed – it is dangerously wrong as well.

The vast majority of the world's 1.5 billion Muslims are indeed moderate, peace-loving people who reject violent extremism and terror. Moderate Muslims are all around us, from the attorney and husband of the rape victim from Saudi Arabia, both of whom expressed revulsion and shame at the decision made by Saudi Arabian courts; to the delegation of British Muslims who travelled to Sudan and worked with Sudanese MP Ghazi Suleiman to secure the "teddy bear" teacher's release (and prove that the entire controversy was more about distracting international attention from Darfur than it was about Islam); to the literally hundreds of thousands of Muslim individuals and organisations in the United States and around the world that expressed shock and disgust at the events which Ali cites.

Ali conveniently omits these facts from her narrative – just as she plucks a single verse from the Qur'an, devoid of any context – in order to create a black-and-white fantasy world of Muslim radicals versus civilised Westerners. Yes Ms. Ali, verse 24:2 of the Qur'an sets out a harsh punishment for adultery – but verse 24:4 requires four eyewitnesses (an almost impossible standard to meet) and, more importantly, verse 24:5 states that the punishment should not be applied to those who sincerely repent. (So much for your argument that the Qur'an orders believers to show no compassion).

Ali may make headlines by writing polemics condemning Islam as a "backward religion" and "the new fascism", but in the meantime Muslim organisations like the one I am a member of, Muslims for Progressive Values, will continue to quietly but effectively do what we can to counteract the hateful nonsense that regretfully is being taught as Islam in far too many places. Moderate and even progressive Muslim organisations can be found all over the world, but we are too busy working within our communities to promote a message of reform and tolerance to do as Ali asks and "rise up in horror" every time some lunatic commits a crime in the name of our faith. Nor should we be expected to do so. It seems that Ali would like me and my co-religionists to go about our lives constantly marching around the streets apologizing for the acts of zealots – but I will not do so, for I bear no more responsibility for these acts than she does.

Moderate and progressive Muslims are everywhere, but we are ignored and marginalised by the media and by commentators like Ali. It seems that in our modern age of sound bites and one-liners, strident if uninformed criticism will always outperform calm and reasoned debate. If Ali is serious about supporting tolerance among Muslims, perhaps she should spend less time penning distracting and misleading screeds against Islam and more time reaching out to groups like the Council on American-Islamic Relations, Muslims for Progressive Values, Al-Fatiha, and Sisters in Islam. The only way to prevent the "clash of civilisations" from becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy is to build bridges between our communities. Promoting a black-and-white caricature of reality serves no one – least of all the tolerant Muslims Ali can't seem to find anywhere she looks.

------------------
Kareem Elbayar is the vice-chair of Muslims for Progressive Values. This article is distributed by the Common Ground News Service (CGNews) and can be accessed at www.commongroundnews.org.

Source: Common Ground News Service, 18 December 2007, www.commongroundnews.org
Copyright permission has been obtained for publication

Be the moderate you're looking for | Indian Muslims

BBC NEWS | UK | Magazine | The battle over mosque reform

 

British Muslim leaders are to tell mosques to reform - but do young Muslims even care?

This week began as just another for Britain's mosques. But by the end of it, things could be very different.

The four largest Islamic organisations in the UK have, against expectations, agreed professional standards for mosques. It may sound like management speak - but these standards on a mosque's obligations to society are part of a battle for hearts and minds in the face of violent extremism.

The unwieldily-named Mosques and Imams National Advisory Board (Minab) is seeking signatures on the dotted line. The question is whether any of it will make a difference.

The great era of mosque building was in the 1970s and 1980s, led by the first generation immigrants. They copied what they knew and mosques were built as prayer halls largely run on ethnic, cultural or tribal lines.

• PROPOSED MOSQUE STANDARDS
• Democratic and accountable
• Transparent finances
• Open to women and youth
• Counter-extremism programmes
• Inter-faith schemes
• Work against forced marriage

Mosques body targets extremism

Today there are at least 1,500 institutions which are broadly independent of one and other. But while they may be about to get a dose of 21st Century management consultancy, tens of thousands of young British Muslims have already drifted away.

Many British-born Muslims believe mosques offer them nothing - and so they are looking elsewhere for answers. Navid Akhtar is a commentator and a producer of muslimcafe.tv. It's a polished internet broadcast with guests debating big issues of the day in a media-savvy way.

When some Muslim leaders condemned a recent groundbreaking Channel 4 drama about a British Muslim joining MI5 while his sister became a terrorist, muslimcafe.tv was one of the places where British Muslims debated the issues.

