» Confessions of a hijabi | The Dawn Blog | Pakistan, Cricket, Politics, Terrorism, Satire, Food, Culture and Entertainment

 

 

I watched the much talked about My Name is Khan the other day. The brilliant depiction of an autistic person by Shah Rukh Khan and Karan Johar’s surprisingly taut direction made for a good film. I had been warned by friends to keep tissues handy, as many friends had their eyeliners washed away as they sniffled through the film.

I have never been emotionally vulnerable and usually don’t cry in public, so although the film was stirring, it did not send me scrambling through my handbag for those back-up tissues. That is, except for one scene. And in that one scene, I felt a lump form in my throat as I reached for that tissue paper. On screen, actress Sonya Jehan – who plays Khan’s sister-in-law, a working woman who wears a hijab while living on the West Coast of the United States – is walking down a hallway when her hijab is pulled off. This is yet another expression of resentment against Muslims in the wake of the 9/11 attacks that the film portrays. After the insult, Jehan’s character decides to no longer cover her head in public.

via » Confessions of a hijabi | The Dawn Blog | Pakistan, Cricket, Politics, Terrorism, Satire, Food, Culture and Entertainment.

Don’t fear the Islamists – Hindustan Times

Like Egyptians from all walks of life, we in the Muslim Brotherhood are taking part in the popular uprising to depose a repressive dictator. The overwhelming majority of Egyptians demand the immediate ouster of Hosni Mubarak and his regime.

via Don’t fear the Islamists – Hindustan Times.

EDITORIAL: The next Mideast war – Washington Times

 

 

The Obama administration is pressing a reset button to return the Middle East to the bad old days of open Arab-Israeli warfare. The White House is requiring participation of the Muslim Brotherhood in any prospective new Egyptian government, while the brothers themselves are telling their countrymen to “prepare for war.” The current crisis in Egypt and the Obama administration’s maladroit response are forcing strategists to consider conflict scenarios that had been mothballed since the�1970s.�

The Camp David Accords have formed the bedrock of U.S. security policy in the Mideast region since they were signed in 1978. The strategic logic behind the accords was that no coalition of Arab states could have a chance of waging a successful conventional conflict against Israel without including powerful Egypt. Subtracting Cairo from the equation would mean no new Arab-Israeli�wars.

via EDITORIAL: The next Mideast war – Washington Times.

Appeal sought in US Sharia case – Americas – Al Jazeera English

 

Appeal sought in US Sharia case – Americas – Al Jazeera English.

The Oklahoma State Election Board has voted to ask the attorney general to appeal a court’s decision to grant a preliminary injunction on a ban preventing the use of Sharia and other international laws in the state.

The vote comes after the state legislator who wrote the proposal on Tuesday lashed out at the judge who blocked it, calling her a “liberal, activist judge”.

The Associated Press reported that Rex Duncan, a former Republican state representative, criticised US district judge Vicki Miles-LaGrange’s ruling this week to grant a preliminary injunction, preventing the state from certifying the results of the November 2 election.

More than 70 per cent of voters approved State Question 755 (the “Save Our State Amendment” proposition), which would place the Islamic (Sharia) law ban into the state constitution. The question proposed to preemptively ban “considering or using” international law and Sharia.

Duncan said “one would surmise that her [judge’s] sympathies were with the plaintiff”.

“But hers won’t be the final order on the matter,” he added.

The plaintiff, Muneer Awad, is a Muslim living in Oklahoma who claims the proposed ban is unconstitutional.

Along with the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) in Oklahoma, Awad sued to block the law from taking effect. He argues the ban on Islamic law likely would affect every aspect of his life as well as the execution of his will after his death.

Duncan has charged that Muslim rights groups such as the CAIR want to hijack the US legal system.

Precedent-setting potential

He said he has also heard from legislators in as many as a dozen US states who are interested in introducing similar bills intended to prevent foreign laws from being used, although he declined to say which states.

What is Sharia?

Sharia generally refers to rules based on the Quran, the statements and deeds of the Prophet Muhammad combined with  scholarly and legal consensus. These rules tend to be interpreted differently from region to region, community to community, and judge to judge. They can be used as basis of law to govern a country, as a personal code or as a means of settling domestic and commercial disputes.

The move could also complicate the way US courts already recognise some aspects of Sharia, as National Public Radio reported, in business contracts and divorce settlements.

