Muslim Heretics Conference

What exactly is required to be considered a “moderate” Muslim?

by Sheila Musaji

According to a more and more narrow definition of what constitutes a “moderate” Muslim, it is becoming increasingly less likely that any Muslim can achieve this status without either leaving Islam or agreeing with Islamophobes that Islam is the problem that needs to be fixed.

Recently, Robert Spencer said in an article in which he noted my response to my original viewing of Obsession two years ago:  “But if her claims are accurate, well, you know, we all have to live with a certain level of physical and emotional distress. I still suffer physical and emotional distress when I think of September 11, 2001, or March 11, 2004, or July 7, 2005, and the people who died on those days, and of the people who die in jihad terror attacks around the world up to this day, such as those who died in the attack at the Islamabad Marriott yesterday. And I wonder why Sheila Musaji has never written an article about the physical and emotional distress that peaceful Muslims suffer when their coreligionists commit violence in the name of their religion, and why she has never called upon those Muslims to stop committing acts of violence and supremacism in Islam’s name. I further wonder why these distressed Muslims were not distressed by the exhortations to jihad violence voiced by Muslim preachers in the film as much as they were by the audience reaction to the film.” (emphasis mine)

I don’t see any articles by Robert Spencer condemning violence and terrorism carried out by Christians.  Where is his distress for all the Muslim victims of injustice and violence.  Is there any distress for the Muslims slaughtered in Bosnia, for the Christians killed by other Christians in Rwanda, for the 100,000 dead Iraqi civilians who are victims of the illegal Iraq War, for the Palestinians in the West Bank, for victims of the IRA bombings during “the troubles”, for the 4 million victims (since 1997) of the civil war and foreign interventions in the Congo?  Where is his concern with plain old injustice and violence against anyone anywhere?  Where is his concern about Christian or Jewish acts of violence and terrorism?  When has he spoken out against the 498 incidents in eleven EU countries in 2006 all but one of which was carried out by non-Muslims (The Basque separatist group ETA was responsible for 136 of these terrorist attacks).  Full report.  When has he spoken out against The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam a Hindu separatist group in Sri Lanka who have “carried out more suicide bombings than any other organization on the face of the earth.  According to the experts at Janes securities, between 1980 to 2000, LTTE had carried out a total of 168 suicide attacks on civilians and military targets. The number of suicide attacks easily exceeded the combined total of Hizbullah and Hamas suicide attacks carried out during the same period” I would have a great deal of difficulty in accepting that such a one-sided focus on only one aspect of the problem of terrorism and violence is legitimate and sincere.  Without an equal concern for all terrorism and violence against civilians it would seem that for Spencer (and for many others) some lives are worth more than others.

This tendency to see only one side of an issue and to demand from Muslims what you are not willing to demand from your own faith group (or from yourself) is one of the characteristics of Islamophobes.  Another characteristic is throwing out all sorts of accusations that have no basis in fact.  This not speaking up against extremists and terrorists accusation has been made so often against the Muslim community in general that it is beginning to be accepted by those who don’t have access to any other opinions.  It is not excusable in someone who advertises himself as an expert on Islam and Muslims.

As for saying that I personally have not spoken up, Mr. Spencer has obviously not read most of the articles that I have written, or the statements I have personally signed on to.  He has also not read the articles and research collections clearly posted on The American Muslim site, or if he has read them he is being mendacious.  This is surprising since a list of articles that I have written with links is available on the front page of TAM. 
As the Editor of The American Muslim (TAM), I issued a statement on 9/11 in which I said: ”We are Americans and Muslims and proud to be both. We are as shocked and horrified by this insane act of terrorists as any other Americans. Our hearts go out to the victims and their families. We also want those responsible to be caught and brought to justice. They may happen to consider themselves Muslims (as Timothy McVey and Slobodon Milosovic may have considered themselves to be Christians) and may even have twisted the teachings of their religion to justify their actions, but terrorism is not the act of any person who understands anything about the teachings of any of the world’s religions. There is no religious justification for such actions.”

TAM has an entire section that can be reached from our main page focusing on statements, fatwas, and articles against terrorism and extremism by clicking on the logo Muslims Denounce Terrorism.  That section opens with an appeal for others to get involved that ends with the statement: “One hand clapping cannot make enough noise to drown out the extremists, but all of us together can make enough noise to be heard around the world.”
I have been a signatory to a number of statements and petitions against extremism and for dialogue and cooperation, and I have encouraged our readers to sign and get involved with these efforts.  Here are a few of those statements:

American Muslim Statement on September 11th
American Muslim Freedom of Faith Statement, Apostasy and Islam
Amman Conference Statement
CAIR Not In the Name of Islam Petition
Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy (CSID) Statement Denouncing Terrorism
Coalition for Peace Action Interfaith Letter to Alberto Gonzalez
The Common Word appeal for dialogue
Global Justice Movement, Statement of Shared Vision
International Campaign to Ban Land Mines
Faithful America Interfaith Demand for Release of Christian Peace Team being held in Iraq
statement affirming freedom of faith statement (against any punishment for “apostasy”)
Interfaith Open Letter Calling for Release of Christian Peace Team Being Held in Iraq
Interfaith statement against domestic violence
Interfaith fast to make peace in Iraq
FAITH IN ACTION interfaith National Weekend statement on the Death Penalty
Interfaith peace statement “A Pax on Both Our Houses”
Petition to the Taliban to honour the Pashtunwali code and release the Korean hostages
Resolution of the Sunni Shia Dialogue to Save Lives
Tent of Abraham, Hagar, and Sarah NY Times Ad calling for peacemaking 1/2005
Tikkun end the Iraq War ad

I have personally written articles such as:  A Spiritual Jihad Against Terrorism attempting to clarify that Terrorism is Not Jihad, backing Tariq Ramadan’s call for a moratorium on hudud (corporal) punishments, and with Bob Crane a Call for Input in Drafting a Fatwa Calling for Justice and Condemning Terrorism.

