Norway has announced the appointment of a young Muslim woman, who is around 30 years of age, as minister of culture.

This is the same Norway where a fanatic man named Anders Behring Breivik went on a rampage last year, killing about 70 people in protest against the cultural heterogeneity and the migration of Muslims to the Nordic country.

When young Muslim Hadia Tajik was appointed minister of culture in this country, which is known for its profound respect for culture, it was an indication that even though there are fanatics such as Breivik, the scope of tolerance is much wider to be narrowed by a crime or a number of crimes of religious nature. This greater tolerance has enabled a young Muslim woman to become a culture minister in a country which has recently witnessed the phenomenon of hate culture which was not known before.   »»» MENAFN

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Egyptian prosecutors referred to trial Tuesday a well-known radical Islamist who tore up a copy of the Bible during a protest outside the U.S. Embassy in Cairo against an anti-Islam film produced in the United States.

The case against Ahmed Mohammed Abdullah is a rare example of Egypt’s blasphemy laws — often condemned by rights groups as restrictive of freedom— used against someone who allegedly insulted a religion other than Islam.

Abdullah, also known as Abu Islam, was filmed during a protest outside the embassy two weeks ago as he stood before the crowd and ripped up the holy book. “Next time I will urinate on it,” he says in another video. Both videos were posted online.

Contempt towards “heavenly” religions — a term usually taken to include Christianity, Islam, and Judaism — is punishable by up to five years in Egypt. But lawyers and rights groups say the definition of contempt of religion is vague and has been used frequently against critics of Islam only, not other faiths.   »»» Asharq Alawsat Newspaper

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Two US marines are facing criminal charges for urinating on the bodies of dead Taliban fighters in Afghanistan, after their actions were caught on a video that circulated widely on the internet, the US military said on Monday.

Staff sergeants Joseph W Chamblin and Edward W Deptola will face courts martial, the first criminal charges faced by anyone over the incident. The video prompted widespread anger in Afghanistan earlier this year; the Afghan President Hamid Karzai called the marines’ actions “inhuman”.

Chamblin and Deptola, were also charged with “posing for unofficial photographs with human casualties”, and will face charges over failing to report or stop misconduct by junior marines, the military said. Three marines have already been disciplined over the urination incident.   »»» guardian.co.uk

When Hugo Grotius wrote De Jure Belli Ac Pacis (On the Law of War and Peace) several centuries ago, the obligation to respect the bodies of fallen enemies was already universal. Grotius writes, “all animosity against the vanquished and the dead must cease, because they have suffered the last of evils that can be inflicted. If there have been struggles among the living, your hatred surely must be satisfied with the death of an adversary. For the tongue of strife is now silenced. The rules, respecting this (respect for cadavers), are observed, even while the utmost rage of war still continues. For the hand of death has destroyed all enmity towards the fallen, and protected their bodies from all insult.”

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The Louvre Museum is unveiling a new wing and galleries dedicated to the arts of Islam, culminating a nearly €100 million ($130 million), decade-long project coming to fruition amid tensions between the Muslim world and the West.

The new dragonfly-shaped building marks the famed Paris museum’s greatest development since its iconic glass pyramid constructed 20 years ago. The Department of Islamic Art will exhibit much of the Louvre’s 18,000 Islamic works, hoping also to foster cultural understanding.

Louvre director Henri Loyrette says the galleries aim to showcase “the radiant face of a civilization.”

In a sign of the political importance of the new Louvre exhibit, French President Francois Hollande attended an opening ceremony Tuesday, calling it a “political gesture in the service of respect for peace.” The Saudi prince and the president of Azerbaijan, accompanied him.

Hollande criticized those who “destroy the values of Islam by resorting to violence and hate.”   »»» Asharq Alawsat Newspaper

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Muslim civil rights groups and community organisations have condemned a series of anti-Islamic advertisements that will be appearing in New York’s subway stations next week and which are considered insulting by ALL Muslims.

The ads had initially been rejected by the city’s Metropolitan Transport Authority (MTA) but were later allowed after a legal appeal ruled them to be expressions of freedom of speech. One ad reads: “In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. Support Israel. Defeat jihad.”

