12-year-old bride’s
divorce churns Muslim world
Islam and Muslim women’s social roles
JEDDAH: Women prisoners to be rehabilitated
Breasts don't cause earthquakes
Saudi women don’t need any rescuer
Saudi religious cop denies firing for liberal views on
women
Pakistani Muslim woman fears being disfigured with acid
Quebec's Bill 94 proposes a ban on the niqab
Arab News: A staunch supporter of women’s
rights
No, Indian girls won't be used as guinea pigs:
Azad
Photo: Muslim Women
12-year-old bride’s divorce churns Muslim
world
Islam and Muslim women’s social roles
JEDDAH: Women prisoners to be rehabilitated
Breasts don't cause earthquakes
Saudi women don’t need any rescuer
Saudi religious cop denies firing for liberal views on
women
Pakistani Muslim woman fears being disfigured with acid
Quebec's Bill 94 proposes a ban on the niqab
Arab News: A staunch supporter of women’s
rights
No, Indian girls won't be used as guinea pigs:
Azad
Photo: Muslim Women
--------
What Can
These Women suicide bombers Be Thinking?
By Laina
Farhat-Holzman
Since
1985, more than 250 women, Tamil, Chechen, Indian, and Muslim, have become
suicide bombers.
An
unsettling new trend is emerging:
conversion of Western women to Islam and their recruitment into Islam's
most murderous cults. How can such a misogynistic movement seduce
women?
Recently
two American women were picked up on terror charges: one the petite blonde known as "Jihad Jane"
and the other, Jamie Paulin-Ramirez. What's even worse is that there are more in
the pipeline.
Colleen
LaRose, whose Internet name is "Jihad Jane," converted to Islam and acted as a
screener and recruiter for assassins to murder a Swedish cartoonist who
"offended Islam." She was trying to find others like herself-preferably women
who would not easily be identified as Muslim-to carry out such missions. Jamie Paulin-Ramirez, a 31-year-old American
(a blonde like LaRose), was arrested in Ireland for conspiring to murder the
same cartoonist. What might these women have in common?
Such
women are troubled, not well educated (often school dropouts), and would be
called losers in our society-but get attention and the illusion of affection
from Islamic radicals. The militants need such women, and will do anything to
recruit them. LaRose was so secretive about her activities that even her last
live-in boyfriend (she was married and divorced several times) was unaware of
what she was doing. She also had a history of alcohol abuse, and her former
boyfriend noted that she was not very bright.
Jamie
Paulin-Ramirez, according to her distraught mother, was also married three
times-as a teenager, then to an illegal Mexican immigrant who fathered her child
and was caught and deported, and now to an Algerian Muslim she met on line. She
has taken her six-year-old child with her to Ireland, and her mother says that
the child is being radicalized to hate Christians and to become a "good Muslim."
Most
American or European women who convert to Islam do so out of love and marriage
to a Muslim. They generally have little idea of what their lives would be in
their husband's homeland. Even if they did, however, they delude themselves that
their case would be different-and that loving husband would never let them (or
their children) be so abused.
Sometimes even education does not matter. Easier to identify and
harder to explain are such women as a Pakistani immigrant, Aafia Siddiqui, an
MIT and Brandeis-educated scientist who lived for years in Boston, but returned
to Pakistan. There she became a killer of Americans in Afghanistan (convicted in
a NY court).
Two
Chechen women served as suicide bombers (March 30) in the Moscow subways at rush
hour. This is looking your victims in the eye before murdering them. One of
these was a baby-faced 17-year-old who had been kidnapped at 16 and married to
her terrorist kidnapper. When he was killed, the militants gave her the choice
of becoming a suicide bomber. Some choice.
These
women are oblivious (or know too well) how militant Islam regards them when they
are no longer useful to the movement. The latest cynical example, cited by San
Francisco Chronicle columnist Joel Brinkley, is Saudi Arabia's Grand Mufti, who
banned celebrating children's birthdays. How convenient not to know how old a
child is before forcing her into marriage. And how loving are parents who marry
off little girls? Last year, a Saudi judge refused to grant an 8-year-old a
divorce, just ordering the husband not to have sex with her (again) until she
reached puberty. How can a Western woman convert live with
that?