I have appealed for a calm and reasonable response to the film “Fitna” and in the Danish cartoon incident, defended the cartoonist in the “Opus” cartoon controversy, spoken out about groups of extremist Muslims, e.g. the Majlis of South Africa and The Islamic Thinkers Society in New York.  I have spoken against the Saudi Destruction of Muslim Historical Sites, against a statement by a Muslim group that sounded like they were encouraging proselytizing in public schools.  I have spoken against extremist translations of the Qur’an, against domestic abuse, supporting Laleh Bakhtiar’s Qur’an translation, etc.
I have not personally written articles about every incident of extremism or violence involving a Muslim that has happened anywhere in the world, but I have published articles about these by others and they appear on the TAM website - just type in MAE for a lengthy list of such articles.  A few of the topics that have been covered have been:  the Indian bomb blasts, the seizure of Bibles in Malaysia, the assassination of Benazir Bhutto,
suicide bombing (there have been many articles on this topic), freedom for Alan Johnston, holocaust denial, al Qaeda taking hostages in Iraq, the Taliban destruction of Buddhist statues, hirabah versus jihad, jihad in the modern world, against terrorism, attack on churches in Palestine, the Caliphate, honor killings, etc.

Robert Spencer’s statement that “Sheila Musaji has never written an article about the physical and emotional distress that peaceful Muslims suffer when their coreligionists commit violence in the name of their religion, and why she has never called upon those Muslims to stop committing acts of violence and supremacism in Islam’s name” is a refusal to see what is right in front of him.  His animosity towards Islam and Muslims blinds him to anyting except what he wants to see.  Those that are determined to see a clash of civilizations are determined to drown Muslim voices against extremism, unless of course, those Muslims are either former Muslims or agree that Islam is the problem that needs to be fixed.  This can only be called by the name Islamophobia, and it doesn’t represent American values.  It is an irrational prejudice (and contrary to Robert Spencer, it is uninformed) that lumps all Muslims into one category - the “other”, “them”, “those people”.  Al Qaeda is a declared enemy of the United States, and based on their actions also of all mainstream Muslims.  If this anger is towards Al Qaeda or other criminal organizations, then American Muslims are on the same side in that fight.  If this anger is towards our existence as Muslims and our love for our faith, our book, and our prophet, then that is something else again.  It is Islamophobia, and it is Anti-American.
As I said in my Spiritual Jihad Against Terrorism series:

Sadly, one of the things we have in common is that the Abrahamic religions (as well as other religions) have the capability of producing extremists of the most brutal kind - terrorists.  Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and other faiths have all been used as a justification for violence and terrorist acts.

It is possible to use verses amputated, distorted, perverted, or misrepresented from religious texts (the Torah, New Testament, Qur’an) to justify terrorism and individuals and groups have done this throughout history.  There are verses in all of these texts that can be easily abused either through purposeful or malicious manipulation of meaning or through ignorance of even the fundamentals of scriptural analysis.

There have been many crimes committed and millions of people killed by individuals, groups and governments in the name of one religion or another - justifying their actions by some perversion of the revealed texts.  The victims come from every race, ethnicity, and religious group.  At the current moment, although many of the perpetrators are Muslims?, the primary victims are also Muslims.  All of us are targets.

And worse, this could not have happened or continue to happen if most of us were not complicit in our silence.

There is self righteousness on both sides - Osama bin Laden exploits powerless people to fight for him by making them believe they are morally superior people - and governments exploit their citizens to fight by making them believe that they are morally superior.

Mainstream Muslims, Christians and Jews regularly condemn terrorism and consider such acts to be an egregious violation of their religious beliefs.  And, yet the violence continues to escalate and spread.

We have to live together. If we are to survive we must find ways to live together in peace. There are no more options left except the option of peace.  Peace between man and nature and between men and other men. Let us focus on what we have in common. Let us take the first step of getting to know one another.

The Qur’an gives us a mandate to do just this.

Unto every one of you have We appointed a different law and way of life. And if God had so willed, He could surely have made you all one single community: but He willed it otherwise in order to test you by means of what He has revealed to you. Compete then with one another in doing good works! Unto God you all must return and then He will make you truly understand all that on which you were wont to differ.  5:48

True piety (or righteousness) does not consist in turning your faces towards the cast or west but truly pious is he who believes in God and the last day and the angels and revelation, and the prophets; and spends his substance upon his near of kin, and the orphans, and the needy, and the wayfarer, and the beggar, and for the freeing of human beings from bondage; and is constant in prayer, and renders the purifying dues; and truly pious are they who keep their promises whenever they promise, and are patient in misfortune and hardship and in time of peril, it is they that have proved themselves true, and it is they, they who are conscious of God. 2: 177

The Qur’an is appealing to us, both Muslims and non Muslims to acknowledge that we do have different religious practices, but not to allow those differences to stop us from doing what needs to be done, and in fact to compete in doing good deeds. And, the Qur’an is telling us clearly that what is essential to our faith is simply how we treat one another. We need to take this advice to heart. To realize that we are brothers and sisters. That we are in this together. Hopefully, through coming to know each other we will be able to discover our similarities and to find ways of resolving our differences and solving our problems.

