Yusuf al-Qaradawi and Minorities, Islam and Human Rights, NewAgeIslam.com

Islam and Human Rights

Yusuf al-Qaradawi and Minorities

By Khaled Hroub

Learned Intolerance

"The Global Mufti: the Phenomenon of Yusuf al-Qaradawi" is the title of a recently published collection of essays on the life and work of the most well-known and influential TV sheik in the Islamic world.

Leading Arab and Western scholars here attempt to shed some light on the multiple activities of the first global mufti, in particular with regard to his function as president of The International Association of Muslim Scholars (IAMS) and the European Fatwa Council and, of course, as the initiator of numerous media ventures such as his popular "Sharia and Life" programme on the Al-Jazeera channel.

Unfortunately, on closer inspection, the book barely gets beneath the surface of its subject and offers little in the way of real enlightenment on the al-Qaradawi phenomenon. Worse still, it is quite simply misleading, inevitably leading the impartial reader to the conclusion that al-Qaradawi stands out amongst current Islamic scholars as the personification of tolerance.

Cardinal error

The book's cardinal error and one which inevitably leads the reader to the wrong conclusion is without a doubt the unacceptable comparative approach it takes, one whereby al-Qaradawi is compared with more radical, even fanatical Salafi preachers. That the omnipresent sheik should appear to be much more tolerant than such incorrigible diehard reactionaries comes as no great surprise.

http://newageislam.com/yusuf-al-qaradawi-and-minorities/islam-and-human-rights/d/2502

We Need Ideas, Not Just Tactics, Against Islamism by Melik Kaylan, Islamic World News, NewAgeIslam.com

Islamic World News

We Need Ideas, Not Just Tactics, Against Islamism by Melik Kaylan

“Indian Muslims are proud of being both Indian and Muslim, and the Mumbai terrorism was a war against both India and Islam,” explained M.J. Akbar, the Indian-Muslim editor of Covert, an Indian investigative journal. “Terrorism has no place in Islamic doctrine. The Koranic term for the killing of innocents is ‘fasad.’ Terrorists are fasadis, not jihadis. In a beautiful verse, the Koran says that the killing of an innocent is akin to slaying the whole community. Since the ... terrorists were neither Indian nor true Muslims, they had no right to an Islamic burial in an Indian Muslim cemetery.”

To be sure, Mumbai’s Muslims are a vulnerable minority in a predominantly Hindu country. Nevertheless, their in-your-face defiance of the Islamist terrorists stands out. It stands out against a dismal landscape of predominantly Sunni Muslim suicide murderers who have attacked civilians in mosques and markets — from Iraq to Pakistan to Afghanistan — but who have been treated by mainstream Arab media, like Al Jazeera, or by extremist Islamist spiritual leaders and Web sites, as “martyrs” whose actions deserve praise.

Extolling or excusing suicide militants as “martyrs” has only led to this awful phenomenon — where young Muslim men and women are recruited to kill themselves and others — spreading wider and wider. What began in a targeted way in Lebanon and Israel has now proliferated to become an almost weekly occurrence in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

http://newageislam.com/we-need-ideas,-not-just-tactics,-against-islamism-by-melik-kaylan/islamic-world-news/d/1200

The Darker Side of Islamic Anti-Semitism, Islam and Pluralism, NewAgeIslam.com

Islam and Pluralism

The Darker Side of Islamic Anti-Semitism

By Benny Morris

Scholars in the West have begun to devote time and space to anti-Western jihadism and Muslim anti-Semitism--and a good thing, too, as these are very much on the contemporary international and Middle Eastern political and military agendas and, I fear, will grow in significance during the coming decades, as the Huntingtonian "clash of civilizations" widens. That such a "clash" is going on is all too apparent, from the riots in Nigerian streets, where hundreds died following the announcement of an impending beauty pageant on Nigerian soil, to the murder of an Italian priest in Turkey following the publication of the Muhammad cartoons in Denmark. Yet, Western liberals hesitate to tackle the subject of Muslim anti-Semitism, lest it seem anti-multicultural or provoke the hornet's nest of Allah's minions. Even the use of the word "jihad" has become taboo among appeasers of Islam--and even among some non-appeasers, such as George W. Bush, who, like other Western leaders, refuses to call the phenomenon by its precise name (and the name that its own practitioners use). People speak of "international terrorism" when they should be speaking of "international Muslim (or Islamist) terrorism."

http://newageislam.com/the-darker-side-of-islamic-anti-semitism/islam-and-pluralism/d/710

More bad news from Iraq: Female and dressed to kill, Islam and the West, NewAgeIslam.com

Islam and the West

More bad news from Iraq: Female and dressed to kill

Khaleej Times

30 July 2008

Whatever the explanation, this is very disturbing. These desperate and despicable tactics by the insurgents must be condemned in strongest terms by everyone. Women are not only homemakers, they build a critical role in building and nurturing society. Using them to destroy homes and innocent bystanders is most shameful.

That said, the new phenomenon must come as a wake-up call to Iraq's leaders. But, instead of cracking down on the families of the female bombers, the Iraqi government and the US-led coalition must take a serious look at why women are taking to these desperate measures. If the Iraqi authorities are keen to prevent such tragedies in the future, it's important to understand what is driving such women.

Invariably, at the heart of all such tragedies are victims of grave injustice. Since the Invasion in 2003, there have been myriad cases of ordinary Iraqis routinely suffering atrocities and human rights abuse at the hands of the coalition troops as well as the Iraqi militias and security forces.

http://newageislam.com/more-bad-news-from-iraq--female-and-dressed-to-kill/islam-and-the-west/d/387

China shouldn't be inscrutable, Current affairs, NewAgeIslam.com

Current affairs

China shouldn't be inscrutable

BY FAREED ZAKARIA (Beyond Olympics)

8 August 2008

Conservatives rail against a "rising autocracy" and exaggerate China's military strength. Republican Sen. Sam Brownback went to Beijing and discovered — surprise! — that the Chinese government engaged in espionage. He fumed to CNN that the authorities could "listen to anybody and everybody and their communications and their recordings." One month earlier the senator had enthusiastically voted for the FISA Amendments Act, which allows the US government to do pretty much the same thing.

China bashing is not just a right-wing phenomenon. The New Republic, mostly left of centre, ran a cover story last month with the headline, MEET THE NEW CHINA (SAME AS THE OLD). Inside, the magazine thundered that "our ultimate solidarity" should lie not with the "odious government" in Beijing but "the billion long-suffering men and women of the world's largest dictatorship."

Except that Chinese people (who, by the way, number 1.3 billion, not 1 billion) seem to disagree. About the same time as The New Republic hit the stands, the Pew Research Center released the findings of its 2008 Global Attitudes Survey. Of the 24 countries surveyed, the Chinese people expressed the highest level of support for the direction in which their country was heading, 86 per cent. Nearly two out of three said that the Beijing government was doing a good job on issues that mattered to them.

http://newageislam.com/china-shouldn-t-be-inscrutable/current-affairs/d/457