Is “Moderate Muslim” an Oxymoron?

As applied to individuals, absolutely not. Those of us who know individual Muslims will testify to that all day long. Our Muslim friends and colleagues are no different than our other associates, and we find it difficult to hear blanket statements categorizing all Muslims as open or closet jihadis. Condemn all Muslims that way, and you do more to condemn yourself.

And that’s one of the reasons for all the distortions we encounter: our values make us uncomfortable condemning any religion or large group of people because of their adherence to it. But our existential struggle is not about individuals.

The disingenuous and politically-motivated use of the phrase “moderate Muslim” without regard to reality leads us to make deadly decisions; deadly not just for jihad’s immediate victims but ultimately for us as well. Case in point: Bangladesh. [New English Review] Read more

Muslim parents bid to set up private Islamic school

The school, based in the former Holmlea Primary building in Cathcart, would have separate entrances and facilities for boys and girls if a fundraising appeal is successful.

.... Glasgow Community Education Association (GCEA), which is behind the project, claims attending mainstream schools is resulting in "unsocial behaviour" among Muslim youngsters and that the lack of Islamic schools is forcing Muslim families out of Glasgow.

... Some previous attempts to establish Muslim schools in Scotland have been unsuccessful. Both the Iqra Academy in Glasgow and the Imam Muhammad Zakariya School for girls in Dundee closed after receiving negative inspection reports.

The Iqra Academy, which shut in 2003, was criticised by inspectors for giving pupils no opportunity to mix with the local community and for its treatment of girls at the school. [Herald & Times] Read more

German verdict to delay circumcision, not ban it, jurist says

A widely criticized German court verdict on religious circumcision this week aims only to delay the act, not ban it, and is not directed against any faith, a jurist with a leading role in the legal debate said on Friday.

The operation does serious bodily harm and only males old enough to consent to it freely should undergo it, said Holm Putzke, law professor at Passau University in southern Germany.

Using arguments Putzke has published in recent years, a court in the western city of Cologne ruled on Tuesday that the circumcision there of a Muslim boy who suffered post-operative bleeding had violated a German law against causing bodily harm. [Reuters] Read more

Amsterdam Gets a Harsh Lesson in Islam 101

.... By the end of the evening, al-Haddad had made it absolutely clear that he supported the gradual implementation of sharia law in the West – starting with relatively innocuous-seeming stuff like divorce tribunals and Islamic finance, then moving bit by bit into ever more serious territory.

One particularly depressing development was that after an hour or so of listening to al-Haddad, Dibi admitted that he had caught himself feeling that al-Haddad, being a scholar, must be right about Islam after all.

I’ve often felt that a major reason why less observant, essentially secularized Muslims like Dibi are so hesitant to speak out against the likes of al-Haddad (aside from sheer terror) is that some small voice deep inside whispers to them that he’s the real thing – the good Muslim, a man whose pious certitude, and unwavering devotion to the Prophet shame their own co-optation by infidel decadence. [FrontPageMagazine.com] Read more

FIFA medical chief withdraws opposition to headscarves

A campaign to allow Muslim women football players to wear headscarves was boosted on Friday when the chairman of FIFA’s medical committee said he has withdrawn his opposition.

The change of medical opinion from Michel D’Hooghe was a key step before FIFA’s law-making body could approve two scarf designs when it meets in Zurich next week.

“The problems I had (with scarves) were medical, and I don’t have those problems anymore,” D’Hooghe told The Associated Press. [THE ASSOCIATED PRESS] Read more

Fatwa the video game – extremism for the idle Islamist

When Salman Rushdie was whiling away the hours in hiding after his fatwa was issued, he could scarcely have imagined that 23 years later a) he would be alive and b) the Iranians would release a video game called The Stressful Life of Salman Rushdie and the Implementation of his Verdict, in which players set about acting on Ayatollah Khomeini’s death warrant.

Rushdie is presumably chased from literary party to catwalk after-party with an attractive woman on his arm (in a fetching head-to-toe number, of course, for this is Iran) ducking to avoid YOU, the Islamist, hellbent on destroying him. [New Humanist] Read more

The Rape Law

In conservative Muslim societies like Jordan, rapists can walk free thanks to penal code Article 308, known as the "rape-law".

In April, the unidentified girl was shopping in the northern city of Zarqa when a 19-year-old man kidnapped her, took her to the desert where he had a pitched a tent and raped her for three consecutive days, judicial sources said.

.... Israa Tawalbeh, the country's first woman coroner, sees "nothing wrong in Article 308 as such"....

"Accepting marriage under Article 308 is better than leaving girls to be killed by their parents or relatives," she said. Well yes, there is that. [Mick Hartley] Read more

The Anti-Islamist Texts the Free World Needs to Use

.... One major problem is the treatment of Muslims as a single entity, an obstacle Dr. Jasser partially attributes to the influence of Arab tribal culture. Muslims who speak out against those within the ummah often become outcasts, much like would happen in a tribe. Dr. Jasser and other anti-Islamist Muslims know this all too well.