The American Muslim (TAM)

By Dr. Sami Alrabaa October 05 2008

Passages that incite to violence, hatred, and discrimination against women in the Koran and Sunnah must be removed, or viewed in their historic context if Islam and Muslims want to be accepted by the world community.

The German media reported early September 2008 that the German Professor Sven (Muhammad) Kalisch, a Muslim convert, who teaches Islam theology at Münster University, Germany, doubts it very much that Muhammad, the Prophet of Muslims “has ever existed.”

In a public lecture at Bielefeld University, Germany, (27.7.2008), Kalisch laid out his latest position about Islam and the Koran. He said that either Muhammad was a fictitious figure that never existed, or someone like him had existed and later was declared a prophet after his death.

It is good that an Islam expert has dared say that at a time when everybody is intimidated to criticize Islam and its symbols. Almost two years ago though, Kalisch thought and lectured differently. In another public lecture also at Bielefeld University (16.3.2006) he defended Al Shri’a as the law of God. As I confronted him with atrocious passages from the Koran inciting to violence, hatred, and discrimination against women, (check “Islam is a violent Faith” http://europenews.dk/en/node/13862 ) he started stuttering and did not know what to say.

Obviously, Kalisch has drastically changed over the past two years, from a dogmatic (convert) Muslim to a “liberal” one. What happened? We do not know. But one thing is clear. Now for many fanatic Muslims, Kalisch is a heretic and apostate. And most certainly one of those grand muftis in the Muslim world will issue a fatwa urging “pious” Muslims to kill Kalisch.

In an interview with the German daily Taz (29.12.2004) Kalisch was asked why he converted to Islam. He answered, “because rationality prevails in Islam”. “Rationality”!? This is laughable. The Koran and the Sunnah are replete with threats, fear, hatred, violence, and discrimination against non-Muslims and women. The word “Islam” means “submission”.

Kalisch’s students are also stunned how the man has changed. On condition of anonymity, one of those students told me, “I don’t know what happened to Professor Kalisch. He used to defend every word in the Koran, even archaic and obsolete things. Now he is rejecting them, and demanding that Islam be reformed. He even said, Islam needs a Martin Luther.”

Kalisch’s students, who in one year will be released to teach Islam at schools, are split between those who follow a moderate course of Islam and those who follow a dogmatic one. Lamya Kaddor, Kalisch’s assistant is still teaching a dogmatic course of Islam.

Ms. Kaddor is indeed popular among her Muslim students (the majority of which are native Turks or Arabs) at the University of Münster and at the Glückauf Pubic School in Western German city of Dinslacken-Lohberg near Essen, as Speigel Online claims on March 14, 2008, and that is so for one simple reason, which Der Spiegel did not mention.

Kaddor repeats ad nauseam in front of her students that the whole world is afraid of Islam because it has the stronger arguments, and sooner or later the Muslim Caliphate, the Muslim empire is coming and will prevail all over the world. Therefore, rejoice!

According to the Turkish Daily Zaman, Kalisch rejected Kaddor’s doctorate dissertation because it was full of plagiarism. Kalisch also accuses his assistant of having peculated huge amounts of research money.

A moderate student of Kalisch told me that the majority of his colleagues would teach a dogmatic variety of Islam.

The Ministry of Education in NRW, the German federal state which commissioned Kalisch to train Islam teachers for schools has been presented a general outline of an Islam course at the NRW schools. The details were left out.

Ayub Axel Köhler, the Chairman of the Central Council of Muslims in Germany and some of Kalisch students insist that Islam teachers at German schools must teach the Koran and the Sunnah as they are: “They are word of Allah.”

Wolfgang Borgfeld, who after converting to Islam changed his name to Muhammad Siddiq, established an association he called “The House of Islam” in the south of Frankfurt. The “House”, which used to be a hotel and harbours several halls for seminars and conferences, is financed by the Saudis and Kuwaitis. It is, however, largely a Koran school without any official control.

Recently I visited “The House of Islam” and Mr. Siddiq was delighted to show me his school and meet his students. I was curious and wanted to know what the students (8 – 18 years old) have learned. I asked a 16 year old girl why she was wearing a headscarf . She said she was proud of it because with it she is fulfilling the commandment of Allah. I asked a 15 year old student what Jihad meant. His answer: “It is fighting for Islam to prevail.” I asked further, also with weapons? “If need be, yes.” He heftily replied.

Siddiq’s House has around 60 students. One third of them are converts. And they are quite zealous about Islam. Uta Rasche wrote in the Frankfurter Allgemeine (September 1, 2004), “The number of those who converted to Islam (in Germany) is between 13,000 and 60,000, according to estimates. In any case, they make up only a small share of Germany’s more than 3 million Muslims.

But many converts have a very special story. Often they are extremely attached to their religion—and sometimes, they are particularly dangerous. They want to prove to themselves and their new fellow worshipers that they take their conversion seriously and therefore have a strong desire to demonstrate their religious commitment.”

Rasche also says, “Certainly, not every visit to an Islamic school produces an extremist, and naturally, not every convert becomes a terrorist. But when Islamic fundamentalists are looking for people in Germany whom they can use for their purposes, young converts have proven to be an ideal target group: They are enthusiastic, want to prove themselves, have severed all their ties and left their western circle of friends behind for the sake of the Muslim community. And there are decisive practical advantages: They have a German passport, can travel without restrictions within Europe, often speak good English and do not look suspicious at all.”