The ads are set to appear in at least 10 of the city’s 400 subways stations and have been designed and paid for by the controversial American Freedom Defence Initiative, which is led by outspoken anti-Islamist activist Pamela Geller. The AFDI has been termed an “active anti-Muslim group” by the civil rights watch dog organisation the Southern Poverty Law Centre.   »»» guardian.co.uk

In the West, the word “jihad” has come to be a synonym for “terrorist” because of its use by some radical “Muslims”. However, for Muslims in general “jihad” as nothing to do with terrorism.

Jihad is a religious duty of Muslims. In Arabic, the verb jahada means “strive” or “exert an effort”. Jihad is therefore a form of struggle or striving. The term appears frequently in the Qur’an and in common usage in the idiomatic expression “striving in the way of Allah (al-jihad fi sabil Allah)”. A person engaged in jihad is called a mujahid, the plural is mujahideen.

Jihad requires Muslims to struggle in God’s cause and to strive to improve one’s self and society. Jihad is directed against temptation, negative aspects of one’s own self, or a visible enemy. It is the effort of believers to establish God’s Kingdom among men.

Jihad can be classified as the greater jihad (al-jihad al-akbar), that is, the struggle against one’s lower self (an-nafs), or as the lesser jihad (al-jihad al-asghar), that is, an external, physical effort, which often involves fighting against an external enemy.

The primary historical basis for this belief is a pair of similarly worded Prophetic Traditions (hadiths), in which Muhammad (peace be upon him) is reported to have told warriors returning home from battle that they had returned from the lesser jihad of struggle in war to the greater jihad of struggle against self.

There are four categories of struggle in the cause of God (al-jihad fi sabil Allah):

Jihad of the heart (al-jihad bil-qalb) is concerned with combatting the devil and in the attempt to escape his persuasion to evil. This form of jihad is regarded as the greater jihad (al-jihad al-akbar).

Jihad by the tongue (al-jihad bil-lisan) is concerned with speaking the truth and spreading the word of Islam through the spoken or written word.

Jihad by the hand (al-jihad bil-yad) is concerned with choosing to do what is right and to combat injustice and wrongdoing with postive action.

Jihad by the sword (al-jihad bis-saif) refers to armed fighting in the way of God (al-qital fi sabil Allah). This category of jihad, which often takes the form of organized miitary action, is what is often mistranslated as “holy war”. Such a concept is foreign to Islam. The closest analogy in Western philosophy is the Christian concept of “just war”.

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If I deliberately wound up an angry, resentful acquaintance to the point where he went on a rampage and murdered someone, I like to think I would have some regrets, that the important detail would not be the fact that it was my right to make the points I did, in the manner I did, but that I had caused someone to kill and someone to die.

Similarly, I like to believe that if a teacher called to say my child was insisting on her right to criticise the physical, intellectual and social shortcomings of some of her classmates, and that it was causing those classmates distress, then I would have a word with my child about her behaviour.

I would also like to think that were I the editor of a French satirical magazine, having just watched as swaths of people across a number of countries erupted into sometimes fatal anger over a film they believed had insulted them, I would not think: “Cool. Let’s see if we can stoke that nightmare right up again.”

However, an astonishing number of people seem to feel differently. The right to free speech is not in the least abused, it seems, when troublemaking hotheads decide their provocative opinions have more legitimacy than any other consideration within the complex matrix of human responsibility.

The worst irony? Despite the many differences between the Islamic world and the west, we have one vast arrogance in common: we won’t content ourselves with living and letting live. We each want our values to be universally adopted. We each want to be proved right. We each want to win.

Mass Arab street protest thrills the west when we agree with it – as with the Arab spring – and appals if we don’t – as when we see a heated anti-American uprising. Yet indiscriminate anti- Americanism is no more or less valid than indiscriminate Islamophobia. Maybe it is time for both western and Islamist hotheads to have a think about this, for example: “Indeed, Allah will not change the condition of a people until they change what is in themselves.” (Quran 13:11). Smart advice. Works for everyone.

Islamists need to stop attacking the west, and issuing fatwas against those outside the Islamic belief system. Likewise, the west needs to solve its own problems, rather than insisting on interfering in the affairs of Muslims, while failing to admit that previous interference might have provoked much of the “Muslim rage” that westerners find so “medieval”. In fact, the finger-wagging criticism from Islamaphobic zealots is just more of the “We know what’s best; you do what you’re told” attitude that has already caused such mayhem. It is time for both parties to get a grip.   »»» The Guardian

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In a video message, Nouman Ali Khan of the Bayyinah Institute appeals to the Quran, the behavior of the Prophet Muhammad, and common sense in upbraiding violent believers for letting Islamophobes get their goat and provoking them to actions that detract from the reputation of Muslims and Islam.   »»» Informed Comment

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•Why are some Muslims so angry over recent derogatory depictions of the Prophet Muhammad?

