Islamic Feminism as an Emancipator for Muslim Women, Islam, Women and Feminism, NewAgeIslam.com

Islam, Women and Feminism

Islamic Feminism as an Emancipator for Muslim Women

Q: In recent years, a number of Muslim women’s groups have emerged across the world, struggling for gender equality and justice using Islamic arguments. Most of them are led by women who come from elitist or, at least middle class, backgrounds. Many of them seem to lack a strong popular base. How do you account for this?

A: I think the majority of the women who are writing and publishing about what is popularly called ‘Islamic feminism’ are definitely from the elite or the middle class. But then, globally speaking, feminism has always had to do with the middle class, at least in terms of its key articulators and leaders. I believe that Islamic feminism is, in a sense, the unwanted child of ‘political Islam’. It was ‘political Islam’ that actually politicized the whole issue of gender and Muslim women’s rights. The slogan ‘back to the Shariah’ so forcefully pressed by advocates of ‘political Islam’ in practice meant seeking to return to the classical texts on fiqh or Muslim jurisprudence and doing away with various laws advantageous to women that had no sanction in the Islamists’ literalist understanding of Islam. Translated into practice, law and public policy, this meant going back to pre-modern interpretations of Shariah, with all their restrictive laws about and for women. It was this that led, as a reaction, to the emergence of Islamic feminism, critiquing the Islamists for conflating Islam and the Shariah with undistilled patriarchy and for claiming that patriarchal rule was divinely mandated. These Muslim women were confronted with horrific laws that Islamists sought to impose in the name of Islam, and so began asking where in all of this was the justice and equality that their own understanding of the Quran led them to believe was central to Islam. These gender activists, using Islamic arguments to critique and challenge the Islamists, brought classical fiqh and tafsir texts to public scrutiny and made them a subject of public debate and discussion, articulating alternative, gender-friendly understandings, indeed visions, of Islam. That marked the broadening, in terms of class, of the fledgling Islamic feminist movement.

http://newageislam.com/islamic-feminism-as-an-emancipator-for-muslim-women/islam,-women-and-feminism/d/2477

Killing of apostates from Islam: Pakistan, Somalia and UK, Radical Islamism and Jihad, NewAgeIslam.com

Radical Islamism and Jihad

Killing of apostates from Islam: Pakistan, Somalia and UK

In Somalia another four converts from Islam have just been beheaded by radical Sunni Islamists who desire a 100 percent fanatical state. The four Christians were killed by the Al-Shabab on the grounds of "fitna." Fitna applies to creating religious discord and in the minds of Al-Shabab, all converts who leave Islam must be killed in accordance with the Koran and Hadiths.

Therefore, a natural liberty, religious freedom, which exists in the "free world" is being denied many and clearly radical Sunni Islamists are intent on Islamizing the world by killing all minorities within their Islamized states, for example in Afghanistan and Somalia.

On the one hand, we have radical Sunni Islamists beheading people or burning people alive; and on the other hand we have state sanctioned victimization of religious minorities and the persecution of apostates from Islam.

Given this, it is clear that the methodology of radical Sunni Islamists is more brutal with regards to beheading people or burning them alive. Yet the mentality of religious persecution exists within mainstream Islam because the majority of mainly Muslim nations have policies which infringe on religious liberty.

Not only this, the mindset of discrimination is rampant within religious communities and while the liberals enjoy lambasting their own respective cultures and appeasing Islam in the West; they remain silent about mass discrimination within the Muslim community towards non-Muslims and apostates.

http://newageislam.com/killing-of-apostates-from-islam--pakistan,-somalia-and-uk-/radical-islamism-and-jihad/d/1691

Radical vs. Mainstream Islam: some reflections, Islam and the West, NewAgeIslam.com

Islam and the West

Radical vs. Mainstream Islam: some reflections

'Anti-terrorism policy review, dialogue key to West-Muslims ties’

By Tahir Niaz, February 04, 2009

Speaking at a conference - Islam and the West: Future Agenda of Change (Role of the Muslim World) - organised by the Council of Islamic Ideology (CII), the envoys also called on the world to change its perception towards Islam and replace ‘might is right’ principle with ‘right is might’. The conference was convened to consider recommendations for US President Barack Obama to improve the West-Muslim relations.

Misinterpretations: Saudi Ambassador Ali Awadh Asseri said Islam was misinterpreted in the West and urged the US president to win hearts and minds through dialogue. He said discrimination led to discontentment, adding the Palestinians must be treated equally.