Gudrun Krämer, an Islam Professor at Berlin University (FU) rushed all of a sudden to support Professor Kalisch that the Muslim leader, Muhammad “maybe never existed”. She claimed that she had thought of that and came to the same conclusion. If that were the case, why did she then defend the fictitious Koran in most of her published articles and books?

For instance, she tries to justify the Koran discriminating against women as witnesses. She argues that the testimony of a woman is half as valid as that of a man, according to the Koran, because when women get their menstruation they do not think and remember clearly. Besides, she added, women were illiterate. The truth of the matter is the vast majority of men were also illiterate during the rise of Islam.

In fact, Krämer is not the only relativist among Islam experts in the West. So far, none of these experts has had the courage to criticize the Koran and the Sunnah which preach violence, hatred, and discrimination against women and followers of other faiths.

George Stauth, another Islam relativist, defends Islamism as a reaction to Western colonialism and modern consumerism. Stauth adds, Islamism is a “protest movement” against corruption and despotism in the Muslim world.

This might be the case, but the Islamists, who are inciting to violence, hatred, and discrimination against women inspired by the Koran and Sunnah, are the least qualified to change the status quo situation. If Islamists took over, they would replace the evil by a worse one. They simply reject political and religious pluralism. They reject the others completely.

In any case, we Muslims have the right to practice our religion like followers of other faiths do. But at same time we must skip all those passages in the Koran and Sunnah which preach commandments against human rights, freeze them, or discuss them in their own historic context. Followers of other religions have already done that; the Christians, the Jews, and the others.

Whether the Prophet Muhammad existed or not is insignificant. Islam, however, is a fact of life. But if we, Muslims want to be accepted by the world community, then we must renounce violence, hatred and discrimination against women. We must accept the other faiths as they accept us.

The way up to all that seems to be quite long and thorny. Both peace-loving Westerners and Muslims must work on reaching that aim. Preaching relativism and being fearful to spell out the bitter truth would only strengthen the Islamists and their destructive ideology. There must the fight against extremism and fanaticism begin.

Islam Professor Converts from “Believer” to “Non-Believer” | EuropeNews

A display of Islamic head dresses for sale outside a shop at the center of the West Bank city of Ramallah. (Muhammed Muheisen - AP)

Iranian girls wear colorful headscarf and a mantu as they walk in Isfahan, some 240 miles south of Tehran, Iran. (Hasan Sarbakhshian - AP Photo/Hasan Sarbakhshian)

By Mohja Kahf

Crimson chiffon, silver lamé or green silk: Which scarf to wear today? My veil collection is 64 scarves and growing. The scarves hang four or five to a row on a rack in my closet, and elation fills me when I open the door to this beautiful array. Last week, I chose a particularly nice scarf to slip on for the Eid al-Fitr festivities marking the end of the month of Ramadan.

It irks me that I even have to say this: Being a Muslim woman is a joyful thing.

My first neighbor in Arkansas borrowed my Quran and returned it, saying, “I’m glad I’m not a Muslim woman.” Excuse me, but a woman with Saint Paul in her religious heritage has no place feeling superior to a Muslim woman, as far as woman-affirming principles are concerned. Maybe no worse, if I listen to Christian feminists, but certainly no better.

Blessings abound for me as a Muslim woman: The freshness of ablution is mine, and the daily meditation zone of five prayers that involve graceful, yoga-like movements, performed in prayer attire. Prayer scarves are a chapter in themselves, cool and comforting as bedsheets. They lie folded in the velveteen prayer rug when not in use: two lightweight muslin pieces, the long drapey headcover and the roomy gathered skirt. I fling open the top piece, and it billows like summer laundry, a lace-edged meadow. I slip into the bottom piece to cover my legs for prayer time because I am wearing shorts around the house today.

These create a tent of tranquility. The serene spirit sent from God is called by a feminine name, “sakinah,” in the Quran, and I understand why some Muslim women like to wear their prayer clothes for more than prayer, to take that sakinah into the world with them. I, too, wear a (smaller) version of the veil when I go out. What a loss it would be for me not to have in my life this alternating structure, of covering outdoors and uncovering indoors. I take pleasure in preparing a clean, folded set for a houseguest, the way home-decor mavens lay elegant plump towels around a bathroom to give it a relaxing feel.

Tassled turquoise cotton and flowered peach crepe flutter as I pull out a black-and-ivory striped headscarf for the day. When I was 22 and balked at buying a $30 paisley scarf, my best friend told me, “I never scrimp on scarves. If people are going to make a big deal of it, it may as well look good.”

I embraced that principle, too, even when I was a scratch-poor graduate student. Today I sort my scarves, always looking to replace the frayed ones and to find missing colors, my collection shrinking and expanding, dynamic, bright: The blue-and-yellow daisy print is good with jeans, the incandescent purple voile for a night on the town, the gray houndstooth solidly professional, the white chambray anytime.

As beautiful as veils are, they are not the best part of being a Muslim woman — and many Muslim women in Islamic countries don’t veil. The central blessing of Islam to women is that it affirms their spiritual equality with men, a principle stated over and over in the Quran, on a plane believers hold to be untouched by the social or legalistic “women in Islam” concerns raised by other parts of the Scripture, in verses parsed endlessly by patriarchal interpreters as well as Muslim feminists and used by Islamophobes to “prove” Islam’s sexism. This is how most believing Muslim women experience God: as the Friend who is beyond gender, not as the Father, not as the Son, not inhabiting a male form, or any form.

