Large majorities in Muslim countries are increasingly worried about Islamist militancy and oppose its best-known groups, such as the global al-Qaeda movement, Nigeria’s Boko Haram and Hamas, according to a new survey.

Support for violent tactics such as suicide bombing has fallen in many countries over the past decade, although some states still have significant minorities approving it, the survey by the Washington-based Pew Research Center said.

Pew, which regularly tracks opinion on religious issues around the world, polled over 14,000 Muslims in 14 countries in April and May, before the radical Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group seized a large swathes of Iraq and Syria and announced a new Islamic “caliphate” there.

Although it did not ask about ISIL, the survey’s findings suggest there would be little support for a call on Tuesday by its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi for Muslims worldwide to take up arms to avenge what he said were wrongs committed against Islam.

“In most Middle Eastern countries, concern about extremism has increased in the past year,” said the survey issued on Tuesday.

The survey showed majorities, often quite strong, in most countries against the best-known militant Islamist groups.

Negative opinions about al-Qaeda were strongest in Lebanon, with 96 percent against it, followed by Turkey at 85 percent, Jordan at 83 percent and Egypt at 81 percent.

The survey was not conducted in Syria or Iraq, where war including al Qaeda forces would make it impossible to interview a representative sample of 1,000 as happened elsewhere.

In Nigeria, 79 percent of those polled had negative views of Boko Haram, the insurgent group staging regular attacks in the north that have killed hundreds in recent months.

Some 59 percent of Pakistanis were opposed to the Taliban.   »»» The Star Online (Malaysia)

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Inside the Karmel Square shopping mall in southwest Minneapolis, women wearing headscarves paint customers’ feet with henna. Others sell beaded caftans in narrow stalls. On the first floor, shopkeepers kneel toward Mecca to pray.

Somali entrepreneurs in the neighborhood have transformed an abandoned machinery warehouse into this bustling indoor bazaar. Karmel Square is one of several commercial districts they’ve revived in recent years with support from an unexpected ally: the city.

Since 2006, Minneapolis has loaned more than $1 million to Muslim business owners through a program that complies with sharia law, which prohibits Muslims from paying or earning interest in a financial transaction. The program, which is operated in partnership with the African Development Center, makes Minneapolis the only city in the country to offer Islamic financing at a time when states are trying to ban sharia from the courts. “Minneapolis is a very welcoming city,” says Kristin Guild, the city’s business development manager. “Because [Somali immigrants] wear headscarves, they are visible as entrepreneurs and people see that they are setting up businesses in our town and creating jobs.”

Minnesota is home to the country’s largest Somali community, which is predominantly Sunni Muslim. An estimated 32,000 people of Somali ancestry live in the state, and about one-third of them live in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metro area, according to the latest census figures.

In the past 10 years, North African immigrants have opened teashops, pharmacies, and child-care centers in southwest Minneapolis storefronts that were once boarded up. But many of these entrepreneurs struggled to grow their businesses because Islamic law forbids Muslims from earning or paying interest, known as riba. So they couldn’t take out loans or participate in the city’s low-interest financing program for small businesses.   »»» NationalJournal.com

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The Secretary General of the Nigeria Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs, Prof. Ishaq Oloyede, on Monday, said the Boko Haram insurgents, waging war against the nation, were anti-Islam.

Oloyede made the remark at the ongoing National Conference in Abuja during a debate on a motion of national importance moved by Bishop Joseph Bagobiri and Seinde Arogbofa. Bagobiri and Arogbofa, representing Christian Leaders and the South-West respectively, had, on behalf of Christian delegates, moved the motion to felicitate with Muslims on commencement of the holy month of Ramadan.

They urged Muslims to use the holy month to pray for peace and unity in the country.

Responding to the motion, Oloyede acknowledged with gratitude “the message of goodwill expressed by our Christian brothers and sisters.’’

He said the insurgent group Boko Haram in the country was a common enemy and was not representing Islam in any way.

He added, “I will want to seize this opportunity to reassure Christians and indeed all citizens of this country that Muslims in Nigeria are not at war with anybody.

“We want to say emphatically that those who wage war in this country in the name of Islam do not represent Muslims.

The NSCIA secretary pointed out that Muslims were also victims of the insurgency and needed to be protected from attacks just like any other group.   »»» punchng.com

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The European Court of Human Rights has upheld a ban by France on wearing the Muslim full-face veil – the niqab.

A case was brought by a 24-year-old French woman, who argued that the ban on wearing the veil in public violated her freedom of religion and expression.

French law says nobody can wear in a public space clothing intended to conceal the face. The penalty for doing so can be a 150-euro fine (£120; $205).

