The U.S. Department of Defense will begin allowing Muslim and Sikh students who wear an Islamic head scarf (hijab) or a turban to participate in the Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (JROTC).

In a Dec. 19 letter, Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army Larry Stubblefield wrote:

”I have been asked to respond on behalf of the Secretary of Defense Leon E. Panetta to your October 13, 2011 letter concerning Miss Demin Zawity’s request to wear a religious head covering (hijab) while participating in an Army Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps (JROTC) event at Ravenwood High School.

“Based on your concerns, the Army has reviewed its JROTC uniform policy and will develop appropriate procedures to provide Cadets the opportunity to request the wear of religious head dress, such as the turban and hijab. This change will allow Miss Zawity and other students the chance to fully participate in the JROTC program.”   »»» Orlando Sentinel (U.S.)

Go to article…

The British State has been attempting to develop a version of Islam that is subservient to a secular ideology, ever since the Rushdie affair. This version of Islam has been widely described as “moderate” Islam in the media. The State has also been grooming individuals and organisations whom it would deal with as representatives of “moderate” Islam (moderate Islam for them being Islam without politics and ideas of governance).

Having prosecuted or marginalised some preachers, created new groups to tow the line, attempted to outlaw some Muslim groups, withdrawn funding for those groups who it was alleged hold the wrong version of Islam; what remained was to outlaw certain ideas and ban the materials in which they were contained. This would then allow for an unchallenged promotion of “moderate “Islam and reduce the space for promotion of what Neo –con writers call “political” Islam. Of course the British State could not pursue a direct ban on books. Instead, in this next phase on the war on Islamic ideas, it has chosen to pursue a back door policy of effectively banning books using terrorism laws and the courts.

In recent cases, British courts have ruled that certain books and videos are terrorist material, effectively banning them and classing the ideas contained within them as not being genuine Islam. On the 13th December, a Birmingham bookseller (in Regina vs Faraz ), was sentenced to three years, for publishing and distributing a number of books and DVD’s classed as terrorist material ( using the opinions of an expert Muslim witness whose own ideology was clearly different to that of the authors in question, and hence his opinion was a difference of thought , not expertise ). This trial clearly shows that the next phase of the battle to create a compliant Islam is now being played out in British courts.

The books being judged and sold by Faraz inlcuded Milestones by Sayyid Qutb, and a number of writings by Sheikh Abdullah Azzam , Hassan al Banna and others. These were written in a different era, and for different conflict situations, yet judgements were made on them in Britain 2011. The prosecution case, the “expert” testimony and the Judges summing up, all point to the fact that it was not Faraz who was on trial but Qutb, Abdullah Azzam and the ideas and thoughts in the books; and whether or not they constituted legitimate Islam as defined by the states prosecution and “expert “. Having established that the books on trial represented an erroneous interpretation of Islam, Faraz as was bound to be found guilty. His crime was to be a publisher and bookseller of the books and hence to be associated with them, and by implication an adherent of the “erroneous “ideas and thoughts in the books now defined as “terrorist”. Therefore we have had the ludicrous situation where a British Court has been debating at length the legitimacy of the ideas of Syed Qutb, Abdullah Azzam, Hassan al Banna, Ibn Taymiyyah; and whether they had correctly interpreted verses of the Quran. And we have had the absurdity of a British Jury and Judge passing judgment on what is and isn’t legitimate Islamic thought and ideas.   »»» New Civilisation

Go to article…

Violence against women has no place in a religion that proclaims equal rights for males and females, Canada’s Muslim leaders say.

Ongoing publicity surrounding an Ontario murder trial featuring prominent discussions of honour killings motivated imams throughout the country to tackle the topic of domestic violence in their Friday prayer sessions.

Their sermons reinforced one of the key messages of the Qur’an and reminds Muslims that respect for women is a fundamental part of their faith, they said.

“Domestic violence is very un-Islamic. It’s a crime in the eyes of the law, it’s a crime in the Islamic teaching,” Imam Soharwardy said in a telephone interview. “Prophet Mohammed has clearly said in very unambiguous words that women have rights on men and men have an obligation to treat their wife and daughters . . .with kindness and courtesy.”