And the reasons for being a joyful Muslim woman go beyond the spiritual. Marriage is a contract in Islam, not a sacrament. The prenup is not some new invention; it’s the standard Muslim format. I can put whatever I want in it, but Muslims never get credit for that. Or for having mahr, the bridegift that goes from the man to the woman — not to her family, but to her, for her own private use. A mahr has to have significant value — a year’s salary, say. And if patriarchal customs have overridden Islam and whittled away this blessing in many Muslim locales, it’s still there, available, in the law. Hey, I got mine (cash, partly deferred because my husband was broke when we married; like a loan to him, owed to me whenever I want to claim it) — and I was married in Saudi Arabia, a country whose personal-status laws are drawn from the most conservative end of the Muslim spectrum.

I had to sign my name indicating my consent, or the marriage contract would not have been valid under Saudi Islamic law. And, of course, I chose whom to marry. Every Muslim girl in the conservative circle of my youth chose her husband. We just did it our way, a conservative Muslim way, and we did it without this nonsensical Western custom of teenage dating. My friends Salma and Magda chose at 16 and 17: Salma to marry boy-next-door Muhammad, with whom she grew up, and Magda to marry a doctor 10 years her senior who came courting from half a world away. Both sisters have careers, one as a counselor, one as a school principal, and both are still vibrantly married and vibrantly Muslim, their kids now in college.

I held out until I was 18, making my parents beat back suitors at the door until I was good and ready. And here I am, still married to the guy I finally let in the door, 22 years (some of them not even dysfunctional) later. My cousin, on the other hand, broke off a marriage she contracted (but did not consummate) at 16 and chose another man. Another childhood friend, Zeynab, chose four times and is looking for Mr. Fifth. Her serial monogamy is nothing new or radical; she didn’t pick up the idea from reading Cosmo or from the “liberating” influence of U.S. troops in Afghanistan. It’s simply what a lot of women in early Muslim history did, in 7th- and 8th-century Arabia.

And would you guess that we’ve also been freer to divorce and remarry than Christian women have been for most of history? In medieval times, when Christian authorities were against divorce and remarriage, this was seen as another Islamic abomination. Now that divorce and remarriage are popular in the West, Muslims don’t get credit for having had that flexibility all along. We just can’t win with the Muslim-haters.

Here’s another one: Medieval Christianity excoriated Islam for being orgiastic, which seems to mean that Muslims didn’t lay a guilt trip on hot sex (at least within what were deemed licit relationships). Now that hot sex is all the rage in the post-sexual revolution West, you’d think Muslims would get some credit for the pro-sex attitude of Islam — but no. The older stereotype has been turned on its head, and in the new one, we’re the prudes. Listen, we’re the only monotheistic faith I know with an actual legal rule that the wife has a right to orgasm.

Of course, I’m still putting in my time struggling for a more woman-affirming interpretation of Islam and in criticizing Muslim misogyny (which at times is almost as bad as American misogyny), but let me take a moment to celebrate some of the good stuff. Under Islamic law, custody of minor children always goes first to the mother. The Quran doesn’t blame Eve. Literacy for women is highly encouraged by the traditions of the Prophet Muhammad. Breast-feeding is a woman’s choice and a means for her to create family ties independent of male lineage, as nursing creates legally recognized family relationships under Islamic law. Rapists are punishable by death in Islamic law (and yes, an atavistic part of me applauds that death penalty), which they certainly are not in any Western legal code. Birth control allowed in Islamic law? Check. Masturbation? Let’s just say former surgeon general Joycelyn Elders’s permissive stance on that practice is not unknown among classical and modern Muslim jurists. Abortion? Again, allowances exist — even Muslims seem not to remember that.

It’s easy to forget that Muslims are not inherently more sexist than folks in other religions. Muslim societies may lag behind on some issues that women in certain economically advanced, non-Muslim societies have resolved after much effort, but on other issues, Muslim women’s options run about the same as those of women all over the world. And in some areas of life, Muslim women are better equipped by their faith tradition for autonomy and dignity.

There are “givens” that I take for granted as a Muslim woman that women of other faiths had to struggle to gain. For example, it took European and American women centuries to catch up to Islamic law on a woman’s fully equal right to own property. And it’s not an airy abstraction; it’s a right Muslim women have practiced, even in Saudi Arabia, where women own businesses, donate land for schools and endow trusts, just as they did in 14th-century Egypt, 9th-century Iraq and anywhere else Islamic law has been in effect.

Khadija was the boss of her husband, our beloved Prophet Muhammad, hiring him during her fourth widowhood to run caravans for her successful business; he caught her eye, and she proposed marriage to him. Fatima is the revered mother figure of Shiite Islam, our lady of compassion, possessed of a rich emotional trove for us. Her daughter Zainab is the classic figure of high moral protest, the Muslim Antigone, shaking her fist at the corrupt caliph who killed her brother, her tomb a shrine of comfort for millions of the pious. Saints, queens, poets, scribes and scholars adorn the history of Muslim womanhood.

In modern times, Muslim women have been heads of state five times in Muslim-majority countries, elected democratically by popular vote (in Bangladesh twice and also in Turkey, Indonesia and Pakistan). And I’m not saying that a woman president is necessarily a women’s president, but how many times has a woman been president of the United States?

Yet even all that gorgeous history pales when I open my closet door for the evening’s pick: teal georgette, pink-and-beige plaid, creamy fringed wool or ice-blue organza? God, why would anyone assume I would want to give up such beauty? I love being a Muslim woman. And I’m always looking for my next great polka-dot scarf.