Complex identities

"The communities have changed and the mosques have not kept in touch because they are still run by the first generation," says Akhtar.

"Today we have got very complex identities as Muslims living in the West - but the mosque as an institution has not tuned in to that."

"People go, they learn the Koran, they do their communal prayers and that's about it. It's the bits that are missing that concern us - people going through divorce, social problems, alienation - people born here but feeling marginalised or betrayed as Muslims.

Prayers: But many mosques have little space for women

"They look to the mosque for support - but they are desperately inadequate in delivering it."

Akhtar tells a story that can be heard time and again among British Muslims who say Mosques have unwittingly played a part in extremism.

"If I go to my local imam who is Pakistani, whose identity is Pakistani, to talk this stuff, he will just give a flick of my ear - he is not really concerned about me being British or not.

"This is what gave birth to radical organisations - kids came to the mosque and battled with the first generation over cultural issues, like arranged marriages or being forced to learn Urdu. They went elsewhere for answers and found people like the radical preacher Omar Bakri.

"Some of the birth of radical Islam in this country came out of these cultural issues that the first generation didn't want to address."

Sensitivities

It's this accusation that has caused the most tension between the generations in Muslim Britain - and what will make the attempts to modernise mosques so they appeal to the young so difficult. Government is pushing hard for the work to be done because it needs results on extremism. But the communities are scared of becoming being political stooges.

Leicester-based imam Ibrahim Mogra is involved in the reform agenda and a leading figure in the Muslim Council of Britain - but he warns against creating a body that does government's bidding.

"This won't be a body with any legislative powers where we can police mosques and tell them what to do or dictate what not to do," says Sheikh Mogra.

Janmohamed says change must come from within

"We're going to be promoting good practice and highlighting where the formulas are extremely successful and encouraging others to buy into that model. The creation of this body is not in response to our so-called 'war on terror' and is not part of the agenda of preventing extremism. It will be a useful tool - but it's not the primary purpose."

Shelina Zahra Janmohamed is the voice behind Spirit21, an influential blog with readers across the cultural and religious spectrum. Her commentary on Muslim Britain has a following among key government figures. She is typical of growing numbers of Muslim women debating critical issues because they very often find no welcome at the steps of the mosque.

"You've got to realise that there are some that are small and run by 'uncles' who, to be frank, would not let a woman within three feet of the mosque. There are others which have large spaces for women. Some mosques sometimes seem to be a bit of a working man's club. And the problem is that many young people leave the mosque behind because there is no social element or relevance for them."

Pro-reform Muslims

Janmohamed argues that the new mosques body needs to encourage rather than force change and avoid the taint of government interference. The trick, she say, is to get changes like representations for women to happen from within. Only then will mosques start to look like progressive institutions playing an active role in building community ties.

And it is community that pro-reform Muslims see as essential to success. If Minab is a success, they believe it will bring Muslims closer to the mainstream because it will help build a sense of what it is to both a British citizen and a Muslim.

Hardline islamists see the two as incompatible. In the shadows of the real world and the internet exist extremists ready to identify confused young and women who can be sold a simple story that ends with a bomb being strapped to the body.

The fact is that these recruiters will be there for a long time to come. Janmohamed says government needs to change its language so the debate around mosques and improving the lot of Muslims is not automatically and always linked to terrorism.

"The really serious individuals intent on violence don't go to the mosques - but if mosques step up to the plate then some may not go down that route. But it's only one part of the answer."

BBC NEWS | UK | Magazine | The battle over mosque reform

Where is the Muslim outrage?

By: - Mike Ghouse

As a Muslim I am outraged at this nonsense going on in Sudan and Saudi Arabia.
When Prophet Muhammad's cartoons were published, the few Muslims around the world were outraged to the point of becoming destructive. They burned the embassy in Syria. Their contention was that the Prophet cannot be contained in an image, they were right but they were dead wrong on destroying any property, it went against the very principles taught by the Prophet "to forgive the wrong doers". Not enough of us were outraged against those criminals to make a difference.
Ms. Gibbons affectionately calls the Teddy bear "Muhammad" and the fanatics cry foul. The good for nothing silent majority needs to step up and condemn the individuals and the government of Sudan for treating a lady for her benevolence in such an ugly manner. She probably would not have named, had she known about it.
Prophet Muhammad would be saddened with these guys behavior.
When the Buddha Statue, a world heritage monument was destroyed in Pakistan last month, Where was the Muslim outrage?
When the Buddhist Monks were locked up in Burma, where was the Muslim outrage?
What is good for the goose has got to be good for the gander. The third Caliph Omar punished his own son against a complaint from a Jewish businessman; such was the sense of Justice. Where is that sense of justice and fairness now?
Mirza A. Beg writes, "…a woman in Saudi Arabia was gang-raped. She was seen in a car with a person not of her family. She was also found guilty along with the rapists and recommended punishment under the Saudi Law."