In Iran,
by Islamic law, girls can be married off as young as 9 and boys at 14. But
Iranian human-rights activists have succeeded in getting the law changed to 13
and 15 (small change). But who is enforcing even this law?
As long
as women are willing to be "useful idiots" for Militant Islam, they will
continue to be recruited, seduced, and (if they are from traditional Muslim
families) blackmailed into being cannon fodder for this wretched movement.
Laina Farhat-Holzman is a
writer, lecturer, and historian.
http://www.rightsidenews.com/201004229697/global-terrorism/what-can-these-women-be-thinking.html
---------
12-year-old bride’s divorce churns Muslim
world
Apr 22, 2010
Dubai : In what could become a prelude to introduction of a minimum
age for marriage in Saudi Arabia, a 12-year-old girl has won a divorce from her
80-year-old husband.
According to local reports, the girl was married to her father’s
cousin last year against her wishes and those of her mother. The marriage was
sealed with a dowry of 85,000 riyals and consummated.
The 12-year-old, with the help of Saudi Government legal assistance,
fought her case in a court in Buraidah, near Riyadh.
The unusual legal challenge had generated international media
attention and scrutiny of Saudi Arabia’s record of child marriages, and prompted
the state-run Human Rights Commission to appoint a lawyer to represent
her.
Based on the ruling, the commission has assembled three committees to
examine the possibility of pushing for a legal minimum age for marriage of at
least 16.
“The main aim is to not allow cases like this to happen again,” The
Times Online quoted Alanoud alHejailan, a lawyer for the commission, as
saying.
“There will be some opposition, of course, but we feel that public
opinion has changed on this issue. We want to gather all the public support we
can for a minimum age for marriage,” he added.
The case had sparked debate in Saudi Arabia, with some judges and
clerics using Prophet Muhammad’s marriage to a nine-year-old girl as
justification of child marriage.
However, in January Sheikh Abdullah al-Manie, a senior Saudi cleric,
spoke out in defence of the girl, declaring that the Prophet’s marriage 14
centuries ago could not be used to justify child marriages
today.
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/12yearold-brides-divorce-churns-muslim-world/609868/
-------
Islam and Muslim women’s social roles
20 April 2010
By Maulana Waris Mazhari
The issue of Muslim women’s freedom is a much-debated subject today.
The traditional ulema and the modern educated Muslim intelligentsia appear to be
completely at loggerheads on the issue. The former insist that women must be
controlled as much as possible in order to protect Muslim society from
immorality and sexual licentiousness, and that they must remain confined to
their homes. They believe that women must play no social roles outside the
domestic sphere whatsoever. If women are permitted to do so, they argue, it
would open to floodgates of chaos and lead to a breakdown of society. On the
other hand, the modern-educated Muslim intelligentsia is in favour of expanding
women’s roles outside the narrow domestic sphere, and many of them go so far as
to consider the hijab or modest dress for women as a symbol of
oppression.
The female personality, it must be admitted, is extremely sensitive.
On women the character of a society depends as much as it does on men. It must
also be admitted that the attitude of Muslim religious circles towards women and
women’s issues is influenced less by Islam and shariah norms than by other
factors, among these being a marked reaction to the perceived widespread
immorality in the West as a result of the free intermingling of sexes in Western
societies. While in the West women have made important gains in several
respects, it cannot be denied that in the name of women’s liberation and freedom
they have been turned into sexual beings and commodities. This unfortunate
phenomenon has led to a reaction among the ulema, leading them to insist on the
control of women and on confining them to the domestic sphere as a defence
mechanism for fear of Muslim society also falling prey to the same social ills
that today plague the West. This stance may have had some temporary benefits,
but it has caused a tragic loss to the Muslim community by denying half its
population—Muslim women—the opportunity to develop and put to proper use their
talents, skills and capacities.
