'POLYGAMY FOR WOMEN' demand in Saudi Arabia sparks row in Muslim world, Islam, Women and Feminism, NewAgeIslam.com

Islam, Women and Feminism

'POLYGAMY FOR WOMEN' demand in Saudi Arabia sparks row in Muslim world

"Allow me to choose four, five or even nine men, just as my wildest imagination shall choose. I’ll pick them with different shapes and sizes, one of them will be dark and the other will be blond. ... [T]hey will be chosen from different backgrounds, religions, races and nations.”

So reads the first paragraph of Saudi journalist Nadine Bedair’s controversial article, recently published in the Egyptian independent daily Al Masry Al Youm that raised the question of why only men are allowed to practice polygamy in Islam but not women. As expected, the daring article, entitled "My Four Husbands and I," has stirred the pot among various groups.

Comments and criticism on the article continue to trickle in at a steady pace nearly a month after its publication, especially in Egypt, from where it originated. There, some Muslim authorities and lawmakers have attacked Bedair, condemning her writings as inflammatory and sexually provocative.

One of those who reacted with fury to her reflections on the alleged unfairness of polygamy in Islam was Sheikh Mohamed Gama’i. He lashed out at the Saudi journalist in an article published on an Egyptian news site, saying that “no woman has the right to attack our traditions in this manner” and said that Bedair ought to be “stopped.”

http://newageislam.com/-polygamy-for-women--demand-in-saudi-arabia-sparks-row-in-muslim-world/islam,-women-and-feminism/d/2337

Swiss Compete with Saudis to Undermine Religious Freedom, Muslims and Islamophobia, NewAgeIslam.com

Muslims and Islamophobia

Swiss Compete with Saudis to Undermine Religious Freedom

The Minaret Ban in Switzerland is one of those incidents that requires some time to process because there are so many threads to the story. Switzerland is the European country that anyone thinks of when they think of neutrality and tolerance. And, yet this is exactly the place where a ban just took place which shows a deep streak of racism towards, fear of, and willingness to discriminate against the 4.5% of the population that is Muslim.

Saudi Arabia is a Muslim country that has a terrible human rights record, is an absolute monarchy, and promotes a particularly rigid and extreme view of Islam that is repressive. In Saudia Arabia churches cannot be built, and it is even illegal to meet for Christian prayers or services. As a Muslim I am absolutely in disagreement with the Saudi position on this and many other issues, and openly state those views, as have many other Muslims. However, any reform movements in Saudi will be a long time coming as the royal family has the strong support of the U.S. government. And because of this no pressure is put on them to do something about their human rights and religious rights situation.

The Saudi situation is deplorable, and yet it seems that in the heart of Europe, the most enlightened country of Switzerland is ready to emulate the Saudi’s and turn its back on the enlightenment, on the best of modernity, and join the Saudi’s by taking the first step down a road leading to a return to a past in which minorities were treated barbarically culminating in the holocaust.

http://newageislam.com/swiss-compete-with-saudis-to-undermine-religious-freedom-/muslims-and-islamophobia/d/2180

75 Yr Old Saudi Woman: 40 Lashes, Islamic World News, NewAgeIslam.com

Islamic World News

75 Yr Old Saudi Woman: 40 Lashes

Saudi Arabia is set to punish 75-year-old woman with 40 lashes, imprisonment and deportation for being in the company of a young man she once breastfed.

A 75-year-old woman is set to be given 40 lashes, imprisoned for four months and deported to Syria after Saudi religious police caught her in the company of a young man she once breastfed and who claimed to have been bringing her bread.

Khamisa Mohammed Sawadi, 75, and two younger men, known only as Hadyan and Fahad, were found guilty of violating a sex-segregation law known locally as khilwa.

Sawadi has claimed that the sex segregation law should not apply as she breastfed Fahad when he was a child.

The international human rights group Amnesty International has called on Saudi Arabia to stay the sentence.

"This punishment amounts to torture and extreme human degradation," Lamri Chirouf, a Saudi Arabia researcher for Amnesty International told The Media Line. "It's in direct contrast to international human-rights standards that protect human dignity."