This has negative effects when it comes to security. The Fort Dix terror plot was foiled with the help of a Muslim informant working for the FBI. Instead of being celebrated, he was out-casted because, as he describes it, "For Muslims, we are all brothers, and I betrayed a brother."

This leads to double-standards where Muslims rage against real or imagined transgressions against their own but rarely speak a negative word about the co-religionists like Sheikh Yousef al-Qaradawi, a hugely influential cleric whose extremism is plain for all to see. [Family Security Matters] Read more

Why are American Muslims Critical of CAIR?

.... Polling a group of my young, professional Muslim friends who had no ties to activism or advocacy, I found that almost none had ever heard of the FBI issue, the Islamophobe campaigns, or any other related CAIR controversy.

In other words, their ignorance (and that of most other American Muslims) is CAIR’s bliss. And, coupled with rising anti-Muslim sentiment, American Muslims are finding CAIR to be the best-equipped organization to defend the community. [altmuslim] Read more

Racism in Arab Lands

.... In his unjustly neglected book, Race and Slavery in the Middle East, Bernard Lewis recounts that many of the stories in the Arabian Nights portray Blacks as slaves, and as second-class citizens, while Arabs are "white."

The Egyptian story is not a pleasant one for a variety of reasons. Egyptian Copts, about 10 to 12 million, are treated as second-class citizens and denied senior jobs. Now that the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafis have won the election with 70% of the seats in new parliament, the Copts' situation is likely only to worsen.

Individual Copts and their churches have already been attacked. The Virgin Church in Assiut in Upper Egypt was burned. Copts have been sentenced to prison for allegedly insulting the Prophet. About 200,000 Egyptian Christians have tried to get visas to come to the US. [Gatestone Institute] Read more

Women asked to remove headscarves at some French airports

Some French airports have begun to ask headscarf-wearing women to take off their scarves for security reasons, which has spurred criticism from Muslims in the country, who find the practice a discriminatory one.

The Collective Against Islamophobia in France (CCIF) has announced that Nantes Atlantique Airport has made it obligatory for headscarf-wearing women to take off their scarves and place them in the X-ray machine along with their other belongings. [Today's Zaman] Read more

Grand Connaught Rooms Jihadist Conference: Event cancelled

.... Whilst many will be celebrating, I note with a degree of dejection, that far-right groups, including the English Defence League, had attempted to hijack this campaign. However, this was a victory for ordinary people, who stood firm against hatred and bigotry of all types. Professionals, students, mums, dads all rallied around our call to action, and expressed their concerns to the GCR by email and phone.

Finally, here is my concern. Prominent centre-left organisations must treat the Islamist far-right in precisely the same way that we do the neo Nazi far-right. Silence encourages bigots who hate Muslims to try and hijack such campaigns. “A plague on both of their houses”. [Harry’s Place] Read more

Iranian women are oppressed by the systematic, gender-apartheid policies of the Islamist dictatorship

.... Again and again the Islamist rulers have ordered stricter enforcement measures, often resulting in mass arrests. According to Iranian police Chief Ismael Ahmadi Moqadam, Iran now wants to ratchet up its fight against women who it believes dress in an un-Islamic way.

Moqadam says that his forces require the assistance of Iran’s "moral capital and pious people,” and that the regime “must not allow the virus to spread by badly worn headscarves."

On June 19th, Iranian news agency Fars News quoted the police chief as saying: "We are keen to fulfill our legal and religious duty and we will behave in this way very carefully, so that no one protests." The regime is again displaying its intolerance for dissent. [The Commentator] Read more

Art show riot reflects religious divide in new Tunisia

The artist agreed to be interviewed but asked not to be named. Picking up a piece of work vandalised by Islamist zealots at a recent arts fair in a suburb of Tunis, she said: "Don't describe it or people will know who I am."

Tunisian artists have gone to ground since Salafi Islamists broke into Abdeliya Palace on June 10 and destroyed a handful of works at the Printemps des Arts fair to protest against art they deemed insulting to Islam, then ran riot for days. [Reuters] Read more

Jewish and Muslim groups condemn German circumcision ruling

In what has been described as a landmark decision, a court in the city of Cologne said circumcision violated a child's "fundamental right to bodily integrity" and that this right outweighed the rights of the parents.

"The religious freedom of the parents and their right to educate their child would not be unacceptably compromised, if they were obliged to wait until the child could himself decide to be circumcised," the court added.

"The body of the child is irreparably and permanently changed by a circumcision. This change contravenes the interests of the child to decide later on his religious beliefs." [telegraph.co.uk] Read more

The Islamists can be democratic

Western discourse often views Sharia as incompatible with constitutional principles. What about the compatibility of Sharia and human rights in Arab nations currently undergoing upheaval?

One must bear in mind that Sharia was developed over the course of history by legal scholars taking local social and economic conditions at the time into consideration. There's a difference between that which is viewed as a principle and as an eternal truth in Islamic law, and the sections of the Sharia code that are currently undergoing reappraisal. Polygamy was abolished in Tunisia in 1956, but at the time no one claimed that this represented a break with Sharia. Quite on the contrary: lawmakers invoked the principles of Islamic law with the intention of acting in the interests of progress. [Deutsche Welle] Read more

Women’s rights not blocked by religion in Arab world, claims survey

Religious views do not stand in opposition to women’s rights in the Arab world, says a survey of men and women from across the Middle East. The survey, conducted by the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies, shows that no correlation exists between people’s attitudes towards Shariah law and their level of support for women’s rights.