France has about five million Muslims – the largest Muslim minority in Western Europe – but it is thought only about 2,000 women wear full veils.

The court ruled that the ban “was not expressly based on the religious connotation of the clothing in question but solely on the fact that it concealed the face”. The Strasbourg judges’ decision is final – there is no appeal against it.   »»» BBC News

Permanent niqab or face veil is NOT an Islamic requirement; it is a personal choice since niqab is forbidden during the rituals of the pilgrimage (hajj) to Mecca.

The Prophet (peace be upon him) said:

“A woman who is in the state of Ihram (during Hajj or Umra pilgrimage to Mecca) may NOT wear a niqab or gloves.” (Bukhari)

Most contemporary scholars view that hijab (covering the hair) fulfills the requirements for Muslim woman’s dress when in public and niqab goes beyond that.

The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said to Asma’, daughter of Abu Bakr (may Allah be pleased with them):

“O Asma’! Once a girl reaches puberty, nothing of her body may be seen (outside the family) except this and these, (he pointed to his face and hands while saying so).” (Abu Dawud, Al-Albani Classified it as Hasan)

We should reflect on the pilgrimage (hajj) rule that PROHIBITS women from covering the face in Mecca. In that situation, women are crowded among hundreds of thousands of male strangers. While covering the face may be an exceptional expression of piety by some Muslim women, it is certainly NOT a requirement of Islamic shari’ah.

In fact, the right of a government to forbid face coverings as a matter of ensuring public order and security can be justified under two subsidiary sources of shari’ah law: Custom (‘urf and ‘adat) and public welfare (istihsan, istislah, masalith al-mursalah).

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What’s in a name? asked William Shakespeare. Quite a lot, according to Malaysia’s high court. This week it upheld a ban on non-Muslims using the word “Allah”. The court rejected a challenge by the Roman Catholic Church to overturn the ban decreed by a lower court

I believe that on this ruling Malaysia has got it wrong both politically and religiously.

It is accepted that the increasingly hard line adopted against Christian and other minorities in Malaysia is a pandering by the government to extreme-right Muslim parties.Those supporting the ban offer arguments that it will preserve the fabric of Malaysian society.

Religiously, the ruling makes no sense at all. Islam has never claimed a monopoly on Allah. If anything Quranic texts demonstrate that Islam is a continuation of the previous Abrahamic faiths. Allah is designed to be inclusive. We should be happier for more people to use the word Allah than fewer.   »»» Malaysia-Chronicle.com

The “Allah” ban in Maylasia is unique in the Muslim world. The Arabic word is commonly used by Christians to describe God in such countries as Egypt, Syria and even nearby Indonesia, which is the world’s world’s largest Muslim nation.

The Aramaic word that Jesus used for God is “Elaha” and one of the Hebrew words for God is “Eloah”. Today, there are about 12 million Arabic-speaking Christians. They and their ancestors have been calling God “Allah” in their Bibles, hymns, poems, writings, and worship for over nineteen centuries.

Allah himself, through the revelation given to the Prophet Muhammad (peace be on him) plainly declares that Allah is the God of Muslims, Christians and Jews. The Roman Catholic Church has for over a thousand years declared through its Popes and its official documents that Christians, Jews and Muslims worship the same God. Someone in Malaysia is promoting this false debate in order to stir up ethic strife.

Even Malaysia’s radical Islamist political party PAS has said that the use of “Allah” is permitted among people of the three Abrahamic faiths. PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang made the statement in supporting an earlier court decision that allowed the Christian weekly newsletter The Herald to use the word.
In Islam’s early days, a delegation of Christians, accompanied by their bishop, came from Mecca’s neighbouring province of Narjan to discuss a treaty with the Prophet Muhammad. He allowed the group to say their Christian prayers in his own mosque. Furthermore, we also know that some of the Prophet’s companions and some other early Muslims, who were very faithful to the Prophet’s teachings, sometimes prayed in Christian churches when they were not able to go to a mosque.

It appears that the current Maylasian government is promoting this false debate in order to stir up ethic strife. To do so, Muslim government officials are willing to ignore the plain teaching of Allah himself, who said:

“Those who believe in the Qur’an, and those who follow the Jewish scriptures, and the Christians–all who believe in Allah and the Last Day, and work righteousness shall have their reward with their Lord; on them shall be no fear, nor shall they grieve.”(Qur’an 2:62)

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British Muslim TV, a new channel aimed at British Muslims will be launching in the UK this June. Its arrival joins an already growing number of specialized, niche channels for religious and ethnic minorities in recent years. But unlike most of these channels, the programme content of British Muslim TV has been exclusively funded and made in the UK.