"These people have not done anything wrong beyond being together," he said. "This is their private life and it shouldn't constitute a crime under international law. It's as simple as that."

"Whenever they catch people together who are not immediate relatives, they punish them," Chirouf added. "The problem in Saudi Arabia is that the criminal justice system is very secretive. Cases of floggings and amputations happen all the time but they are rarely reported."

The threesome were arrested on April 21, 2008, by the Saudi religious police, known as the Mutawa'een and officially dubbed the Commission for the Prevention of Vice and Promotion of Virtue.

At the trial in March, Hadyan stated that the two men were delivering bread to the elderly woman, while Fahad argued that he had not violated the khilwa sex-segregation law as Sawadi was a relative who had breastfed him when he was a child.

http://newageislam.com/75-yr-old-saudi-woman--40-lashes/islamic-world-news/d/2229

Ram Jethmalani linking Wahhabi Islam with Terrorism angers Saudi ambassador, Islamic World News, NewAgeIslam.com

Islamic World News

Ram Jethmalani linking Wahhabi Islam with Terrorism angers Saudi ambassador

NEW DELHI: Senior lawyer and former Union minister Ram Jethmalani's charge that Wahabi sect was responsible for terrorism provoked a walkout by

Saudi Arabia's Ambassador to India Faisal-al-Trad from an international conference of jurists on global terror here.

Jethmalani alleged that "Wahabi terrorism" indoctrinated "rubbish" in the minds of young people to carry out terrorist attacks. The senior lawyer lamented that India had friendly relations with a country that supported Wahabi terrorism.

Following Jethmalani's speech, Saudi Arabia's ambassador Faisal-al-Trad was seen walking out of the conference, apparently taking offence at the remarks.

Organiser of the event Adesh Aggarwala said the Ambassador had walked out but returned after law minister M Veerappa Moily's statement that the views expressed by Jethmalani were not that of the government.

Moily, in his address, said that terrorism cannot be attributed to any particular religion.

It was unfortunate that the entire Islam as a religion was being blamed for terrorism, Jethmalani said, adding that "there are also Hindu terrorists and Buddhist terrorists."

Terming Non-Aligned Movement and Panchsheel as evil, the former Union Minister said India should align with forces of good to combat the forces of evil. "India and its foreign ministers must learn to reassess the doctrines of past."

http://newageislam.com/ram-jethmalani-linking-wahhabi-islam-with-terrorism-angers-saudi-ambassador/islamic-world-news/d/2120

Obama reaches out to Muslim world, Islam and the West, NewAgeIslam.com

Islam and the West

Obama reaches out to Muslim world

In interview with Arabic network, Obama tells Muslim world

Americans are not your enemy'

January 27, 2009

The president expressed an intention to engage the Middle East immediately, and his new envoy to the region, former Senator George Mitchell, was expected to arrive in Egypt on Tuesday for a visit that will also take him to Israel, the West Bank, Jordan, Turkey and Saudi Arabia.

"My job to the Muslim world is to communicate that the Americans are not your enemy," Obama told the Saudi-owned, Al-Arabiya news channel, which is based in Dubai.

Obama said the United States had made mistakes in the past but "that the same respect and partnership that America had with the Muslim world as recently as 20 or 30 years ago, there's no reason why we can't restore that."

During his presidency, former President George W. Bush gave several interviews to Al-Arabiya but the wars he launched in Iraq and Afghanistan prompted a massive backlash against the United States in the Muslim world.

Obama called for a new partnership with the Muslim world "based on mutual respect and mutual interest." He talked about growing up in Indonesia, the Muslim world's most populous nation, and noted that he has Muslim relatives.

http://newageislam.com/obama-reaches-out-to-muslim-world--/islam-and-the-west/d/1156

The Tragic Illusion of the Islamic State by Tarek Fatah, Islamic Ideology, NewAgeIslam.com

Islamic Ideology

The Tragic Illusion of the Islamic State by Tarek Fatah

Book review by Babar Ayaz

Chasing a Mirage: The Tragic Illusion of the Islamic State

By Tarek Fatah;

Fatah touches this issue to set the course of research: “Most Muslims too believe that countries with majority Muslim populations are Islamic countries with a distinct character. However, this is not how the Islamists see the world. From the perspective of those who follow the doctrine of Wahhabism or Salafi Islam or even the ruling ayatollahs of Iran, a country can be labelled an Islamic State only if it is governed by the laws of Shariah. Thus neither Turkey nor Indonesia is an Islamic State in the eyes of the Islamists.”