All the prophets – Muhammad, Jesus Moses and others [of the Abrahamic religions] – are highly respected figures in the Islamic faith. One cannot differentiate between them in terms of the reverence that should be given to each. Therefore Muslims believe that the prophets have a higher status than other people. To ridicule them or their lives is an insult to the origin of their faith, and therefore any abuse to them is abuse of Muslims in general.

•Why does the Quran, which Muslims regard as the continuation of the Jewish and Christian holy books that came before it, consider depictions of the prophets to be blasphemous while the other religions do not?

Depictions of the prophets is not blasphemous in Islam, And the problem is not depicting the Prophet, but rather the abuse of him. The Quran does not ban depiction of the prophets; it makes no mention of this point. But Islamic scholars have forbidden the depiction of the prophets out of respect to them. There is no person who is able to render the values and full form of the prophets. Muslims believe in higher unseen principles that cannot be personified as ordinary humans.

•Are the only Muslims angry over the depiction of the Prophet Muhammad only Salafist groups or other conservatives?

Such abuse of the Prophet Muhammad and all prophets enrages Muslims everywhere around the world because it is an attack on their beliefs, and an abuse of a highly respected figure of their religion.

•Are the cartoons and videos depicting the Prophet Muhammad not just examples of individuals or publications practising freedom of speech in their respective countries?

Muslims cannot perceive these acts as merely “freedom of expression,” because there is a difference between freedom of expression and these actions. The former is holding an opinion or idea, while the latter is seen as abuse and ridicule.

•Is there a political element to these protests?

We have to differentiate between the anger and abuse that Muslims feel towards insults against their beliefs and the reaction that we’re seeing today in the form of protest, some of which could be considered politically motivated.

Why are some religious leaders in the Muslim community encouraging protest?

All scholars condemn the violent protest but they express their ideas of how to show their objection differently. Some of them encourage peaceful protest, while others think that issuing statements is enough, and others prefer to guide people to follow the Prophet’s way of life and others prefer to clarify and explain the Prophet’s teaching to western society.   »»» Al Jazeera English

As many Islamic scholars have pointed out, violent protests of any kind and especially those that harm innocent people are a grave in. Furthermore, the Prophet Muhammad NEVER punished those who abused him nor did he call on others to punish them. The Qur’an says: “If they (the believers) pass by some evil play or evil talk, they ignore it with dignity.” (25:72)

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Saudi Arabia’s Grand Mufti, the highest religious authority in the birthplace of Islam, on Saturday denounced attacks on diplomats and embassies as un-Islamic after deadly protests against a U.S.-made film mocking Islam’s founder.

“It is forbidden to punish the innocent for the wicked crimes of the guilty, or to attack those who have been granted protection of their lives and property, or to expose public buildings to fire or destruction,” he said in a speech carried by state news agency SPA.

Describing the release of the crudely made short film as “miserable” and “criminal”, he added that attacks on the innocent and diplomats “are also a distortion of the Islamic religion and are not accepted by God.”
   »»» Reuters

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The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) today released a video appeal in Arabic to those protesting an anti-Islam film, portions of which have been circulating on the Internet.

In the video, CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Awad tells viewers in the Middle East that ordinary Americans and the U.S. government should not be blamed for the religious hatred expressed in the film.

He explains that the low-quality production was designed to provoke religious sensitivities and to distract from the positive efforts being undertaken to improve newly-free societies in the wake of the Arab Spring.

Awad’s appeal notes that the controversy over the film distracts from more important issues such as the struggle for freedom in Syria, the need for justice for the Palestinian people and ongoing killings of Muslims in Burma.

He quoted a verse in the Qur’an, which states that no soul will carry the burdens of another and asked viewers to emulate Islam’s Prophet Muhammad, who did not retaliate in kind to personal abuse.   »»» CAIR Releases Arabic Video Appeal on Anti-Islam Film Protests

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