Where is the Muslim outrage?

On Faith: Guest Voices: The Real Teddy Bear Tragedy

The Real Teddy Bear Tragedy

By Hamza Yusuf

In all the heat generated by the teddy bear controversy in Sudan, we are missing a deeper reality: As irrational and backward as the reaction in Khartoum might seem, it is yet another example of some Muslims attempting to assert themselves and exercise a little authority in the face of the immense onslaught of Western hegemony in the region.

The facts are that Gillian Gibbons, a British teacher at a private school in Khartoum, had her 7-year-old students name a teddy bear and they overwhelmingly chose "Muhammad." The students took turns taking the bear home and wrote a diary about what they did with it, which was compiled into a book with a picture of the bear and the title "My Name is Muhammad." Some parents were offended and the Sudanese government responded by arresting and charging Gibbons with insulting the Prophet of Islam.

The charge is without merit, of course. But it is worth noting that for Muslims, the idea of calling any object other than a human being "Muhammad" is sacrilegious. With Jews, Muslims share a prohibition of making physical images of any living things. An exception is made for children's toys. Calling the image of any animal Muhammad, a name that Muslims won't utter without a benediction is, for them, beyond the pale. Turks even prefer the contraction Mehmet to avoid using the name in common circumstances. Westerners have a hard time understanding such reverence in a markedly irreverent age.

In the West, teddy bears are objects of devotion for little children and for most adults fond memories of a cuddly teddy bear endure. A child calling a teddy bear Jesus, for instance, may seem inappropriate, but would likely elicit a response of "How cute!" Westerners are dumbfounded at what appears to be an absolutely insane response to an unfortunate lack of cultural sensitivity. But so, I would venture, are most Muslims.

I was appalled by the response of the Sudanese authorities and denounce their arrest of Ms. Gibbons. I am glad she has been released. The danger here is that despite most Sudanese being beautiful and proudly hospitable people, too many Westerners will nonetheless see them as barbarians unworthy of respect. Hence, it fuels the current attacks on them due to their government's failure to address Darfur's serious problems. Far from being xenophobic or genocidal, I know the Sudanese to be a serene and irenic desert people. Even Ms. Gibbons now says that she has been treated well by the Sudanese. "I have encountered nothing but kindness and generosity from the Sudanese people. I have great respect for the Islamic religion and would not knowingly offend anyone and I am sorry if I caused any distress," she said.

Unfortunately, millions of Muslims all over the globe are humiliated and betrayed by the ignorance and lack of basic humanity that a small minority of Muslims too often exhibits. Should I, however, bring this up with many of my Muslim brothers and sisters a common response is: "It's true, but look at what the West is doing to Muslims; 800,000 thousand dead in Iraq. And what about Palestine, Kashmir, Chechnya and the rest? Why don't Western people denounce these atrocities against us and only harp about how backward we are?" A famous Iraqi poet once wrote, "If one person is harmed it is an unpardonable sin, but a whole people's destruction is something to debate." Unfortunately, these Western horrors against the Muslims demand responses, but Muslims must also recognize and denounce these wrongs too often associated with our Prophet and our faith without always pointing fingers elsewhere.

Our current world can go one of two ways at this crossroad. We can go down the path of more violence, more hatred and more alienation, or we can attempt to understand each other, recognize our real differences, and display mutual respect. True religion -- as well as the highest secular values -- demands we take the latter road.

Indeed, the situation in Sudan is a medieval misunderstanding and overreaction. So are the myriad cases of torture, rape and pillaging that are now part of our daily patch of foreign, and increasingly, domestic news. Indeed, our dark medieval past seems to be having an ironic renaissance in the West and the Muslim world.

So when we see an irrational or misguided reaction of some Muslims, as we now see in Sudan, it behooves us to reflect on the deeper reality causing it.