Fatah has devoted chapters to Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Iran, which claim to be Islamic states, and has argued that there was nothing that proves the claim of these countries that they are Islamic states. Maintaining his blunt style, he has broken the myth these states have tried to build around themselves. He maintains that the institutions of Saudi Monarchy supported by Wahhabi clergy and Iranian Velayat-e-faqhi (a religious institution which is supreme and above the elected parliament) have no place in Islam.

He rejects the two-nation theory, considered the basis for the creation of Pakistan. To him: “The biggest losers in this great game of divide and rule were India’s Muslim. In the name of Islam, they were divided into three separate parts and cut off from each other.”

http://newageislam.com/the-tragic-illusion-of-the-islamic-state-by-tarek-fatah--/islamic-ideology/d/954

Saudi Arabia – Focal Point of Tyranny, Terrorism and Fallacious Interpretation of Islam, Radical Islamism and Jihad, NewAgeIslam.com

Radical Islamism and Jihad

Saudi Arabia – Focal Point of Tyranny, Terrorism and Fallacious Interpretation of Islam

Also: Stop Saudi Tyranny in Yemenite Najran! Call for a UN-organized Referendum

Viewed historically, the father of Osama bin Laden is Napoleon; the heinous expedition of 1798 is the Western world’s most paranoid act, which – completed with the post-WW I ridiculous congresses and trashy treaties signed against the Ottoman Empire’s existence and territories – triggered in and by itself the Islamic radicalism and terrorism, as reaction of the Islamically uneducated Muslims. The earlier completed collapse of the Islamic Civilization in the late 16th – early 17th century deprived the Islamic World from any comeback possibility to the heights of civilization that prevailed throughout Islam for a millennium.

It was simply inane for the Western powers to assume that any effort of Westernization of the Islamic world could possibly happen at the same time with the destruction of its political structure, namely the Ottoman Empire, the Safevid – Qadjar Empire of Iran and the Mughal Empire of India. When a society or a number of societies are forced to brusquely change through humiliation, detrimental self-depreciation, and manoeuvred developments geared to trigger rejection of any concept of progress, improvement, explorative spirit, and search for historical integrity and cultural authenticity (the absence of which leads to national disintegration, total blockage of the nation-building process, and socio-economic and political self-destruction), the final stages of the decayed involve reactionary obscu

rantism, extreme radicalism, and terrorism.

http://newageislam.com/saudi-arabia-%E2%80%93-focal-point-of-tyranny,-terrorism-and-fallacious-interpretation-of-islam/radical-islamism-and-jihad/d/981

The Wisdom and virtues of fasting in the month of Ramadan,

Islam and Spiritualism

The Wisdom and virtues of fasting in the month of Ramadan

By Sheikh `Abd al-`Azîz b. Bâz, Late Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia

The fast provides us with many benefits and is full of wisdom. It purifies and strengthens our hearts. It rids us of our baser tendencies like exuberance, arrogance, and stinginess. It reinforces our good traits like fortitude, clemency, and generosity. It supports us in our inner struggle to please Allah and attain nearness to Him.

Fasting teaches us about ourselves and our needs. It shows us how weak we are and how truly dependent we are upon our Lord. It shows us how much Allah has blessed us. We are reminded of our brethren those who are less fortunate and are inspired to treat them well. We are compelled to thank Allah and to use the blessings He has provided us in obedience to Him.