Syrian Ambassador Muhammad Raid Ismat said Islam was represented as an extremist religion by a biased media in the West, and called for differentiating between terrorism and the legitimate struggle for a homeland. He urged Muslim countries to act instead of reacting to the treatment being handed out to Muslims across the world.

Ambassador of Iraq Kais Subhi Al-Yaqubi said the actual problem with the West was how to accept Islam. He said Muslims should not expect miracles from the new US president regarding his policy towards Muslims.

http://newageislam.com/radical-vs.-mainstream-islam--some-reflections--/islam-and-the-west/d/1173

Bangladesh: rejection of Islamist politics, Islam and Politics, NewAgeIslam.com

Islam and Politics

Bangladesh: rejection of Islamist politics

The deluge of optimism that most Bangladeshis are feeling in the wake of what appears to have been largely uncontroversial elections on December 29, is at once rare, and yet familiar. From past experience, the aftermath of most elections have featured ritualised exchanges of accusations between the two major parties, and the public’ foreboding of a coming violence in clashes to establish a new incumbency. In the past, elections gave way to signals of an imminent breakdown of parliamentary accountability — possibly the most crucial form of accountability in a democracy — with the losing party threatening a boycott. This time, in contrast, the murmurs of discontent over the election results have been drowned by the din of a more popular endorsement, so much so that the BNP seems to have grudgingly accepted. This, and the idea that five years of misrule and corruption by the BNP-led alliance has been rejected overwhelmingly may be at the heart of the optimism apparent in the media and in public opinion.

But there is also a great deal more to be optimistic about on January 4, 2009, compared to the same date in 2007. For all practical purposes the country is no longer dangerously poised for violent street clashes between the BNP and the Awami League as it was two years ago. It is no small feat that the elections are behind us with the use of a voter list arguably more accurate than any in the past. And perhaps, most importantly, a two year interregnum during which a military-controlled interim government ruled the country under the cloak of a draconian emergency is all but ceremonially over.

http://newageislam.com/bangladesh--rejection-of-islamist-politics---/islam-and-politics/d/1094

How many Muslims are Radical Islamists?, Islamic World News, NewAgeIslam.com

Islamic World News

How many Muslims are Radical Islamists?

How much fervor: Gallup polled over 50,000 Muslims across 10 countries and found that, if one defines radicals as those who deemed the 9/11 attacks "completely justified," their number constitutes about 7 percent of the total population. But if one includes Muslims who considered the attacks "largely justified," their ranks jump to 13.5 percent. Adding those who deemed the attacks "somewhat justified" boosts the number of radicals to 36.6 percent. Which figure should one adopt?

Gauge voter intentions: Elections measure Islamist sentiment untidily, for Islamist parties erratically win support from non-Islamists. Thus, Turkey's Justice and Development Party (AKP) won 47 percent in 2007 elections, 34 percent of the vote in 2002 elections, and its precursor, the Virtue Party, won just 15 percent in 1999. The Islamic Movement's northern faction won 75 percent of the vote in the Israeli Arab city of Umm el-Fahm in 2003 elections while Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist organization, won 44 percent of the vote in the Palestinian Authority in 2006. Which number does one select?

http://newageislam.com/how-many-muslims-are-radical-islamists?--/islamic-world-news/d/928

An Interview with Mosque Muslim Leader, Brookfield Physician Mushir Hassan, Islam and the West, NewAgeIslam.com

Islam and the West

An Interview with Mosque Muslim Leader, Brookfield Physician Mushir Hassan

by Rory Linnane

A: Obviously one of the things we’ve had to deal with is that there’s been a frequent association of Islam with violence. And so with that, we’ve had a little bit more difficulty in addressing people who would be inherently suspicious from the get-go, that we have to try and communicate with and show that what we’re about and what these extremist radicals are about are different things, and we condemn what they’re doing.

Because there’s been such a strong persistent association of Islam with violence, we have to counter that to say no, this is not something we agree with. It’s something that we stand resolutely against, not just for our own neighbors, but even for our own kids, so our kids understand that this is not something we do. We value human life, and we value respect for other humans.

http://www.newageislam.com/islam-and-the-west/rory-linnane/an-interview-with-mosque-muslim-leader,-brookfield-physician-mushir-hassan/d/7259

Dutch wisdom placates Arabs and shows international dialogue can help

By: Jamal Al-Awadhi

The risk of fomenting conflicts over race and religions has a great role in the human destructions and catastrophes the world has been exposed to throughout the various stages of history. Such acts may justify to the simple Muslims what the extremist Islamists do against the western interests in the region, which consequently leads to destabilizing the region and generating more extremist youths who favor extremism in order to protect Islam from its enemies.