On Faith: Guest Voices: The Real Teddy Bear Tragedy

Al-Ahram Weekly | Profile | Hans Kèng: Moral moorings

For him, one opportunity for Muslims to indulge in reform came during the era of the French Revolution, when Muslims were obliged to face modern realities and to examine the fundamentals of their religion

Hans Kèng: Moral moorings

Roman Catholic theologian Hans Kèng was ordained a priest in 1954, and in 1962 he was appointed peritus, or special theological advisor, by Pope John XXIII. However, in December 1979, he was stripped of his licence to teach, largely because of his opposition to the doctrine of papal infallibility, expressed in his book Infallible? An Inquiry, published in 1971. Nevertheless, Kèng has not given up his quest to reform the Catholic Church, and he is both a respected Christian theologian and a widely recognised authority on world religions, especially on the "Abrahamic" religions -- Islam, Christianity and Judaism. Until his retirement in 1996, Kèng was professor of ecumenical theology and director of the Institute for Ecumenical Research at the University of Tèbingen in Germany, where he worked with his friend Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI. Today, he heads the Global Ethic Foundation. Following the 11 September 2001 attacks on New York and Washington, the then UN secretary-general Kofi Annan appointed Kèng a member of an international group of eminent persons brought together to promote dialogue among civilisations. Kèng was a natural choice for the position, since he was familiar with the Judeo-Christian Bible, the Hindu Bhagavad-Gita, the discourses of the Buddha and Confucius, and the Quran. Kèng's works include Does God Exist? An Answer for Today (1980); Eternal Life? (1984); Christianity and Chinese Religions (1988 with Julia Ching); Paradigm Change in Theology (1989); The Catholic Church (2002); and My Struggle for Freedom (2003). He was recently named one of the world's top 100 intellectuals by the British magazine Prospect.

Interview by Gamal Nkrumah

---

'The history of Islam is about a third shorter than Christianity, it is no less complex. The more Islam spread, the less monolithic it became'

---

It is mid-morning, and the calm of the corner of the Cairo hotel in which Hans Kèng explains his views on Islam and inter-religious dialogue is disturbed by the infuriating ring-tones of mobile phones.

Misreading the Muslim world has had grave ramifications, he says, and he infuses his understanding of the history of Islam with a wealth of detail and a kind of unanticipated solemnity. "There will be no peace among nations without peace among religions," he states, matter-of- factly, and his deepest desire is precisely to help bring about an atmosphere of greater understanding between Muslims and Christians.

Kèng is unhappy with the current state of affairs and particularly about growing tensions between Muslims and Christians in the West. What he advocates above all is a common ethical framework for humanity as a whole, which must "demolish the walls of prejudice stone by stone and build bridges of dialogue, rather than erect new barriers of hatred, hostility and vengeance." In particular, for this Swiss-born Christian theologian, Westerners must build bridges of dialogue with Muslims.

Al-Ahram Weekly | Profile | Hans Kèng: Moral moorings

The Canadian Press: Calgary imam says Islam, family violence don't mix; goes on hunger strike

 

CALGARY - An imam from Alberta was planning to go on a weekend hunger strike to bring attention to domestic violence and how it is completely against the teachings of Islam.

Any violence involving families is "absolutely un-Islamic," Syed Soharwardy of the Calgary Islamic Centre said Friday.

"We should not be using religion as a scapegoat to justify what we need. We should resolve our disputes based on reasoning, logic (and) cool-mindedness."

The imam's comments came after the death earlier this month of 16-year-old Aqsa Parvez of Mississauga, Ont., who reportedly had a long-standing dispute with her family over her apparent reluctance to wear the traditional Muslim headscarf, the hijab.

Her father, who has not yet entered a plea, has been charged with her murder.

Soharwardy, who is also national president of the Islamic Supreme Council of Canada, said family violence plagues every group in society, but it seems that faith is only used as an excuse when it comes to Muslims.

He also said it is against his religion to force Islamic will upon others. "Islam wants people to have a righteous and a pious life, but Islam leaves that decision up to that person."

Other Canadian Islamic leaders have also publicly come out this week to emphasize that their religion condemns violence and teaches its followers not to force their beliefs upon others.

The Canadian Press: Calgary imam says Islam, family violence don't mix; goes on hunger strike

Islam’s Silent Moderates - New York Times

Islam’s Silent Moderates

By AYAAN HIRSI ALI

Published: December 7, 2007

The woman and the man guilty of adultery or fornication, flog each of them with 100 stripes: Let no compassion move you in their case, in a matter prescribed by Allah, if you believe in Allah and the Last Day. (Koran 24:2)

She very conveniently leaves out the rest of the verses;

[24:5] If they repent afterwards and reform, then GOD is Forgiver, Merciful.
[24:6] As for those who accuse their own spouses, without any other witnesses, then the testimony may be accepted if he swears by GOD four times that he is telling the truth.
[24:7] The fifth oath shall be to incur GOD's condemnation upon him, if he was lying.
[24:8] She shall be considered innocent if she swears by GOD four times that he is a liar.
[24:9] The fifth oath shall incur GOD's wrath upon her if he was telling the truth.

