Jamiat-ul-Ulema knows it cannot push women back into burqas,

The War within Islam

Jamiat-ul-Ulema knows it cannot push women back into burqas

By Sultan Shahin

November 9, 2009

These ahadees contravene the progressive, even feminist teachings of the Koran specifically to degrade and humiliate women and uphold the pre-Islamic practices.

The Jamiat has asked Muslim men to ensure "sisters, wives and mothers wear burqa", and do not bring "disrepute to the community". Endorsing Jamiat's archaic thinking, a number of ulema told the large Muslim gathering that a woman's status in society should be "secondary and subdued". They should abstain from watching cinema or television or going to co-ed schools; restrictive Sharia practices would apply to them after the age of 10.

The Jamiat also reiterated its opposition to the government's efforts to provide millions of bonded madrasa students an option to join the mainstream of society by acquiring knowledge and skills other than that of becoming a muezzin or an Imam of a mosque. It also repeated, completely unnecessarily, its earlier fatwa against Muslims singing Vande Mataram, half a century after the issue was settled.

Clearly Jamiat's burqa is slipping and the veneer of broadmindedness is wearing off. Composite nationalism calls for adjustment on the part of all communities. Unity in diversity and not uniformity of the Sangh Parivar world-view is definitely the idea best suited for India.

http://newageislam.com/jamiat-ul-ulema-knows-it-cannot-push-women-back-into-burqas/the-war-within-islam/d/2077

Bin Laden’s Spiritual Mentor Condemns Fort Hood Attacks, Islamic World News, NewAgeIslam.com

Islamic World News

Bin Laden’s Spiritual Mentor Condemns Fort Hood Attacks

By Adam Rawnsley

November 16, 2009

The Ft. Hood shootings were so gruesome and inhuman, even Osama Bin Laden’s former spiritual mentor is condemning them — calling the massacre that killed 13 “irrational” and “empty of thought,” according to a translation provided to Danger Room by the NEFA Foundation.

Salman Al-Awdah, a Saudi cleric who played an influential role in Bin Laden’s early radicalism, made the statement during an appearance on his “Life is a Word” show on MBC, a Saudi-owned news and entertainment satellite TV channel, later posting his remarks on his website, Islam Today.

“Incidents [such as the Ft. Hood shootings] have bad consequences, and undoubtedly this man might have a psychological problem; he may be a psychiatrist but he [also] might have had psychological distress, as he was being commissioned to go to Iraq or Afghanistan, and he was capable of refusing to work whatever the consequences were.”

That’s in contrast to the words of radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who quickly endorsed the shootings.

Danger Room spoke to NEFA Foundation senior analyst Evan Kohlman, who first flagged al-Awdah’s statement. He described Awdah’s comments as “a good indication of how far on a tangent Anwar al-Awlaki is, that even former favorites of [O]sama Bin Laden openly reject his globalist view of jihad. He’s been characterized as a deviant, even according to the standards of others within the Salafi-jihadi world itself.”

Al-Awdah, who Osama Bin Laden once cited as his “ideal personality,” first became a favorite of the al-Qaeda leader in the early 1990s through his opposition to the stationing of U.S. forces on Saudi soil during and after the first Gulf War. In lectures circulated on cassette tapes, Awdah became a prominent critic of the Saudi regime, joining an Islamist opposition, which grew out of Saudi Arabia’s “Sahwa” or “awakening” movement. In 1994, Saudi authorities arrested al-Awdah for his criticisms along with another prominent regime cleric, Safar al-Hawali. Their detention became a grievance regularly cited by Bin Laden, including in his first declaration of war against the United States, the 1996 “Declaration of Jihad Against the Americans Occupying the Two Holy Places.”

http://newageislam.com/bin-laden%E2%80%99s-spiritual-mentor-condemns-fort-hood-attacks/islamic-world-news/d/2102

America Is Already Committing Acts of War Against Iran, Islam and the West, NewAgeIslam.com

Islam and the West

America Is Already Committing Acts of War Against Iran

By Scott Ritter, Truthdig. Posted July 30, 2008.

Much of the information behind this is being promulgated by Israel, which has a vested interest in seeing Iran neutralized as a potential threat. But Israel is joined by another source, even more puzzling in terms of its broad-based acceptance in the world of American journalism: the Mujahadeen-e Khalk, or MEK, an Iranian opposition group sworn to overthrow the theocracy in Tehran. The CIA today provides material support to the actions of the MEK inside Iran. The recent spate of explosions in Iran, including a particularly devastating "accident" involving a military convoy transporting ammunition in downtown Tehran, appears to be linked to an MEK operation; its agents working inside munitions manufacturing plants deliberately are committing acts of sabotage which lead to such explosions. If CIA money and planning support are behind these actions, the agency's backing constitutes nothing less than an act of war on the part of the United States against Iran.

http://newageislam.com/america-is-already-committing-acts-of-war-against-iran/islam-and-the-west/d/383