Where do I hear this all the time? - They're opposed to Western education as being against Sharia norms: the group wants to "clean the system which is polluted by western education and uphold Sharia’h all over the country." Listen to your Arab educated "Islamic scholar" and your Friday sermon.
Reporting from Maiduguri, Nigeria -- The Nigerian army launched an assault Tuesday against "Taliban" militants fighting to establish radical Islamic rule in the north of the country, in an escalation of clashes that reportedly have left hundreds dead.
The rebels, armed with machetes, guns and bows and arrows, had attacked police stations and targeted police and government officials in the predominantly Muslim north Sunday and Monday. In response, President Umaru Yar'Adua sent in the army to the city of Maiduguri to shell the home of Mohammed Yusuf, the soft-spoken preacher who leads the Boko Haram sect, known here as the Taliban. The army also attacked a mosque in the city.
Black smoke hung above Maiduguri, which throbbed with machine-gun and mortar fire, as the soldiers moved in. Gunfire continued overnight.
Shops and other businesses were closed. Children at a school near the militants' headquarters fled in terror. Many residents took shelter in the Maiduguri police headquarters, which had been attacked Monday in one of a series of apparently coordinated assaults in four northern states.
A minor pregnant after rape: beaten and forced to marry her torturer - This is "Islam and its laws and life"
For months, the imam of a village in the district of Faridpur abused the girl, who did not denounce the man for "fear and shame." The young girl is seventh months pregnant, a premature birth is likely. The local council has condemned both to 101lashes with a cane.
Dhaka (AsiaNews) – The victim of repeated rapes who has become pregnant is being forced by local leaders to marry the man who abused her and sentenced to a beating for the "crime" committed. This is the story of a teenager in the village of Char Padma in Faridpur district of central Bangladesh.
Omar Faruk is a teacher from the "Maktab", the village Islamic school. The imam has long abused the minor, taking advantage of the position of prestige within the local community. The girl is in the seventh month of pregnancy, her physical and mental health are not good, and she risks a premature birth.
For several months she hid the violence and pregnancy, for fear and shame. When her belly started to grow, the news spread throughout the village. On July 18 last the Arbitration Council met, consisting of a group of experts led by Fazlur Rahman Fazal, to discuss the matter and issue a verdict. The meeting ended with a conviction of 101 lashings a head for the young girl and the imam, author of the violence.
Local sources revealed that both have already received 25 beatings, pursuant to the decision. The girl will even have to marry her torturer, who has two previous marriages behind him. In Bangladesh, women are often victims of violence and abuse, most of which goes unpunished. AsiaNews in recent years has repeatedly documented instances of women and young girls raped, disfigured, victims of family feuds, excluded because they convert to Christianity and repudiated by their family.
In recent weeks, Annie Halder, a Catholic activist, denounced a continued growth in the instances of violence, especially against "anyone who decides to convert to Christianity”. Among others, the woman recalled the case of Christina Gomez Goni, "killed by extremists" for apostasy.
(Video) Salman Rushdie reflects back on events that introduced the word "fatwa" to the non-Muslim vernacular. 20 years ago novelist Salman Rushdie was a wanted man with a million pound bounty on his head. His novel The Satanic Verses had sparked riots across the Muslim world. Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini invoked a fatwa, effectively sentencing the writer to death. Rushdie was immediately forced into hiding. This film looks back on the extraordinary events which followed the book’s publication and the ten year campaign to have the fatwa lifted. Arguably this was the moment when religious identities, in Britain and abroad, became more important than ethnic and cultural belonging.
The cuts on Rahima Begum's legs are healing but the unmarried mother will carry, for her whole life, the psychological scars from a public whipping for revealing who was the father of her child. In conservative Muslim Bangladesh, having a child out of wedlock is a great taboo, and the elders (Jirgas) in Rahima's village in Eastern Bangladesh decided she should be taught a lesson after pointing the finger at a neighbour, who denied the charge.
“They called me before a makeshift court and ruled that I was a liar”, the 22-year-old told AFP from her hospital bed. Rahima's punishment was to be caned 39 times in front of the village elders and its Islamic clerics. The case shocked many in Bangladesh, with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina ordering Rahima to be moved from a small village hospital in Comilla to one of the best in the capital Dhaka. There, she is receiving treatment, including further counseling, a month after the beating.
“Every time I close my eyes, I just play the scene over and over in my head”, said she.