It is not just the traditional ulema who, because of their
excessively defensive and cautious approach to women’s social roles, have caused
such damage to Muslim women and to the wider Muslim society. Even the supposedly
‘enlightened’ and more ‘modern’ Islamist scholar, Maulana Syed Abul ‘Ala Maududi
shared similar views. In fact, in his widely-red book Purdah Maududi comes
across as even more stern and extreme in his opposition to women’s freedom than
the traditional ulema. For instance, the putative founders of the four major
schools of Sunni Muslim jurisprudence and their followers all allowed for Muslim
women to keep their faces unveiled, while Maududi stiffly opposed this, along
with several modern ulema, claiming that a woman’s face was the centre of her
beauty and, hence, a principal source of fitna or strife. It is striking to note
that the classical ulema did not consider this argument as worthy of attention.
However, going against their opinion, the influential twentieth century Deobandi
scholar Maulana Ashraf Ali Thanwi even went to the extent of insisting that a
woman’s name must never be mentioned in a newspaper. An ideal woman, according
to him, is one who hides in her own home and is so unknown outside that her
neighbours are not even aware of her existence. He allowed for girls to acquire
only basic literacy skills but not to advance beyond that. Thanwi’s contemporary
and virulent opponent, Ahmad Raza Khan, the leading figure of the Barelvi sect,
was even more dismissive of women, going so far as to demean them. So opposed to
women’s rights were some of these ulema of relatively recent times, who are
still immensely popular among their followers today, that they upheld and
propagated a completely baseless and utterly laughable theory that women’s
voices were also to be ‘veiled’. It can be confidently said that their approach
towards women and their rights and roles was in marked contrast to that of the
early ulema, who were clearly more accommodative and accepting of women and
their social roles.
How this strong misogynist streak and extreme defensiveness and
sensitivity with regard to women emerge among the ulema is a subject that
requires close and detailed historical scrutiny. The origins of this lie far
back in history, in the medieval period, when, in the wake of the Tatar
invasions and devastation of Muslim lands, chaos reigned supreme. It was perhaps
but natural that a marked defensiveness and insularity emerged at this time in
order to consolidate Muslim society that had suffered such widespread
destruction and bloodshed. This was reflected in increasing restrictions on
women, which were absent in the early Islamic period, including at the time of
the Prophet. It was at this time that questions such as the permissibility or
otherwise of women learning to read were hotly-debated. The renowned medieval
Hanafi scholar Mulla Ali Qari went so far as to issue a fatwa declaring it
impermissible for women to learn to write, and even wrote an entire book on the
subject to justify his point, although there had been notable literate women in
the early Islamic period, many of who were, in fact, the teachers of renowned
male ulema. For over six hundred years the ulema continued to inconclusively
debate whether women were permitted to read and write, and it was only in the
late nineteenth century that a fatwa was issued, by the noted Indian scholar
Maulana Abdul Haye Firanghi Mahali, abrogating the fatwa of Mulla Ali
Qari.
Islam, it must be stressed, does not support the sort of emancipation
of women as is current in the West, but nor does it stand for the sort of
extreme restrictions on women, tantamount to imprisonment, that many
traditionalist Islamic scholars advocate. The Islamic position is somewhat in
between these two extremes. It stands for freedom of women at the social level
within certain limits and with certain conditions. If the issue is looked at
from the perspective of the Quran and the practice of the Prophet and the early
Muslims, it would be evident that Islam does not place any restriction on the
physical movement of women. It also outlines women’s social roles in
considerable detail, roles that early Muslim played, not being bound within the
four walls of their homes. A good illustration of this is the appointment of a
woman, Shifa Bint Abdullah al-‘Adawiya, by Umar, the second Caliph of the
Sunnis, as the superintendent of the market of Medina, the then capital of the
Islamic Caliphate. Today’s traditional ulema might regard the marketplace as the
most potent site of fitna or chaos, but yet this woman was appointed to oversee
Medina’s commercial hub. At the time of the Prophet, women were free to pray in
mosques and even offered their services on the battlefield. They would listen to
the sermons of the Prophet in the presence of men, without any restriction, and
would ask the Prophet questions. Umm-e Haram, a woman companion of the Prophet,
requested him to pray for her so that she might be able to participate in jihad
in the path of God. During the Caliphate of Uthman, the third Sunni Caliph, she
sailed to Cyprus, where she participated in a battle. Asma, daughter of Abu
Bakr, father-in-law of the Prophet and the first Sunni Caliph, helped her
husband Zubayr Bin al-Awa‘am in his work outside their home, and would even
massage his horses and travel a long distance to get grains for them to eat,
which she would carry on her head. The case of the Caliph Umar being corrected
by a woman while delivering a sermon and making him admit his error is
well-known.