And finally

[4:15] Those who commit Adultery among your women, you must have four witnesses against them, from among you. If they do bear witness, then you shall keep such women in their homes until they die, or until GOD creates an exit for them.*
[4:16] The couple who commits Adultery shall be punished.* If they repent and reform, you shall leave them alone. GOD is Redeemer, Most Merciful.

Sungyoon Choi

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Readers' Comments

"The key to ending this tyranny of interpretation of the Koran is within the Koran itself, if the people have the courage to use it. "

IN the last few weeks, in three widely publicized episodes, we have seen Islamic justice enacted in ways that should make Muslim moderates rise up in horror.

A 20-year-old woman from Qatif, Saudi Arabia, reported that she had been abducted by several men and repeatedly raped. But judges found the victim herself to be guilty. Her crime is called “mingling”: when she was abducted, she was in a car with a man not related to her by blood or marriage, and in Saudi Arabia, that is illegal. Last month, she was sentenced to six months in prison and 200 lashes with a bamboo cane.

Two hundred lashes are enough to kill a strong man. Women usually receive no more than 30 lashes at a time, which means that for seven weeks the “girl from Qatif,” as she’s usually described in news articles, will dread her next session with Islamic justice. When she is released, her life will certainly never return to normal: already there have been reports that her brother has tried to kill her because her “crime” has tarnished her family’s honor

Islam’s Silent Moderates - New York Times

Comment is free: Everything in moderation

Everything in moderation by Ali Eteraz

Ayaan Hirsi Ali should note that when addressing injustice in Islam, there is a need for reconciliation between secular humanists and Muslims

Ayaan Hirsi Ali recently published an op-ed in the New York Times entitled Islam's silent moderates, wondering where were the Muslims speaking out against the Saudi rape tragedy, the Sudanese teddy bear fiasco, and the persecution of feminist writer Taslima Nasreen in India. Her article makes me think two things.

First, she clearly doesn't read leftwing magazines. Four days before her piece, Mahir Ali wrote in at Znet discussing Saudi Arabia, Sudan and India, and called the Muslim demagogues in each place "dimwits". He is just one example of a "moderate" Muslim speaking out, but it makes one wonder how many other condemnations Hirsi Ali ignored.

Second, her article is about more than condemnation. Her argument is that when Islamic dictates collide with a person's sense of "compassion and conscience", a Muslim should opt for the compassionate solution. She wants a compassionate interpretation of Islam spread "more widely".

Putting aside Hirsi Ali's questionable political affiliation and history of appalling statements - Islam must be defeated - hers is a hopeful piece. It makes me wonder whether she has finally realised that not all people who adhere to Islam are prone to cruelty and violence. If the future Ms Ali is more like this, she might resonate in a community that matters most: Muslims. However, in order to do so, she will need to have a better grasp of how Muslims respond to injustice in the name of Islam.

When, in the name of Islam, something horrifying occurs - say a raped woman is punished, or a bombing occurs - there are, in fact, a vast number of average Muslims who find the situation unconscionable. Their usual reaction, as Ms Ali points out, is to say something like, "But Islam means peace!" or that "this is a hijacking by extremists!"

Now, Ms Ali thinks that such slogans are platitudes, and do not reflect actual opposition. Thus: her pessimism about the unlikelihood of a moderate Islam.

Yet, the fact that Muslims around the world insist "Islam means peace" is evidence that a vast number of Muslims do not think that Islam means violence. Given that Islamically sanctioned violence is the actual threat we are dealing with, this is a good thing. Further, when a Muslim does commit something nasty against fellow human beings, and other Muslims decry this person as an "extremist", this is evidence that a vast number of Muslims find brutish behaviour worth distancing themselves from. This too is a good thing. At the least, it shows that most Muslims share in the universal definitions of good and bad.

Comment is free: Everything in moderation

The Cincinnati Post - Young Muslims hearing a gentler voice on TV

Young Muslims hearing a gentler voice on TV
Focus on religion

By Kevin Sullivan
Washington Post

In her home in northern Egypt, Muna el-Leboudy, a 22-year-old medical student, talks about Moez Masoud, who preaches a modern brand of Islam.

CAIRO, Egypt - Muna el-Leboudy, a 22-year-old medical student, had a terrible secret: She wanted to be a filmmaker. The way she understood her Muslim faith, it was haram - forbidden - to dabble in movies, music or any art that might pique sexual desires.

Then one day in September, she flipped on her satellite TV and saw Moez Masoud.

