Fighting for Muslim women’s rights

Some of the world’s leading Islamic feminists have been gathered in Barcelona for the third International Congress on Islamic Feminism, to discuss the issues women face in the Muslim world. Some of the women taking part in the conference explained the problems in their home countries, and where they hoped to make progress, BBC reports.

Interesting are the comments of Asma Barlas, a Pakistani author. She commented thatr religions

...always come into cultures, they don’t come into abstract and pure spaces. Islam came into a very patriarchal, tribal and misogynistic culture. One of the deepest damages to Islam has been its reduction to “Arabisation”. I’m not going to say that the Arabs are particularly misogynistic in a way that nobody else is, but I do think there are very particular traits and attitudes towards women that have crept into Islam.
I have a friend who has been studying the interface between what he calls the Persian models and the Arabist models of Islam in the subcontinent and surprise, surprise: the Arabist models are misogynistic, authoritarian, unitarian and the Persian models are much more plural and tolerant.
This is a fight on two fronts - on the one hand we are struggling against the kinds of oppression dominant in Muslim patriarch societies and, on the other, Western perceptions of Islam as necessarily monolithic, and confusing the ideals of Islam with the reality of Muslim lives. If we read the Koran as a totality rather than pulling out random verses or half a line, that opens all kinds of possibilities for sexual equality.

Interesting how this woman suggests that Islam is not monolithic, and that it needs a new hermeneutic for interpreting the Quran. Read more on the BBC website on this conference.

FYI: 'Islam means peace...'

Among at least 24 aid workers killed in Somalia this year was one who was beheaded last month specifically for converting from Islam to Christianity, among other charges, according to an eyewitness. Muslim extremists from the al Shabab group fighting the transitional government on Sept. 23 sliced the head off of Mansuur Mohammed, 25, a World Food Program (WFP) worker, before horrified onlookers of Manyafulka village, 10 kilometers (six miles) from Baidoa.

The militants had intercepted Mohammed and a WFP driver, who managed to escape, earlier in the morning. Sources close to Mohammed’s family said he converted from Islam to Christianity in 2005. The eyewitness, who requested anonymity for security reasons, said the militants that afternoon gathered the villagers of Manyafulka, telling them that they would prepare a feast for them. Five masked men emerged, carrying guns, wielding Somali swords and dragging the handcuffed Mohammed. One recited the Quran as he proclaimed that Mohammed was a “murtid,” an Arabic term for one who converts from Islam to Christianity. Mohammed remained calm with an expressionless face, never uttering a word, said the eyewitness.

No, Islam does not mean peace. It means submission.

This news comes from the very good website of Compass Direct News.

Church and repression of media in Egypt

The MidEast News Source reports about repression of the media in Egypt. With the coming demise of president Mubarak and the appointment of his son as the new king, sorry, president, it seems the authorities try to be ready for total media control.

The Church in Egypt should dare to speak out against these repressive measures, but it will probably not do so; usually the Church is quit satisfied when radical Islam is suppressed.
Eleven media executives have been arrested in Egypt on charges of belonging to an Islamic organization affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, according to the newspaper The Daily News Egypt.

Not only these radical Muslims but also the totally secular Cairo Media Company (CMC) is the victim of the government. It was today fined $27,000 by a local court for breach of media-related permits and possessing equipment without permits. The CMC made headlines earlier this year for distributing footage of demonstrators tearing up and stamping on posters of Egyptian president, Hosni Mubarak.

CMC owner Nader Gohar told Al-Jazeera that the verdict meant that he probably would be out of business within six months to a year and that five or six other media companies in Cairo were heading the same way.

The Church should be wise and show its protest against these abuses of the freedom of speech.

Mistakes in the Quran

Abu Dawud pointed me to this website of some Copts, called www.3lotus.com - I assume they live in the USA. This is an organization of conservative Orthodox Christians, united in St. Mark Evangelistic Association.

One section of the website combines a lot of information on the Quran. It lists the usage of incorrect grammar, wrong spelling, and loan words than were misunderstood by Muhammad. Have a look and see whether this is useful for you. It shows the mindset of eastern Christians and how they believe they can best address Muslims.

HIV-aids in Egypt

Yesterday a friend of mine visited from Egypt. He works for a well-known, large, international, very very very respected institute. He told me that in his organization they believe that the situation around HIV-aids in Egypt is desparate. He mentioned figures of 10-15 million people with HIV in Egypt.

I did not believe my ears - official figures speak of 20,000. So I asked again, and he confirmed that in his very respected organization, the estimation is 10-15 million. So I asked again, whether all senior staff agrees about this, and he confirmed.

So why do you not speak about this? 'We would have a massive problem with government, and we are not allowed to.'

He pointed to the army as the major hotspot, the place where HIV is contracted and transferred.

I can still hardly believe the figure. Is this credible? Easy to check, you would think, but no, Egypt does not allow research into this. My friend pointed to the high incidence of Hepatitus C and the many people dying from tuberculosis and similar ailments as confirmation.

But still, phew, is this credible? Problem is, I can assure you, the man is an expert in HIV-aids and he works, as I said, for an almighty credible institute...

Islam economy the answer to economic crisis

Shoib-bin-Mukhtar, an Islamic Scholar from Al-Azhar University spoke at a conference on the global financial debacle in the Kashmiri capital Srinagar. He said that some twenty percent of US population is trapped in deep debts, more than the assets they hold today. He informed that this debt amounted to some six trillion dollars. Mukhtar said that the “Islamic economic system has been a success for thousands of years and it is for sure going to benefit the present world as well”.

Thousands of years? If this gentleman has to teach us about economy, the Lord be with us. ”Solutions to all problems are embedded in Islam, he said adding “We should not narrow down the concept of Islamic economics to Islamic banking or finance but Islamic economics is a much broader concept and it surely has the potential to be an alternative to capitalistic economic system”.

When will Muslims wake up and ask their scholars the probing questions? Show us a Muslim country without oil, where poverty is not rampant? A society where economic development is steady and healthy? The Islamic world is lagging behind in economic, social and intellectual development. Maybe give some freedom of thought and speech to you citizens? Allow economic experiments, intellectual freedom? All those things that a healthy society needs?

More in the Kashmiri Observer.

Brothers, brothers....

Christian unity is beautiful and an important precondition for mission in the Arab World. People will see somethimg of God in our relationships if those are lived in love. That is why the ongoing fight by some denominations over rights in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem is such an aberation. Brothers! Wake up! AP carries a story on the issue. The great Coptic-Orthoodox and the fantastic Ethiopian-Orthodox Churches fighting over where to have a fire exit installed and more.