Allah draws attention to these many benefits when he says: “O you who believe, fasting is prescribed for you as it has been prescribed for those who were before you that you may learn self-restraint.” [Sûrah al-Baqarah: 183]

In this verse, Allah makes it clear that he prescribed fasting in order to purify us. Fasting is a means for us to learn self-restraint and cultivate our piety. Piety is to observe the commandments and prohibitions of Allah and His Messenger (peace be upon him) sincerely out of our love and reverence for Allah, and to avoid His punishment and anger.

http://newageislam.com/the-wisdom-and-virtues-of-fasting-in-the-month-of-ramadan-/islam-and-spiritualism/d/701

Goodbye Saudi Arabia, hello Qatar, Islam and the West, NewAgeIslam.com

Islam and the West

Goodbye Saudi Arabia, hello Qatar

An Al-AAhram analysis

US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, taking what some analysts are calling a "victory lap" of Gulf countries who supported the US invasion of Iraq, announced in a joint press conference with Saudi Defence Minister Prince Sultan Bin Abdul-Aziz in Riyadh that the United States will end its military operations in Saudi Arabia and remove virtually all of its forces from the kingdom following the Iraq war. US military personnel in Saudi Arabia, which doubled to 10,000 during the attack on Iraq, have already started evacuating a desert airbase used by US planes since the end of the Gulf War.

The decision was made in concert with Washington, the Saudi defence minister said, denying press reports that Saudi Arabia had asked the United States to withdraw. However, the real reasons for the move appear to have much to do with the tense relations that governed Saudi-US relations in the 1990s and which led to a series of terrorist attacks against US military interests in the kingdom. The presence of Western troops in the country has irked many Saudis already angry with the United States over its support of Israel. Ousting US troops from Saudi Arabia became a battle cry of Osama Bin Laden and his Al- Qa'eda militants.

Jihad's mailed fist of fury, Islam,Terrorism and Jihad, NewAgeIslam.com

Islam,Terrorism and Jihad

Jihad's mailed fist of fury

B Raman

Aug 27, 2008

The e-mail put out before the Ahmedabad blasts was allegedly sent by the same Guru al-Hind. By the side of his signature at the bottom of the e-mail, the word 'al-Arbi' was written in capital letters. Al-Arbi means 'The Arab'. It also stands for Wednesday. It was taken to mean that the e-mail must have been signed by Guru al-Hind on the Wednesday preceding the blasts. In the latest e-mail, the reference to Guru al-Hind is not there -- neither in the e-mail ID nor at the bottom of the message. Instead, the e-mail is signed as al-Arbi in capital letters. The e-mail identity of the originator has also been changed as al-arbi-al-Hind. In this context, al-Arbi could mean only 'The Arab' and not Wednesday. Thus, the e-mail identity used means 'The Arab of India'. Why so since the Indian Mujahideen claims to be an organisation totally of Indian Muslims with no external links? Why is the sender of the e-mail projecting himself as 'The Arab'? Is it a reference to one of the two Indian Muslims operating from Saudi Arabia for many years?

http://newageislam.com/jihad-s-mailed-fist-of-fury/islam,terrorism-and-jihad/d/646

Lecture 5: The Spirit of Muslim Culture, Books and Documents, NewAgeIslam.com

Books and Documents

Lecture 5: The Spirit of Muslim Culture

‘Muhammad of Arabia ascended the highest Heaven and returned. I swear by God that if I had reached that point, I should never have returned.’1 These are the words of a great Muslim saint, ‘AbdulQuddës of Gangoh. In the whole range of Sufi literature it will be probably difficult to find words which, in a single sentence, disclose such an acute perception of the psychological difference between the prophetic and the mystic types of consciousness. The mystic does not wish to return from the repose of ‘unitary experience’; and even when he does return, as he must, his return does not mean much for mankind at large. The prophet’s return is creative. He returns to insert himself into the sweep of time with a view to control the forces of history, and thereby to create a fresh world of ideals. For the mystic the repose of ‘unitary experience’ is something final; for the prophet it is the awakening, within him, of world-shaking psychological forces, calculated to completely transform the human world. The desire to see his religious experience transformed into a living world-force is supreme in the prophet. Thus his return amounts to a kind of pragmatic test of the value of his religious experience.

http://newageislam.com/lecture-5--the-spirit-of-muslim-culture/books-and-documents/d/216