Mohja Kahf is the author of the novel “The Girl in the Tangerine Scarf.”

Spare Me the Sermon On Muslim Women - washingtonpost.com

Separate Church and State in Israel or Expect More Radical Zionism in the U.S.
by Will Kelly Sunday, Oct. 05, 2008 at 6:15 PM

We, as a nation, can no longer espouse any other position as fair but to advocate for the separation of Church and State in “all” the Middle East—including and especially in Israel and Palestine. Condemning Arab states as backward while ignoring Israel’s own demand for the continuance of a de facto theocratic kingdom based on discrimination is high hypocrisy. And the world can no longer afford this outdated baggage and demeanor.

Separate Church and State in Israel or Expect More Radical Zionism in the U.S.
By Will Kelly
Recently, September 2008, Yonat Shimron of McClatchy Newspapers reported that Gregory Ross, spokesperson for Clarion Fund, a New York non-profit is paying newspapers distributed a DVD called “Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West” by Raphael Shore, a Canadian who lives in Israel. The film, home-delivered in 70 newspapers across the country, depicts extreme Islamism as a kind of Nazism. Gregory Ross is quoted to say: “There is no greater threat than radical Islam”.
Funny this “war against the West” that so many Jews need to educate us?
“Radical Islamism” and “Islamofascism” are phrases neocon-o-fascists like William Kristol (one of the founders for Project for the New American Century), freely bandy about in American newspapers as if goyim America, in general, was too dense to not detect the self-serving, Israeli first propaganda, as they have thence been equally willing to gamble off America’s true national security interests. And for what—for a delusional psychiatric basket case of a country that can’t get along with many other countries and so continually acts like an autistic child—and a child mind you that cannot fathom the idea of ever growing up because it is so in love with its delusion of belonging to a “special” case of Cosmic origin and destiny that has went through many challenges?
The Israeli Zionism movement, or more pointedly to use NeoCon Artist reverse psychology semantics, “radical Zionofascism” is as likely the biggest threat to the our national security and freedom here in the states. Because if one examines the relationship America has had with Israel it is clear that it has been detrimental to our interests, and it has seriously weakened our ability to get along peacefully with too much of the rest of the world—not to mention the bankruptcy for our tax-payer treasury that still manages to continuously spigot resource their way irrespective of their ingrate attitudes (and to forgive all debts to their presumed bathic “exceptionalism”).
Nor should we forget to mention that Israel’s attitude toward the U.S., and to much of the rest of the world, has often been “… give us, give us, while we take, take, take, and then we can act out a “flake off America” attitude to any legitimate concerns if right-wing “rogues” in Israel do not happen to like them.
Granted that most Jewish Americans here in the U.S. are liberal, and do not approve of many of these right-wing and blackmail tactics, still the minority that do carry much power are willing to do us damage, while leftist passivity as unwillingness to challenge their ethnocentric mindset, has cost this culture too dire much.
One would think that this Yom Kippur season there would be some apologies extended not just to John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, who dared print their Israel Lobby report knowing the flak they would get, but also to former President Jimmy Carter who at least showed courage in the face of the silent intransigence of their “Jewish Only” mindset in Israel as well as here in the United States.
Americans do not need more reminders via seemingly smug editorial page commentaries from Rabbis across the country about how much America has been psychologically tied to, and affected by, Judeo-Christianity over the centuries. We are well aware. Nor do we need more subtle guilt-tripping reminders of the historical litany of Egyptian, Babylonian and Roman oppression, or European ghettos and Nazi Holocaust, etc., intermingled with the “longing for the ancestral peoplehood that heard the ram’s horn”.
Maybe instead it is time for Judeo-Christianity in general to recognize the slavery of religious mind control that many cultures have suffered in general over the centuries?
However what is particularly noteworthy is the “psychology” of the ancient roots of their religion that honors “authoritarianism” because the Old Testament is based precisely on the same mentality.
Equally, the fact still remains, that the people who claimed to have been Jews, or the chosen people, were historically “outsiders” to the land of Canaan, and therefore they have historically tried to chase off or fight off the inhabitants that lived there prior.
Abraham was an outsider from a city-state called Ur which would now be close to Baghdad Iraq—but there is no world Jewry demanding land in Iraq to honor their swarthy (non Caucasian) roots? Yet with imagination Abraham found ‘his’ vision that he “claimed” God gave ‘his’ people a new land elsewhere out East (but we are suppose to believe it because it was written in an ancient book?). Still the land of Canaan was “already” preoccupied even back then.
Years later according to their religious propaganda, again Moses, a tyrant personality at times to be sure, conceived of another series of delusions about a tyrannical God that commanded, as felt necessary, the killing off the current Semites (no anti-Semitism here?) of Canaan and surrounding peoples for those he supposedly left from Egypt—traveling 40 years in a land that a camel caravan could transverse in two weeks. Yes this particular conception of a high God who was willing to kill off the Hittites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, the Hivites, etc., for who—outsiders who were still claiming some “just” God gave them special privilege to walk over other people and bury them in their path.
And on and on it goes to this very day—while Israel pretends a sheep’s garments of democracy—but only if you happen to be Jewish—otherwise this culture can will utilize the tyrant’s tools of discrimination, disenfranchisement, oppression, imprisonment and death.
Jonathan Kirsch in his scholarly, controversial, and skeptical work: “Moses: A Life” wrote: “The very notion of a god who insisted that he was the one and only, a god who demanded holy war against his enemies, is something that began with Moses.” Mr. Jonathan Kirsch, who also wrote the best-selling “The Harlot by the Side of the Road” makes clear with profound research and excellence in style that Moses was but a phantom in later chroniclers imagination—a fairy tale at best.