A Muslim televangelist not much older than herself, in a stylish goatee and Western clothes, Masoud, 29, was preaching about Islam in youthful Arabic slang.

He said imams who outlawed art and music were misinterpreting their faith.

He talked about love and relationships, the need to be compassionate toward homosexuals and tolerant of non-Muslims.

Leboudy had never heard a Muslim preacher speak that way.

"Moez helps us understand everything about our religion - not from 1,400 years ago, but the way we live now," said Leboudy, wearing a scarlet hijab over her hair. She said she still plans a career in medicine, but she's also starting classes in film directing.

"After I heard Moez," she said, "I decided to be the one who tries to change things."

Masoud is one of a growing number of young Muslim preachers who are using satellite television to promote an upbeat and tolerant brand of Islam.

Television preaching in the Middle East was once largely limited to elderly scholars in white robes reading holy texts from behind a desk, emphasizing the afterlife over this life, and sometimes inciting violence against nonbelievers.

The Cincinnati Post - Young Muslims hearing a gentler voice on TV

The deadly face of Muslim extremism

The deadly face of Muslim extremism

Tarek Fatah and farzana Hassan, National Post Published: Wednesday, December 12, 2007

The tragic death of a Mississauga, Ont., teenage girl -- allegedly at the hands of her own traditionally minded Muslim father -- has sent shock waves across the world. Canadians are justified in raising concerns as to whether this is a sign of the rise of Islamic fundamentalism in their own backyard.

Aqsa Parvez, a sprightly 16-year-old, beloved of her friends and peers at Applewood Heights Secondary School, was only trying to be herself, was only wishing for a normal adolescence amid Canada's rich cultural mosaic. Her father has now been charged with murder, and his son with obstruction, while a young life has been snuffed out -- likely in the name of honour and Islam.

Radical Muslim men consider themselves ultimately responsible for the conduct of the womenfolk. This outlook is rooted in a medieval ethos that treats women as nonpersons, unable to decide for themselves what they should wear, where they must go and what they must accomplish in life. If their conduct is seen as contravening this austere religious outlook, they are invariably subjected to abuse.

The hijab in particular has become a thorny issue among Muslim families. It has been elevated as a sort of "sixth pillar of Islam" among militant sects. Young teenage girls are often lectured over the virtues of the hijab by their family members. Once they hit puberty, compliance is deemed a non-negotiable religious requirement.

Yet none of this is actually mandated by the Koran. The Koran, while speaking generally of modesty in dress and demeanour, falls short of specifying the details of that modesty. Scripture also makes allowances for non-compliance of religious edicts if the environment is not conducive to their observance.

The Koran exhorts compassion upon parents, caretakers and guardians of young girls. Yet some families instead exhibit a strict conformity to doctrine and dogma, which in turn leads to violence, bigotry and intolerance of alternative understandings of faith.

The deadly face of Muslim extremism

BBC NEWS | UK | UK Politics | Peer criticises Muslim 'hotheads'

Peer criticises Muslim 'hotheads'

Lady Warsi helped win the release of UK teacher Gillian Gibbons

Muslim peer Baroness Warsi has hit out at Muslim "hardliners and hotheads" who use Islam to argue against voting and equal rights for women.

The Conservative shadow minister for community cohesion said it was crucial to distinguish between social demands and genuine religious requirements.

She urged Muslims not to allow such confusion to cut them off from society.

Lady Warsi, speaking at a conference in London, also said Muslims had a special responsibility to defeat extremism.

'Wrong, wrong, wrong'

BBC NEWS UK UK Politics Peer criticises Muslim 'hotheads'

Anne Applebaum - Teddy Bear Tyranny - washingtonpost.com

A protest against teacher Gillian Gibbons in Khartoum, Sudan, on Friday. (By Abd Raouf -- Associated Press)

Partly, this is because we still don't understand them. In fact, the Great Sudanese Teddy Bear Controversy, like its Dutch, Danish and papal precedents, was not actually a religious or cultural affair: It was purely political. Nobody -- not the other teachers, the parents or the children -- was offended by Mohammed the teddy bear (who received his name in September) until the matter was taken up by a totalitarian government, handed over to what appears to have been a carefully orchestrated mob, and briefly turned into yet another tool of domestic terror and international defiance. The Sudanese government, which pursues genocidal policies in Darfur when it is not persecuting British teachers, is under pressure to accept peacekeeping troops from the West. At least some of the Sudanese authorities thus have an interest in building anti-Western sentiments among the population and intimidating those who disagree.