From these instances, it is clear that in this period of Muslim
history women’s minds and voices were not ‘veiled’. Nor was there any discussion
of keeping men and women rigidly separate from each other. The books of Hadith
are replete with narrations that clearly indicate that at this time men and
women saw each other’s faces, spoke to each other, engaged in transactions with
each other and assisted each other in different activities. The wives of the
Prophet, known as the ‘mothers of the believers’ (ummhat al-mu‘minin), were
specially required, as the Quran indicates, to observe purdah, but this did not
stop male companions of the Prophet from appearing before them and learning from
them. The youngest of the Prophet’s wives, Ayesha, had many male disciples, to
whom she related numerous narrations of and about the
Prophet.
Besides these examples from early Muslim history, one can cite
references in the Quran to prove the point that certain forms of interaction
between men and women is indeed permissible in Islam, in contrast to what many
traditionalist ulema might argue, Thus, for instance, the Quran talks about the
meeting between the prophet Solomon and Bilqis, Queen of Sheba and their
conversation; the meeting between Zachariah and Mary, mother of Jesus; and the
meeting and discussion between the daughter of Shoeb and Moses and of the former
taking the help of the latter to provide water to her animals. Since the Quran
exhorts Muslims to emulate the practice of the previous prophets, it is obvious
that these forms of interaction between men and women are also permitted to
Muslims.
The Quran states: ‘The believers, men and women, are protectors, one
of another: they enjoin what is just, and forbid what is evil’ (9:71). The Quran
considers it the responsibility of both men and women to perform various social
roles, the performance of which is not possible without their common
participation and mutual assistance. Given this, the extreme hesitation or
reluctance of some Islamic scholars to allow Muslim women to play these
legitimate roles has, to a large extent, to do with local cultural mores rather
than with the teachings of Islam or the practice of the Prophet and the early
Muslims.
It is a fact that misogyny has been in existence for centuries, and
traces of it remained in societies that later became Muslim even after accepting
Islam. At the same time, it is also undeniable that, for the first time, Islam
sought to provide women with their legitimate rights, and to provide them an
elevated status in society. The Prophet and his companions strove to combat
deep-rooted prejudices against women, not just on the ideological plane but also
in practical terms. However, after the early Islamic period, when Muslim society
entered a phase of decline, women’s status suffered a major set-back. Just as
Islamic justice demanded that slavery be abolished but, yet, slavery still
remained, so, too, while Islam sought to emancipate women, anti-women prejudice
could not be fully rooted out from Muslim society. To buttress this prejudice,
many narrations were concocted and were falsely attributed to the Prophet and to
his companions that projected women in an extremely derogatory fashion. One such
false narration, which, lamentably, is still often quoted in traditionalist
ulema circles, exhorts: ‘Take the advice of women but do the precise opposite of
what they advise.’ Another such tradition declares: ‘To obey a woman is a matter
of shame.’ A third such fabricated narration declares: ‘Men were destroyed when
they obeyed women’. Yet another such concocted narration claims: ‘If women did
not exist, the right of God to be worshipped would have been performed in a
better way.’ Likewise, the following statement was falsely attributed to the
Imam Ali: ‘Woman is wholly bad.’
In this light of all this, it is incumbent on Islamic scholars to
review their position on and understanding of women and critique and challenge
the deep-rooted misogyny that is, unfortunately and wrongly, seen as inseparable
from Islam. It is imperative that our traditionalist scholars no longer stand in
the way of Muslim women being able to access the rights granted to them by
Islam, and which they enjoyed at the time of the Prophet.
(Maulana Waris Mazhari is the editor of the New Delhi-based monthly
Tarjuman Dar ul-Uloom, the official organ of the Graduates’ Association of the
Deoband madrasa.
http://twocircles.net/2010apr20/islam_and_muslim_women_s_social_roles.html
--------
Jeddah: Women prisoners to be
rehabilitated
By GALAL FAKKAR
Apr 23, 2010
JEDDAH: Shaqaik Charitable Society in Jeddah launched a program to
rehabilitate women prisoners before their release, especially those who have
almost completed their jail terms.