Therefore the people of the United States SHOULD NOT support any conception of a tilt toward fascism state of Israel as it still acts today. To support the Israeli theocracy goes against our principles of equality and religious freedom. Why would any free thinking person support an idea of a God who, via the delusional interpretations of Moses, etc., who acted so heavily handed and tyrannical—especially to a people who were supposedly not even appreciative or cooperative to that conception of a patronizing and peevish leader?
9-11 has become a very convenient epic event that too much simulates a false flag operation meant to motivate, through fear, another 100 years of Crusades war in which Christian countries are motivated to go to war with Muslim and Arab countries. The fact is that Saddam Hussein sided with the Palestinians, as does the current leaders of Iran today. Yet we are seldom free to ask if the Palestinians have legitimate concerns and representations in Government and the Main Stream Media.
How extremely cynical that right-wing Jews and Christians would seemingly manipulate Christian fear and hatred of Muslims, given the reality that most all Jews living today are aware—that during the Middle Ages Christian soldiers acted out atrocities against Jews and other Semites like the Mohammedans? So why is it now OK for Christians and Muslims to kill each other—because Israel cannot get along with enough of its neighbors? And why would that be—anything to do with their policies?
Enough Jews in America are not particularly respecting of Christians intelligence levels or political savvy, and certainly are not respecting of their motives—yet some small but influential group still is willing to manipulate anti-Semitic prejudice against Muslims for the Zionist cause. Nor have the NeoCons been beyond using propaganda tactics similar to those used by the Nazis against the Jews. And more importantly their willingness to sacrifice the slow but steady erosion of civil rights and freedoms here like what equally happened in Germany in the 30s.
So is America suppose embrace the idea of becoming more like Israel? Should we be glad that we get to inherit an enemy “watch” list that is a reflective of Israel’s’ enemies? Should we welcome a need to build fences around our country and have checkpoints throughout to harass, or spy on more and more American citizens, or lock up Muslims on mere suspicions, or espouse the need to torture people, or use more high tech spying equipment so Israelis can have a new cottage industry selling such to the United States, etc.? And most importantly chip away civil liberties and ideas about the Constitution?
If this is such a fair deal then where are the Jewish Americans joining the socioeconomic disadvantaged rural white boys that cannot find jobs in the small town USA, or the suburbanites who don’t fit into a higher education role, when it comes to fighting these wars that the Israeli lobby has played a major part in manipulating our country into? Or is this just a part of their “superiority” card that some feel they can manipulate naïve goyim to do the bidding on false pretense?
The U.S. State Department should not be arguing whether we ought to bomb Iran on circulated rumors, or whether our Pentagon ought to backup Israelis bombing. Rather we ought to contemplating having Israel give up its nuclear armaments if Israel continues to insist on bombing others. Why should there be support for what amounts to as a country that can’t respect the lives of the Palestinians as “equals”?
The United States in founded on the idea of equality. Our founders were especially concerned about the corrupting notions of power. They were also once concerned about the essential characteristics of aggressiveness and the endless tendency to expand beyond legitimate boundaries. Our founders and talking heads understood there was a difference between a sphere of power that was brutal and heedless and a sphere of liberty that was sensitive to awareness greater that national egocentricity.
Recently the New York Times reported that the Ehud Olmert said the Israel must withdraw from nearly all of the West Bank as well as East Jerusalem as a supposedly radical gesture as the “talk” frequently comes from both sides the mouth. Well that isn’t enough anymore—especially since 9-11.
We, as a nation, can no longer espouse any other position as fair but to advocate for the separation of Church and State in “all” the Middle East—including and especially in Israel and Palestine. Condemning Arab states as backward while ignoring Israel’s own demand for the continuance of a de facto theocratic kingdom based on discrimination is high hypocrisy. And the world can no longer afford this outdated baggage and demeanor.
There is another way to honor the slogan: “Never Again will we be persecuted in a foreign land” and that simply is to honor tradition and culture without clinging to rigid ideas of a promised land that cannot be shared with others. The fact is that traditional religions are myth. They need not constantly spill into psychiatric problems. If you people are so smart as you think then Deal with it!
So regardless of all the discrimination and persecution, killing and injustice that Jews have suffered throughout the world over the many seasons—two wrongs or a hundred wrongs does not make a right.
Furthermore we in the United States of America are NOT responsible for all the past discrimination to your people elsewhere—at different times in history. Yes we can be aware and sensitive to man’s injustice and prejudice—but neither are you people exempt from our awareness and criticality. So don’t try to guilt trip us in supporting your idea of religious righteousness. We are “not” joining your pity party that will never justify itself anyway on what ultimately amounts to delusional psychology.
To imagine the NeoCon men in the MSM are willing to prostrate themselves further for the likes of McCain and Palin simply because these mediocre minds are willing to fall in line with whatever Israel wants—despite their naiveté else wise is just one more example of main stream media not really caring that much about main street America.
If you continue to expect support for your discrimination you need to look outside the United States—we are not going down with you. Our American Revolution is still on the upswing. Maybe it is time for some real conscious raising rather than platitudes?