Anne Applebaum - Teddy Bear Tyranny - washingtonpost.com

Controversy over Islam stirs useful conversation | ajc.com

Controversy over Islam stirs useful conversation
By KELLY WENTWORTH
Published on: 12/04/07

When the British teacher Gillian Gibbons was arrested for crimes against Islam in Sudan following a creative writing assignment in which her students named a teddy bear Muhammad, my mother called.

As she related the details to me, I was as stunned as she was. While I had spent some time teaching in Yemen, which is in close proximity in geography, and in many ways, in culture, to Sudan, I had never heard of such an issue. Being a Muslim myself, I finally understood my mother was calling to find out why naming a bear Muhammad was a crime against Islam. I had no answers for her and assured her the incident was not indicative of what Muslims believe.

(ENLARGE)

Kelly Wentworth of Smyrna is the co-director for the American Islamic Fellowship whose values include encouraging inter-faith dialogue and cooperation.

That same night, I playfully related the story to my husband. The idea that a teddy bear's name could be an insult to our religion was a completely ridiculous concept to me. As I spoke, my normally conversational husband suddenly said he did not understand how I could be so ignorant of the situation. I tried to understand what he meant, but he dismissed me. I was very shocked at this behavior. My husband and I often have very different ideas about our beliefs, but he had never interrupted me, no matter how much he disagreed. I pressed the issue, and he finally explained that it is insulting to name inanimate objects and animals after prophets and other respected people in Islam. Confused, I reminded him that I had named my cat after the prophet, King Solomon, in honor of the man. In my family, naming inanimate objects and animals after respected people is a tribute to them rather than an insult. We suddenly realized that we had stumbled upon a cultural issue and were able to continue the discussion without hurt feelings or interruption.

The teddy bear situation reminded me of my own experience as an English teacher in my husband's native country of Yemen. I had two things that should have been to my advantage when teaching: a husband very familiar with the nuances of the culture and a shared religious background with a majority of the citizens. Yet, I encountered a similar, though not as explosive, issue while teaching.

My students were learning the concept of "If ... then." As an assignment, I asked them to write an essay entitled, "If I were the president, then I would ..."

I believed it to be a very creative assignment and looked forward to the answers. My students did not share my beliefs. The students did not say anything at first out of respect, but did not turn in the assignment. I asked what the issue was and was told that the students were not allowed to lie. I did not understand. The students finally explained to me that they could not complete the assignment because it required them to "lie" and say they were president and then make pronouncements for him.

In Yemen, perspective writing, even on an "innocent" school assignment, if put in the wrong hands, could land a person in jail. As an American citizen who enjoys freedom of expression, the concept was very difficult for me to grasp. I had to change the assignment. Thinking back, I was lucky to be teaching in a secular classroom, because I could have easily substituted Muhammad or God for the president.

Gibbons has now been given a presidential pardon and was on her way to Britain. I am both very relieved and very worried for the educator. I hope she arrives home safely. The situation is unfortunate because the woman, from what I have read, truly respected the culture and religion of those she was teaching. I believe many similarly talented and adventurous teachers will now hesitate even more to venture into places such as Sudan where teacher shortages have been a constant problem, even for the most affluent schools. Perhaps Gibbons will be able to pen a memoir to share both her positive and negative experiences in the Sudan.

Cultural perceptions are a large bump on a long road as the world opens up and grows ever smaller in the information age. Respect is important when dealing with each others' cultures, but questioning and understanding is far more significant.

As Americans, we must use the power of our freedoms inside our country to open dialogue between cultural, religious and ethnic groups. Ingrid Mattson, the president of the Islamic Society of North America, addressed this very issue in her speech at the Islamic Speakers' Bureau awards dinner here in Atlanta only a few weeks ago. She reminded us of the imperative of open discussion. She posed the theological question, "Why has God chosen for us to be here, now, in this time?" Painful questions inside our own beliefs will have to be addressed, but I believe we have an amazing gift in our freedoms to start our awareness here. Rumi, a world-renowned Islamic thinker, once said, "God turns you from one feeling to another and teaches by means of opposites, so that you will have two wings to fly, not one."

I hope Americans continually strive for two wings.

Controversy over Islam stirs useful conversation ajc.com

Hirsi Ali, atheism and Islam

Hirsi Ali, atheism and Islam
By Spengler

Few public figures have done more to earn our sympathy than the Muslim apostate Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a fugitive from her native Somalia, and now a virtual exile from her adopted country, the Netherlands. Under constant threat since the 2004 murder by an Islamist of her collaborator, the Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, Hirsi Ali warns the West that Islam presents a mortal threat to its freedoms.