Osama bin Laden, Bard of Terror: In the battle to win Muslim hearts and minds al-Qaida's leader is turning to poetry,

Radical Islamism and Jihad

Osama bin Laden, Bard of Terror: In the battle to win Muslim hearts and minds al-Qaida's leader is turning to poetry

By Bernard Haykel

July 20, 2008

PRINCETON – In Riyadh last March, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia decorated American vice president Dick Cheney with the Kingdom's order of merit (the King Abdul Aziz medallion). This gesture elicited hundreds of internet postings from Arabs condemning the award as treachery and lamenting the pitiful state of leadership in the Arab world. To cite only one comment, addressed to the King: "Shame on you for claiming to be custodian of the Two Holy Sanctuaries" in Mecca and Medina.

At the same time, Osama bin Laden released two audio statements condemning western and Israeli attacks on Muslims and reiterating the need for violent warfare to liberate occupied Muslim territories from the infidels.

In terms of media strategy, the contrast between the leaders of the Arab countries and bin Laden could not be starker. On the one hand, Arab kings and presidents lack charisma, seem politically impotent and are rarely, if ever, on message with respect to the "big issue" concerns of the peoples of the Middle East.

Bin Laden, however, is mesmerising, framing the perceived frustrations of many Arabs in his use of classical Arabic, including the recitation of medieval-style poetry. He deliberately projects an image of himself as a leader who speaks truthfully, conveying a muscular ideology that articulates the sense of humiliation that Muslims feel today and offers a plan of action to remedy the situation.

http://newageislam.com/osama-bin-laden,-bard-of-terror---in-the-battle-to-win-muslim-hearts-and-minds-al-qaida-s-leader-is-turning-to-poetry/radical-islamism-and-jihad/d/286

Interfaith dialogue; Saudi initiative appreciated, Islam and Pluralism, NewAgeIslam.com

Islam and Pluralism

Interfaith dialogue; Saudi initiative appreciated

By Fahad Al-Qurashi, Saudi Gazette

Commentators stressed the importance of the image of King Abdullah entering the Conference Hall holding the hand of the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia, and that of the former Iranian president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani thus symbolizing a better understanding between the two countries and the two sects.

This great picture sent two important messages. First, it is true that Muslims belong to different sects but that does not mean they should be divided.

Muslims can solve their problems among themselves thorough dialogue in order to create a strong front that better represent their issues. Second, dialogue is one of the best methods for Muslims to build better relations with non-Muslims.

The Holy Qur’an calls for establishing dialogue with those who reject Islam. Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him) tried in numerous cases to build bridges with those who did not believe that he was a Prophet, and he urged Muslims to do the same.

When people engage in dialogue they understand each other better and learn from one another. In addition, dialogue can contribute to removing mistrust and suspicion from their minds. When people trust each other, they can work together confidently for the greater common good of mankind. It is self-evident that much of what divides people is their beliefs.

http://newageislam.com/interfaith-dialogue;-saudi-initiative-appreciated/islam-and-pluralism/d/303

Saudi Arabia: Stop Trials for ‘Insulting’ Islam, Islam and Human Rights, NewAgeIslam.com

Islam and Human Rights

Saudi Arabia: Stop Trials for ‘Insulting’ Islam

Charges Violate Precepts of Law, Freedom of Expression

Saudi Arabia does not have a penal code, and the crimes of “insulting Islam” or “cursing God” are not precisely defined. Prosecutors and judges in Saudi Arabia frequently attach a criminal charge to an act they consider criminal without citing the legal basis for such a charge. International human rights law requires that the law, in particular one establishing criminal offences, be sufficiently precise to enable an individual to regulate his conduct appropriately.

International human rights law also protects freedom of expression. The government may only ban limited types of speech such as that which immediately and directly incites violence, but the government may not impose criminal sanctions for the expression of thoughts or opinions, merely because they are deemed offensive.

http://newageislam.com/saudi-arabia--stop-trials-for-%E2%80%98insulting%E2%80%99-islam-/islam-and-human-rights/d/149