Soon to air on the British Sky digital platform, filming has already been underway to create content that reflects the different voices of the Muslim community in the UK and to embody the tag line “Confidently Muslim, Comfortably British”. The channel has already generated interest through a social media campaign on both Facebook and Twitter.    »»»&nbspSailan Muslim (Sri Lanka)

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Saudi Arabia’s grand mufti has condemned Nigeria’s Boko Haram for its kidnapping of more than 200 schoolgirls and described the group as “set up to smear the image of Islam”.

Sheikh Abdulaziz Al al-Sheikh said the movement, which says it wants to establish a pure Islamic state in northern Nigeria, was misguided.

His remarks came as religious leaders in the Muslim world, who rarely comment on militant violence, joined in denouncing Boko Haram’s leader, Abubakar Shekau, for saying Allah had told him to sell off the kidnapped girls as forced brides.

“These groups are not on the right path because Islam is against kidnapping, killing and aggression,” he said. “Marrying kidnapped girls is not permitted.”

Boko Haram militants kidnapped more than 200 girls from a secondary school in Chibok village, near the Cameroon border, while they took exams on 14 April. Fifty have since escaped.

On Thursday, Islamic scholars and human rights officials at the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation denounced the kidnapping as “a gross misinterpretation of Islam“.

This week, Al-Azhar, the prestigious Cairo-based seat of Sunni learning, also said that the kidnappings had “nothing to do with the tolerant and noble teachings of Islam“.   »»» 
theguardian.com

The leaders and followers of Boko Haram have strayed from the path of Islam and have on numerous occasions committed one the most serious crimes under Islamic law: hirabah (brigandage, banditry, terrorism, rape).

Hibarah is the action of a group or an individual by which property is seized or destroyed and people are killed or kidnapped. The Qur’an describes it as “war against God and his Messenger” and as “spreading mischief in the land (fasad fil ard)”.

The punishment for hibarah is death.

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The Government of Canada has adopted a new regulation to control the use of “halal” in food labelling.

“1. The Food and Drug Regulations (see footnote 1) are amended by adding the following after section B.01.049:

“B.01.050. A person must not use, in labelling, packaging, advertising or selling a food, the word “halal” — or any letters of the Arabic alphabet or any other word, expression, depiction, sign, symbol, mark, device or other representation that indicates or that is likely to create an impression that the food is halal — unless the name of the person or body that certified the food as halal is indicated on the label or package or in the advertisement or sale.

“COMING INTO FORCE

“2. These Regulations come into force two years after the day on which they are registered.”    »»» Sailan Muslim (Sri Lanka)

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Police in India have arrested 22 people for helping separatist rebels accused of killing 29 Muslims in the worst outbreak of ethnic violence in the remote north-eastern region in two years.

Authorities called in the army to restore order in Assam state and imposed an indefinite curfew in the wake of the violence blamed on rebels from the Bodo tribe, who have long accused Muslim residents of sneaking into India illegally from neighbouring Bangladesh.

No fresh violence was reported today.

A state minister for border areas, Siddique Ahmed, said after visiting the violence-hit areas that his government and the ruling Congress party failed to protect the victims, who included at least eight children.

“Even two-year-old children who could barely walk have been shot dead. I have never witnessed such scenes in my life,” he told reporters.   »»» BelfastTelegraph.co.uk

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Brunei has become the first East Asian country to adopt sharia law, despite widespread condemnation from international human rights groups.

The Islamic criminal law is set to include punishments such as flogging, dismemberment and death by stoning for crimes such as rape, adultery and sodomy. The religious laws will operate alongside the existing civil penal code.

During a ceremony Wednesday morning, the Sultan of Brunei, Hassanal Bolkiah, announced the commencement of the first phase of the sharia-based penal code, according to the government’s official website.

The oil-rich kingdom, located on the island of Borneo, has a population of just 412,000 people. The country already follows a more conservative Islamic rule than neighboring Muslim-dominated countries like Indonesia and Malaysia, and has implemented strict religiously-motivated laws, such as the banning of the sale of alcohol.   »»» CNN.com

Shari’ah is NOT a code of laws. It is a juristic foundation on which a system of laws can be built. For example, there has NEVER been complete agreement among Muslim jurists and religious experts on the list of crimes that can be punished by death or on the specific details of when and how extreme sentences can be applied. In many instances, the implementation of so-called “shari’ah law” has opened the door for unequal treatment and the use of extreme measures for political ends.

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