Human rights groups say that Rahima's plight is becoming increasingly common in Bangladesh, with Hardline Islamic clerics are taking the law into their own hands and handing down harsh punishments, mostly to women, found guilty by unlawful village courts (Jirgas). The so-called crimes heard by these illegal courts, most common in rural areas, range from adultery to being raped; in one case, a Muslim woman was whipped even for talking to a Hindu man?
Women's groups and human rights activists have protested the unexplained rise in caning cases in the past two months, and note that many such incidents of violence probably go unreported.
“We've recorded 15 such incidents in May and June’2009 alone. We've never seen such a sharp rise in such cases. It's very worrying” said Ayesha Khanam, president of the women's group in Bangladesh Mahila Parishad. “There are undoubtedly many more than have gone unreported”.
In Rahima's case, police have arrested those men, who whipped her; but campaigners say that most of them actually get away with these illegal punishments, because these kangaroo courts have, until recently, been largely ignored by the authorities.
Salma Ali, head of the Bangladesh National Women Lawyers Association, said that while urban parts of the country were becoming more progressive in dealing with women's rights, some rural areas were going the other way:
“Conservative Muslim clerics are losing power in an Islamic country where Muslim women are increasingly holding more prominent positions. But some parts of the country are becoming more conservative day by day. Perhaps they are inspired by the kinds of courts used by the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan”, said she.
Rahima said the physical and mental sufferings of being publicly whipped means that, her hospital bed in Dhaka, 80 km away from her village home, is the safest place for her right now.
“My legs are almost healed but I'm not ready to go back to my village yet… I don't know whether I can ever go back again", said she.
Over in Afghanistan, when battered wives opt for divorce instead of suicide, they are considered to be adulteresses and are ignored by their immediate families and also by society, just left to die…
In this article we will look deeply into such cases where the western world reaches out to these helpless Muslim women in their plights through NGOs.
After regular beatings, torture and attempted murder by her husband, the 35-year-old Zahra tried to burn herself to death to escape her marriage. Then she learned of a safer option: a divorce.
Zahra is among the growing number of Afghan women living in Afghanistan’s western Herat province, who with the help of a women’s charitable organization, have taken on such patriarchal laws by seeking divorce from their beastly husbands—a taboo in the devoutly Muslim, formerly Taliban-led state.
“I did not spend a single happy day with my husband... he was not like a human being. He used to beat me every day”, she said, revealing deep scars on her right leg and feet, caused by electric shocks given by her husband.
After marrying at 14, Zahra, who declined to give her full name for her own safety, said she suffered years of abuse. Then a property dispute with her in-laws turned her “sour marriage” into full-blown living nightmares, as she explained:
“They wanted to kill me three or four times in the past. Once they even gave me rat poison... I cannot go out of my house because of the divorce and my four brothers are looking for me; they are after me to kill me, so I am living in hiding”.
Saudi beauty queen Aya Ali al-Mulla trounced 274 rivals to win a crown, jewellery, cash and a trip to Malaysia, and all without showing her face, Saudi media reported on Friday.
With her face and body completely covered by the black head-to-toe abaya mandatory in the conservative Muslim kingdom, 18-year-old Mullah was named "Queen of Beautiful Morals" late on Thursday, newspapers said.
There was none of the swimsuit and evening gown competitions and heavy media coverage of beauty pageants elsewhere when the contest was decided in the eastern city of Safwa.
Instead, the winner and the two runner-up princesses had to undergo a three-month test of their dutifulness to their parents and family, and their service to society.
This included a battery of personal, cultural, social and psychological tests, Al-Watan reported.
It was unclear exactly what Mullah did to pip her rivals in the huge field, but Al-Watan reported that the high school graduate had good grades and hopes to go into medicine.
She raked in a 5,000-riyal (1,333-dollar) prize, a pearl necklace, diamond watch, diamond necklace, and a free ticket to Malaysia with her win.
The 20-year-old first runner-up, one of triplets, had already won an education ministry-sponsored "I love you, my country" competition.
The second runner-up, a high school student aged 15, was cited for taking care of her home and family during the week because her mother works far from home and can only return on weekends.
Beauty contests focused on physical beauty are non-existent in segregated Saudi Arabia, where women can not mix with unrelated men, and must appear in public completely covered -- even in photographs.
Miss Moral Beauty pageant organiser Khadra al-Mubarak kept the focus on inner beauty, as defined by Islamic standards of Saudi Arabia.