America took her in last year when the Dutch government connived to remove her refugee status, but she remains



something of an embarrassment to the George W Bush administration. This autumn the Dutch government removed her security detail, and the Americans have taken no steps to protect her. That is a stain on the honor of both countries.

Although she has the credibility of a witness as well as the moral standing of a victim, Hirsi Ali remains a bystander civilian in the great war of our times, whose broadest front is in the global South. That is, she proclaims herself to be an atheist. Millions of Muslims reportedly convert to Christianity each year, mainly in Africa. Islam is stagnant in Asia while tens of millions become Christian. Yet all the Muslim apostates whose voices we hear are atheists - not only Hirsi Ali, but also Salman Rushdie, the celebrated author of The Satanic Verses, the Syrian poet Adonis, and the pseudonymous Ibn Warraq, author of Why I am not a Muslim and several compendia of Koranic criticism.

Why do Muslim apostates gravitate towards atheism? That is not true of other religions. Many Jewish converts achieved prominence in 20th-century Christianity - for example, the recently deceased Cardinal Danielou of Paris, the martyred Carmelite nun Edith Stein (now canonized), and the great Protestant theologian Eugene Rosenstock-Huessy. But the name of no prominent Muslim convert to Christianity (much less to Judaism) comes to mind.

It is easy to change what we think, but very hard to change how we think. Contrary to superficial impressions, Islam is much closer in character to atheism than to Christianity or Judaism. Although the "what" of Muslim and atheistic thinking of course are very different, I shall endeavor below to prove that the "how" is very similar.

Hirsi Ali states that the West is at war with Islam, not with "terrorism", "Islamism", "radical Islam", or "Islamo-fascism". Here is a snippet from her November exchange with Reason [1]:
Reason: The Polish Catholic Church helped defeat the [Wojciech] Jaruzelski puppet regime [1990]. Do you think Islam could bring about similar social and political changes?

Hirsi Ali: Only if Islam is defeated. Because right now, the political side of Islam, the power-hungry expansionist side of Islam, has become superior to the Sufis and the Ismailis and the peace-seeking Muslims.

Reason: Don't you mean defeating radical Islam?

Hirsi Ali: No. Islam, period. Once it's defeated, it can mutate into something peaceful. It's very difficult to even talk about peace now. They're not interested in peace.

Reason: We have to crush the world's 1.5 billion Muslims under our boot? In concrete terms, what does that mean, "defeat Islam"?

Hirsi Ali: I think that we are at war with Islam. And there's no middle ground in wars.
Nonetheless Hirsi Ali has no clear idea how a war with Islam might proceed. Again, from the Reason interview:
Hirsi Ali: Islam can be defeated in many ways. For starters, you stop the spread of the ideology itself; at present, there are native Westerners converting to Islam, and they're the most fanatical sometimes. There is infiltration of Islam in the schools and universities of the West. You stop that. You stop the symbol burning and the effigy burning, and you look them in the eye and flex your muscles and you say, "This is a warning. We won't accept this anymore." There comes a moment when you crush your enemy.

Reason: Militarily?

Hirsi Ali: In all forms, and if you don't do that, then you have to live with the consequence of being crushed.
The implication that the West will crush Islam by force borders on the absurd. Western armies, to be sure, could make short work of the military forces of any Muslim country, but what would they do then? Would they order Muslims to abandon their spiritual life in favor of John Locke and Thomas Hobbes, the heroes of Hirsi Ali? The West cannot stop Muslims from burning in effigy the editors of a Danish newspaper in their own countries.

Can Democracy be imposed in Muslim Countries?

By Alamgir Hussain

Those who argue that democracy and rule of law cannot be imposed by outside interventions are obviously wrong, as demonstrated by the interventions in Japan, Italy and Germany in post-WW II era. All indications from the more recent but unfinished interventions in the Balkan, in Liberia and Haiti also prove them wrong. However the critics are right when considering the intervention in Somalia in 1993 and more recent ones in Afghanistan and Iraq. In order to understand this intriguing disparity in success of outside interventions in Muslim and non-Muslim countries, one must grasp the fundamental precepts of Islam, which is the common ideological denominator that binds them together. Islamic scholars over the centuries have divided the world into two domains.

The first being the Dar-al-Islam (house of peace), which constitute the domains dominated and ruled by the Muslims according to the Islamic laws. The other is the Dar al-Harb (house of war), which is dominated and ruled by the non-Muslims and Muslims must wage a ceaseless war (so it called 'house of war') against it in order to bring it into the domain of Dar al-Islam, thereby fulfilling the wishes of the almighty creator.