.... “The biggest challenge facing women wasn’t so much the rise of Islamist parties but the rise of a sense of insecurity and the plummeting economy,” said Dalia Mogahed, a senior analyst who oversaw the study.

The study asked questions that broadly defined women’s rights, such as: “Do women and men have the same right to education and employment?” and “Do women have the right to initiate divorce?” In fact, survey participants who advocated for Shariah law were more inclined to support a woman’s right to initiate a divorce. [AL ARABIYA NEWS] Read more

YMCA Offers Women-Only Swim Hours For Muslim Women

Each Saturday, staff at the Copley YMCA in City Heights begin clearing out the pool and locker rooms early. They send their male lifeguards home and a female lifeguard and swim instructor clock on for a special after-hours lesson.

About 15 East African women and girls then file through the back doors for a women-only swim class. The YMCA began offering it this spring after moms and daughters in a group called City Heights Hope told the directors they can’t swim in front of men because they’re Muslim. [KPBS] Read more

Salman Rushdie fatwa turned into Iranian video game

Salman Rushdie was the target of a notorious fatwa issued by Ayatollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic republic of Iran, 23 years ago. Now, the author of The Satanic Verses is the subject of an Iranian computer game aimed at spreading to the next generation the message about his "sin".

The Stressful Life of Salman Rushdie and Implementation of his Verdict is the title of the game being developed by the Islamic Association of Students, a government-sponsored organisation which announced this week it had completed initial phases of production. [guardian.co.uk] Read more

Boys circumcised for religious reasons are victims of assault, says German court

This groundbreaking ruling effectively criminalises ritual mutilations performed by Jews and Muslims. Foreskin removal should be considered a crime of bodily harm, the court said.

The Cologne decision came after a Muslim doctor performed a circumcision on a four-year-old boy. Two days later the mother brought the child to the emergency room because he was bleeding.

The prosecutor’s office learned of the situation and filed charges against the doctor. The doctor was found not guilty in the first instance, but the prosecutor appealed. [The Freethinker] Read more

Two Iranians face death for use of alcohol

TWO IRANIANS have been sentenced to death under the country’s Islamic Sharia law for persistent consumption of alcohol.

Sharia forbids the use, manufacture or trade of all types of alcoholic drinks.

The two, who have not been named by the authorities, have each previously been lashed 160 times after twice being arrested for consuming alcohol. Being convicted for the third time makes them liable for the death penalty.

The head of the judiciary, Seyed Hasan Shariati, based in Iran’s northeastern province of Khorasan Razavi, told the semi-official Isna news agency the supreme court had upheld their death sentences and officials were preparing for their execution. [The Irish Times] Read more

The Fear Factor

.... It is incumbent on the Muslim Brotherhood to now authentically reach out to the other 50 percent of Egypt — the secular, liberal, Salafist and Christian elements — and assure them that not only will they not be harmed, but that their views and aspirations will be balanced alongside the Brotherhood’s.

That is going to require, over time, a revolution in thinking by the Muslim Brotherhood leadership and rank-and-file to actually embrace religious and political pluralism as they move from opposition to governance. It will not happen overnight, but if it doesn’t happen at all, the Egyptian democracy experiment will fail and a terrible precedent will be set for the region. [The New York Times] Read more

Haddad uncut

Here is the full version of Haddad’s Q and A in which he gives his dubious advice about when girls should marry, as reported here. That particular gem can be found at 13.00 in. There’s some queasy advice about how fathers, uncles and brothers can help girls from looking outside the family for affection at 3.30, and a stern warning about the dangers of a university education for girls at 10.00. [Harry’s Place] Read more

Tunisian loses appeal over cartoons of Prophet

A Tunisian court on Monday upheld a seven year sentence against a young Tunisian who posted cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad on Facebook, in a case that has fuelled allegations that the country's new Islamist leaders are gagging free speech.

Jabeur Mejri was convicted of upsetting public order and morals in a country where Muslim values have taken on a greater significance since a revolt last year ousted secular strongman Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, ushering the Islamist Ennahda party into power. [Reuters] Read more

Reddit Will Destroy Islam With Dumb Memes

.... Instead, anti-Islam memes are flooding the front page of Reddit; Lolcats for people who sleep with a copy of God Is Not Great under their pillow. There's a "Scumbag Muslim" meme, and a "Most Interesting Mohammed" meme, and this cartoon about how Islam has been "raping children for 1400 years" that is like something your 75 year-old racist great uncle would forward to you in an email.

In fact a lot of the memes that Reddit users have been voting to the front page in their supposedly witty "war" on Islam are predicated on the same gross stereotypes of Muslims as rampaging terrorist-rapists favored by the likes of the shithead Pastor Terry Jones. There's even a similar obsession with burning the Quran. (That last picture also happens to use a Hindu to represent a Muslim. But what the hell, they've all got turbans.) [Gawker] Read more