Separate Church and State in Israel or Expect More Radical Zionism in the U.S. : Cleveland IMC (((i)))

By AMY TEIBEL

The Associated Press
Saturday, October 4, 2008; 9:45 AM

JERUSALEM — In Israel’s ultra-Orthodox Jewish community, where the rule of law sometimes takes a back seat to the rule of God, zealots are on a campaign to stamp out behavior they consider unchaste. They hurl stones at women for such “sins” as wearing a red blouse, and attack stores selling devices that can access the Internet.

In recent weeks, self-styled “modesty patrols” have been accused of breaking into the apartment of a Jerusalem woman and beating her for allegedly consorting with men. They have torched a store that sells MP4 players, fearing devout Jews would use them to download pornography.

“These breaches of purity and modesty endanger our community,” said 38-year-old Elchanan Blau, defending the bearded, black-robed zealots. “If it takes fire to get them to stop, then so be it.”

Many ultra-Orthodox Jews are dismayed by the violence, but the enforcers often enjoy quiet approval from rabbis eager to protect their own reputations as guardians of the faith, community members say. And while some welcome anything that keeps secular culture out of their cloistered world, others feel terrorized, knowing that the mere perception of impropriety could ruin their lives.

“There are eyes and ears all over the place, very similar to what you hear about in countries like Iran,” says Israeli-American novelist Naomi Ragen, an observant Jew who has chronicled the troubles that confront some women living in the ultra-Orthodox world.

The violence has already deepened the antagonism between the 600,000 haredim, or God-fearing, and the secular majority, which resents having religious rules dictated to them.

Religious vigilantes operate in a society that has granted their community influence well beyond its numbers _ partly out of a commitment to revive the great centers of Jewish scholarship destroyed in the Holocaust, but also because the Orthodox are perennial king-makers in Israeli coalition politics.

Thus public transport is grounded for the Jewish Sabbath each Saturday, and the rabbis control all Jewish marriage and divorce in Israel.

In recent years, however, the haredim have eased up on their long campaign to impose their rules on secular areas, and nowadays many restaurants and suburban shopping centers are open on the Sabbath.

These days, most vigilante attacks take place in the zealots’ own neighborhoods.

Israel police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said the modesty police are not an organized phenomenon, just rogue enforcers carrying out isolated attacks. But Israel’s Justice Ministry used the term “modesty patrols” in an indictment against a man accused of assaulting the Jerusalem woman.

The unidentified, 31-year-old woman had left the ultra-Orthodox fold after getting divorced, according to the indictment filed by the Jerusalem district attorney’s office. The indictment said her assailant tried to get her to leave her apartment in a haredi neighborhood in Jerusalem by gagging, beating and threatening to kill her. He was paid $2,000 for the attack, it said. 

A 17-year-old who moved to Israel from New York five years ago said she was hospitalized after being attacked with pepper spray by a crowd of men outraged that she was walking down a Jerusalem street with boys.

“They can burn in hell,” said the girl, who would identify herself only as Rivka.

She lives in Beit Shemesh, a town outside Jerusalem where the vigilantism has been particularly violent. Zealots there have thrown rocks and spat at women, and set fire to trash bins to protest impiety. Walls of the neighborhood are plastered with signs exhorting women to dress modestly _ spelled out as closed-necked, long-sleeved blouses and long skirts.

The state, catering to religious sensitivities, subsidizes gender-segregated bus routes that service religious neighborhoods. Ragen and several other women challenged the practice in Israel’s Supreme Court after an Orthodox Canadian woman in her 50s told police she was kicked, slapped, pushed to the floor and spat upon by men for refusing to move to the back of the bus.

Another Beit Shemesh girl, who asked to be identified only as Esther, said zealots threw rocks, cursed and spat at a friend for wearing a red blouse _ taboo because the color attracts attention.

Yitzhak Polack, a 50-year-old Jerusalem teacher, is one of those who deplore such behavior.

“They are stupid troublemakers who are bringing shame and disgrace on this holy community,” he said.

But the rabbis are afraid to condemn them, says Yehuda Meshi-Zahav, another community member.

“They can’t come out against zealots who champion modesty. Here and there they write against violence, but the militants ultimately set the tone,” he said.

Stores are targeted too.

In August, a Jerusalem man was placed under house arrest on suspicion he set fire to a store in a haredi district of the city that sold MP4 players.

“It started about six months ago. They would come into the store, about 15 of them at a time, screaming, ‘This store burns souls!’ and they would throw merchandise on the floor and threaten customers,” said 31-year-old Aaron Gold, a haredi worker at the Space electronic store.

One Friday night, just before the Sabbath was about to begin, “they smashed a window, doused the place with gasoline and lit a match,” Gold said.

Now, a big sign behind the counter says, “All products sold in this store are under rabbinical supervision. By order of the rabbis, no MP4s are sold here.”

Clothing stores that sell clothes regarded as provocative have been vandalized, and bleach thrown at merchandise.

Suspicion is all that’s needed to spark an attack.

Girls have been expelled from school after being seen talking to boys, a punishment that ruins their marriage prospects.

“It could be very innocent; she could be talking to her brother,” Ragen said. But once thrown out of school, “no one _ NO ONE _ will take you in,” she added.

In one case, the violence reached the highest levels of haredi society.

Three years ago, a son of Israel’s Sephardi chief rabbi, Shlomo Amar, was accused of kidnapping a 17-year-old boy, beating him at knifepoint and terrorizing him with snarling dogs because he had sought the attentions of the accused’s unchaperoned sister.

The son was sentenced to two years and eight months in jail.

His sister married a different suitor the following year.

Jewish ‘modesty patrols’ sow fear in Israel - washingtonpost.com