Soharwardy said members of the Islamic Supreme Council and other Muslim organizations across Canada felt the need to speak out against the image of repressive violence emerging from a courtroom in Kingston, Ont. There, Mohammad Shafia, his son Hamed and his wife Tooba Yahya are facing four counts each of first degree murder in the deaths of four female family members.

The Crown alleges the victims died for dishonouring the family either by dating, skipping school or planning to leave the household. Shafia, his wife and son have pleaded not guilty to all charges.

“Hypothetically, if a person has killed a family because a person, male or female, is doing something un-Islamic, Islamic teaching says this person should be brought to a court,” he said. “I cannot take law in my hands. This is un-Islamic.”   »»» Global Regina

Go to article…

Ninety-five percent of prosecutions in Pakistan for insulting the Prophet Mohammed or the Koran are false, according to a high-profile Muslim lawyer in the country.

The legal expert, who cannot be named for security reasons, said in most cases the law is abused by people bent on carrying out a personal vendetta. In a statement given to Aid to the Church in Need, the lawyer claimed that almost all prosecutions are against poor people who have “no status in society” and cannot defend themselves.

The lawyer’s statement comes at a time of heightened concern about Pakistan’s infamous Blasphemy Laws.

The Blasphemy Laws were introduced in the 1980s and controversy centres around Articles 295B which sentences people guilty of desecrating the Koran to life imprisonment and 295C which imposes the death penalty on those who insult the Prophet Mohammed.

In his statement, the lawyer highlighted abuses against the law both in court proceedings and police investigations, claiming that massive workload meant that cases were not investigated properly.

According to Pakistan law, evidence must be gathered within 14 days. The accused is arrested and incarcerated if the evidence suggests he is guilty.

Evidence gathering often takes 14 months during which time the accused is in jail.

According to the Catholic Church’s Commission for Justice and Peace in Pakistan, 38 people were accused of blasphemy last year, of whom 14 were Christians.   »»» Independent Catholic News

Go to article…

Icelandic parliament has passed a resolution making the country the first in western Europe to accept Palestine as an independent state.

Iceland’s foreign minister, Ossur Skarphedinsson, said he would discuss the outcome of the vote with other Nordic countries before making a formal declaration on Palestinian statehood.

Iceland has become the first western european country to recognise Palestine as an independent state.

The Icelandic parliament said in a statement on its website that it had passed a motion to recognse Palestine “as an independent and sovereign state” based on borders predating the six-day war of 1967.   »»» Sailan Muslim (Sri Lanka)

Go to article…

The Muslim Brotherhood’s success in the first round of Egypt’s elections has added to western fears of an Islamist future for the Middle East. But this does not necessarily mean that democracy and liberal policies face extinction.

Welcome to the age of “political Islam”, which may prove to be one of the most lasting legacies of the Arab spring. It is not only in Egypt that an unprecedented Islamist political moment is playing out. In the recent Tunisian elections the moderate Islamist Ennahda party was the biggest winner, while Morocco has elected its first Islamist prime minister, Abdelilah Benkirane.

In Yemen and Libya, too, it seems likely that political Islam will define the shape of the new landscape.

None of which should be at all surprising. Indeed, if elections in Egypt and Tunisia had been held at any other time in the past two decades, the same result would almost certainly have ensued, reflecting both the levels of organisation of Ennahda and the Brotherhood and the countries’ cultural, economic and social dynamics.

“It was a change that was supposed to happen a long time ago,” says Omar Ashour, who lectures on the subject of political Islam at Exeter University and is currently in Cairo.

So what, precisely, does the rise of electoral Islamist politics mean for the Middle East and North Africa?

“Islamism is a term that has been used to describe two very different trends,” wrote Maha Azzam, an associate fellow at Chatham House, in a recent paper on the implications of the Arab spring for British foreign policy earlier this year.

“First, [it describes] the non-violent quest for an Islamic-friendly society based on the ‘principles of Islam’, which can involve a more liberal application of Islamic teachings and tradition or a more strict interpretation. Second, Islamism is also associated with violent extremism, most notably that of al-Qaida in the promotion of terrorism.”

Azzam, like a number of experts, is firm in the belief that, if the Arab spring has demonstrated anything about Islamism today, it is how those cleaving to the second, violent definition have become ever more marginalised in the Arab world.   »»» The Observer (U.K.)