Abdullah Al-Othaim, chairman of the society’s board of directors,
said the program would include 50 women prisoners in the first stage, adding
that they would get training for various jobs.
“The program also aims at injecting confidence in their minds in
order to face society and remove negative feelings and life pressures,” he said.
“During the program they will be trained in making accessories, cooking, packing
gifts and using computers,” Al-Othaim said.
He emphasized that society should not abandon such people and should
give them support so they can become productive citizens.
He thanked the National Industrialization Company (NIC) for
sponsoring the program as part of its social
responsibility.
Wael bin Nizar Al-Oqail, head of the social responsibility program at
NIC, stressed the need for giving this group of society adequate
care.
Shaqaik is a women’s charitable association in the Kingdom that
carries out innovative programs of social welfare. It trains and prepares young
women for marriage.
It has established a club to develop the skills and capabilities of
women and has appointed counselors to solve women’s problems. It has also
started a program to assist divorced women.
“We have a lot of programs for increasing jobs for women,” said a
source close to the society, adding that these programs were carried out in
cooperation with national companies.
Shaqaik also implements various programs with expert support for
women’s development.
http://arabnews.com/saudiarabia/article46255.ece
--------
Breasts don't cause earthquakes
23 APRIL 2010
A ONE-WOMAN mission to prove breasts don't cause earthquakes has
swollen into a shirt-straining global movement preparing for the inaugural
"Boobquake".
Iranian cleric Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi angered womens' groups
around the world on Monday when he claimed that promiscuous women were
responsible for literally making the earth move.
"Many women who do not dress modestly ... lead young men astray,
corrupt their chastity and spread adultery in society, which (consequently)
increases earthquakes,'' Sedighi said.
"What can we do to avoid being buried under the rubble?'' he asked
during a prayer sermon on Friday.
"There is no other solution but to take refuge in religion and to
adapt our lives to Islam's moral codes.''
Women in the Islamic Republic are required by law to cover from head
to toe, but Sedighi says an increase in young women flaunting the law - and not
the fact that Tehran straddles scores of fault lines - is risking the lives of
the city's 12 million inhabitants.
Jennifer McCreight is determined to prove him
wrong.
Full report at: http://www.news.com.au/technology/boobquake-determined-to-prove-cleric-wrong/story-e6frfro0-1225856787031
--------
Saudi women don’t need any rescuer
By Sabria S. Jawhar
23 APRIL 2010
Like all Saudi women I appreciate the efforts by American and
European human rights organizations to protect us from bad Saudi men and to help
grant us the freedom we deserve. Without the help of Americans and Europeans my
life would have no future.
Okay, I’m lying.
If Western do-gooders minded their own business I’d be a pretty happy
girl.
The same goes for the Kuwaiti media. Kuwaiti journalists apparently
have ripped a page from the Western “Save the Oppressed Saudi Woman” handbook
and now want to rescue us poor little lambs from the wolves. In this case,
Kuwaiti newspapers and websites are criticizing the male organizers of the
Janadriya Festival for “exploiting” Saudi women and engaging in “unethical
behavior.” Uff! It looks as if female Janadriya Festival workers just fell off
the camel in Riyadh following a long journey from Sakakah.
The only women who are exploited are women who want to be exploited.
And I’m pretty darn sure that the Riyadh ladies and desert village girls can
take care of themselves. They probably have a few suggestions for journalists
offering to save them.
Full report at: http://www.saudigazette.com.sa/index.cfm?method=home.regcon&contentID=2010042370237
--------
Saudi religious cop denies firing for liberal views on
women
23 APRIL 2010
RIYADH — A senior member of the Saudi religious police repeated on
Wednesday his support for Muslim men and women mixing, and denied that his
stance against strict separation rules had got him fired.
Sheikh Ahmed al-Ghamdi, the cleric who heads the Mecca branch of the
Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, told Al-Arabiya
television a widely circulated news report that he had been sacked by the head
of the organisation over his views was not true.
"I am still carrying out my duties in my office. I have not received
any formal decision about being fired," he told the
broadcaster.