"The real winner in this competition is the society. The winners represent the culture of the society and its high Islamic morals," Mubarak said, according to Al-Watan.
"If Anni and Zuhair think that they can plan against Allah they have forgotten that more "intelligent and powerful" people did plan against Islam and the Prophet but ultimately Allah and His religion and His Prophet prevailed...and will continue to prevail. "
Buddhists in Thailand, Jews in Israel, Christians in Indonesia, Hindus in India... Why is Islam at war with every major world religion, when none of these religions are at war with each other? Part of the reason is that the Qur’an is specific about the inferiority of other faiths (see 48:28) and the hatred that Allah harbors for their people.
Although it is common for Muslims to become upset about anyone “insulting” their religion, here is what the Qur’an says about Jews and Christians:
The Jews call Ezra a son of Allah, and the Christians call Christ the son of Allah. That is a saying from their mouth; (in this) they but imitate what the unbelievers of old used to say. Allah's curse be on them: how they are deluded away from the Truth! (9:30) (See also Bukhari 8:427), one of the last things Muhammad ever said on his deathbed was "May Allah curse the Jews and Christians.”)
The Qur’an specifically addresses Christians, Jews, Polytheists (Hindus) and atheists:
Christians are blasphemers (5:17, 5:73) who have invented a lie about Allah (10:68-69). Inventing a lie about Allah is the worst of sins (7:37, 29:68) and for this reason Christians are condemned to Hell (10:70). Although one (early Medinan) verse seems to say that righteous Christians will go to heaven, this is abrogated by later verses that make it very clear that Christians must cease being Christian (ie. reject the Trinity) or suffer eternal torment for their beliefs (5:72-73).
Jews are also cursed by Allah (5:13), in one of his final pronouncements. The Qur’an goes on to assure Muslims that Jews are wicked (4:160-162) – so wicked, in fact, that they have somehow managed to do the impossible (18:27) and alter the word of Allah (2:75). Jews are “fond of lies” and “devour the forbidden” (5:42).
The Qur’an assures believers that Jews and Christians have “diseased hearts” (5:52). Allah even takes credit for the enmity between them (5:14). Only Jews and Christians who submit to Islamic subjugation and pay the Jizya are protected in this world (9:29 & Ibn Ishaq 956).
Hindus are polytheists. Although Muhammad didn’t know any Hindus (and neither did Allah, apparently) the Qur’an still manages to lay the groundwork for the 1000 year ethnic cleansing campaign against the Hindu people that is estimated to have taken tens of millions of innocent lives. In Islam, polytheists are worse than all other religion. Those who join idols (14:30) or false gods (11:14) to Allah also invent a lie about Him (29:17) and will burn in Hell. Even believing in other divine entities along with Allah is an unforgivable crime (4:48, 40:12).
Atheists believe in no god, which is even worse than believing in the wrong one (Muhammad and his successors had atheists put to death - Bukhari 84:57). Merely questioning the existence of Allah is a testament to one’s impiety (25:21), even as Muslim arrogance is encouraged in the Qur’an. Muhammad always answered probing questions merely by telling the inquiring party that they would go to Hell if they didn’t believe in him (36:49-64). The Qur'an discourages Muslims from intellectual inquiry (5:101-102).
Anyone who gives up his religion is a “perverted transgressor” (3:82). Perverted as well is anyone who denies Allah (40:63). Freedom of conscience does not exist in Islam. Muhammad clearly prescribed the death penalty for apostates (Bukhari 52:260).
While contemporary Muslim apologists often speak of “dialogue” (meaning a unilateral arrangement in which they tell you about Islam while you listen) the Qur’an speaks of Jihad instead:
Listen not to the unbelievers, but strive (Jihad) against them with the utmost strenuousness. (25:52)
What would be the point in hearing anything a non-Muslim has to say... or even talking with them for that matter? Allah has already sealed their hearts and condemned them to Hell:
As for the Disbelievers, Whether thou warn them or thou warn them not it is all one for them; they believe not. Allah hath sealed their hearing and their hearts, and on their eyes there is a covering. Theirs will be an awful doom (2:6)
For those wondering why Allah would even make infidels if their ultimate destination is Hell, Muhammad said that the purpose of some (Jews and Christians, at least) was to take the place of Muslims, so that they would not suffer there (Sahih Muslim 6666).