Go to article…

Imperial Security Inc. has agreed to pay $50,000 to settle a federal religious discrimination lawsuit involving a Muslim employee’s religious head covering, the U.S. federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission said Monday.

The EEOC said Julie Holloway-Russell had worn a khimar (hijab)—a cloth that covers her hair, ears and neck, as required by her religious beliefs—when she interviewed for a job as a security guard at the Philadelphia-based firm in November 2009. However, she was told to remove the khimar when she reported to her first work assignment. After she refused to do so, she was terminated.   »»» Business Insurance

Go to article…

The Muslim Brotherhood and other religious parties in Egypt (including the Salafis and the Gama’a al-Islamiya) held a rally at al-Husayn Square in Cairo last Friday to which a few thousand people came. The big rally was at Tahrir Square in downtown Cairo and was dominated by secular forces.

In an Arabic News article about the Muslim religious rally, clearly written by a reporter on the scene. It does not say anything about the speakers or the crowd threatening to kill all Jews, and I don’t believe any such threat was made.

The allegation was made by Eldad Beck, who complained of “Arab hate” at the rally. Beck, who clearly does not know what he is talking about, said that the crowd repeatedly quoted a verse in the Qur’an that spoke of killing all Jews. There is no such verse in the Islamic holy book. The Jewish revelation from God to Abraham and Moses is retold in the Qur’an, which has positive stories of the Children of Israel. The castigation of the Children of Israel in the Qur’an is of the same sort you see in the Hebrew Bible, and often put in the mouth of Moses or another Jewish prophet.

That Beck’s shoddy and wholly inaccurate reporting has been relayed by the Jerusalem Post and a host of other news outlets without question is shameful. If Beck had simply said that the Muslim Brotherhood crowds want Jerusalem back for Islamdom and evinced hostility toward Israelis, he would have been right. But his breathless exaggeration slides over into Islamophobia.

The crowd appears to have shouted that Muslims should raise their children to fight (muqatalah) the Israelis (in Palestinian colloquial Arabic, Israelis are referred to as “al-Yahud,” “the Jews.”). The word to “kill” (qatala) is from the same root as the word for “fight” (muqatalah). So presumably Beck heard the former and mistranslated it by the latter.

Note that the sheikh did not say this, but some people shouted it from the crowd, according to journalist Amira Salim. We don’t know who those people were. To phrase it that “the Muslim Brotherhood said” it would be bad journalism.

Saying that “Jerusalem is ours, the Israelis have captured it and are altering its character and gradually chasing out its Muslims and endangering its Islamic shrines, and that we will fight them for it” is not exactly the same thing as saying “let’s kill all the Jews.”

The Qur’an doesn’t call for all Jews to be killed, and neither did the Muslim Brotherhood last Friday.   »»» Informed Comment

Go to article…

Morocco’s moderate Islamist Justice and Development Party (PJD) has won parliamentary elections, say officials.

According to provisional results, the PJD won 80 seats in the 395-seat assembly, Interior Minister Taib Cherkaoui told a news conference. That would make it the largest party and give it the right to lead a government.

The poll is part of reforms which King Mohamed VI hopes will defuse protests prompted by the Arab Spring.

Morocco’s current Prime Minister, Abbas Al Fassi, said on Saturday his nationalist Istiqlal party was ready to enter into a coalition with the PJD party.

“The PJD’s victory is a victory for democracy,” he told Reuters.   »»» BBC News

Go to article…

Only five years ago, critical remarks by Pope Benedict about Islam sparked off violent protests in several Muslim countries. Never very good, relations between the world’s two largest religions sank to new lows in modern times.

This week, while protesters in the Arab world were demanding democracy and civil rights, Catholics and Muslims met along the Jordan River for frank and friendly talks about their differences and how to get beyond their misunderstandings.

The Catholic-Muslim Forum, which grew out of the tensions following Benedict’s speech in the German city of Regensburg, was overshadowed by events in Egypt, Yemen and Syria. The lack of any dramatic news here reflected the progress the two sides have made since 2006.

“We have passed from formal dialogue to a dialogue between friends,” Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, head of the Vatican’s department for interfaith dialogue, said at the conference held near the Jordan River site believed to be where Jesus was baptised. “We realised that we have a common heritage.”   »»» Reuters

Go to article…