He also said he believed there is no strong evidence that Islam
outlaws mixing between unrelated men and women, as long as women are veiled,
Al-Arabiya reported.
Rumours that Ghamdi would be dismissed from the commission, variously
known as the muttawa and the religious police, have circulated ever since he
said in a December interview that he supported allowing men and women in to
mix.
Full report at:
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iHwphzIXaCyW4YnD68Cv7bEghcBQ
--------
Pakistani Muslim woman fears being disfigured with acid
By TOM GODFREY
APRIL 23, 2010
A Muslim woman fighting to stay in Canada fears being disfigured with
acid for allegedly “bringing shame” to her ex-husband’s family in Pakistan by
leaving him and travelling here to work in a hair salon frequented by
men.
Roohi Tabassum, 45, of Brampton, said corrosive acid is thrown in the
faces of women in Pakistan and other Islamic countries to disfigure them because
they have allegedly “shamed” their families.
Tabassum said there have been two incidents the past month in
Pakistan where women’s faces were burned with acid by assailants who
fled.
“I don’t leave the house or go anywhere because I am scared,” she
said. “Sometimes the women are also disabled, burned or
tortured.”
Tabassum claims family members in Pakistan are still receiving
threats from ex-husband, Faisal Javed, who has threatened to kill
her.
Full report at:
http://www.torontosun.com/news/torontoandgta/2010/04/22/13684156.html
--------
Quebec's Bill 94 proposes a ban on the niqab
Hoda Faleh,
April 23, 2010
Quebec's Bill 94 proposes a ban on the niqab for public employees and
anyone in need of services from the government or government-funded institutions
in Quebec. Is this a reasonable government policy? As a Muslim woman who wears
the hijab, I believe the Quebec government is within its rights to legislate
this requirement.
Knowing full well that nowhere in the Koran does it state that women
are required to cover their faces, the Quebec government is not trampling on
anyone's religious beliefs. I risk the label of becoming a self-hating Muslim
but I point out that the full face veil is a cultural thing, which is why I
refuse to call it the "full Islamic veil." There's nothing Islamic about it, so
Muslims need to refrain from using the religion excuse.
Second, the number of women who wear the full face veil is so minor
that it is blatantly obvious that it's not religiously
mandated.
Full report at:
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/opinion/Quebec+trampling+beliefs/2941088/story.html
--------
Arab News: A staunch supporter of women’s
rights
By SAMAR FATANY
Apr 22, 2010
Today Saudi women celebrate the 35th anniversary of Arab News and
extend their appreciation to all Arab News reporters, editors and management for
supporting the empowerment of women in Saudi society under the leadership of
Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah.
Arab News has encouraged the participation of women in our nation’s
progress and development and has been a great force influencing change, paving
the way for activists and civil society to revise women’s marginalized
status.
The newspaper has taken advantage of the expanded freedom of the
press to address the discrimination against working women in the public and
private sectors and has been mounting pressure on the government to implement
reforms that would empower women in our society. Prolific writers consistently
voice their concerns and strive to expose social norms that deny women justice
and bar their progress.
Full report at:
http://arabnews.com/35thanniversarysupplement/article45261.ece
-------
No, Indian girls won't be used as guinea pigs:
Azad
Sujay Mehdudia
23 APRIL 2010
NEW DELHI: Union Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad Thursday said the
use of human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccines imported by pharmaceutical companies
Merck and Cervarix was stopped, and rejected the charge that Indian girls were
being used as guinea pigs for the trial of the anti-cervical cancer
vaccines.
The decision to stop the use of vaccines followed apprehensions that
deaths in Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat could have been caused by them, he said
replying to a call attention motion moved by Brinda Karat of the CPI(M) in the
Rajya Sabha.
“Though prima facie there does not appear to be any connection
between the deaths and the vaccination, in order to allay apprehensions the
States have been advised not to carry out any further vaccination till further
orders.”
Widely used
Rejecting the charge that guidelines were violated, the Minister said
the vaccines were being used in more than 100 countries; the U.S. and the U.K.
even included them in their national immunisation
programmes.
Full report at:
http://www.hindu.com/2010/04/23/stories/2010042360841200.htm
10:22 PM
Sultan Shahin
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