But when pressed, the courts will always rely on US laws over faith-based ones and avoid having to interpret religious laws.

Noah Feldman, a Harvard law professor specialising in US constitutional law and religious studies, told Al Jazeera that the ban in Oklahoma “almost certainly” violates the First Amendment rights of of Muslims.

He called the ban “a surprising piece of legislation that came out of the Islamophobia that has unfortunately surfaced in the US in the past few months”, and said that striking the ban down is the right course of action for the courts to take.

“Under existing law, you cannot endorse or disfavour a particular religion, and the passage of this constitutional amendment is intended to disfavour Islam,” said Feldman, who was unaware of any similar precedent.

“It’s a violation of the free exercise of Muslims in Oklahoma and it’s a violation of the separation between church and state.”

International issue

Sharia and other faith-based laws were used in Ontario, Canada since 1991, allowing Christian, Jewish and Muslim Canadians access to faith-based tribunals to resolve family and domestic disputes.

But a major backlash against specifically the use of Sharia put an end to the practise in 2005, effectively doing away with faith-based courts in the country.

One of Canada’s national newspapers, the Globe and Mail, reported at the time that “moderate Muslims” were “overjoyed” and that orthodox Jews and Christian leaders were “disappointed” by the decision.

In Britain, faith-based courts, including ones following Sharia are commonly used and groups in Sweden andHolland have also had debates on the issue, with – in Sweden’s case – Sharia courts operating outside the scope of the law.

Related articles

• Al Jazeera English: Two arrested in Iran after inteviewing stoning woman’s son (blogs.journalism.co.uk)

The 99: the Islamic superheroes getting into bed with Batman | Books | The Observer

The 99: the Islamic superheroes getting into bed with Batman | Books | The Observer.

Even if you deliberately set out to try to dream up the least probable superhero ever, it’s unlikely that you’d manage to come up with a character as far-fetched as Batina the Hidden. Forget Wonder Worm, or a man born with the powers of a newt, Batina is a superhero of a kind the world hasn’t until now seen. It’s not just that she’s a Muslim woman, from a country best known for harbouring al-Qaida operatives – Yemen – but that she wears an altogether new kind of super-person costume: a burqa.

She, along with her fellow crime-fighters, a vast team of characters from around the world, including Jabbar the Powerful from Saudi Arabia and Hadya the Guide from London, collectively known as “The 99”, are the world’s first Islam-inspired superheroes. And this week, in what is perhaps the ultimate comic-book accolade, they will join forces with Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman. DC Comics, the US publishinggiant, will publish the first of six special crossover issues in which The 99 will be fighting crime alongside the Justice League of America, the fictional superhero team that includes Superman and Batman.

What’s even more remarkable is that The 99 only came into being in 2007 with some remarkable firsts: the first comic book superheroes to have Muslim names and be directed at an international audience and the first to come out of the Middle East. Crossovers don’t happen often and even less often with characters that are just three years old. Even The 99’s creator and mastermind, a Kuwaiti-born, American-educated psychologist and entrepreneur called Naif al-Mutawa, seems to be having some trouble believing the Superman link-up.

 

Related Articles

• Meet the Islamic superheroes (guardian.co.uk)

Ussama Makdisi: Anti-Islamic Resolution Undermines Secular Society

Image via Wikipedia

Ussama Makdisi: Anti-Islamic Resolution Undermines Secular Society.

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Harvard faces protests over honour for Islamophobic editor | World news | The Guardian

Harvard faces protests over honour for Islamophobic editor | World news | The Guardian.

Field Trip to a Mosque

I would like some feedback on this video. I do not agree a field trip is the appropriate scene for religious training. I would also like to ask how many of us were taken by the hand as a little child to the alter at the front of the church, made to kneel and “accept” Jesus? Did we know what was going on? Exposure to different faiths are not damaging to children, but we have separation of church and state and no religion in schools for a reason.

altmuslim – Islamic law: Who’s afraid of shariah?

altmuslim – Islamic law: Who’s afraid of shariah?.

Assuming all Muslims follow medieval Islamic rules today is like assuming that all Catholics follow 9th century canon law. Islam, like Christianity, has changed many times over the centuries, and it continues to change.

Ground Zero was sanctified by the blood of the fallen on 9/11 – regardless of religion

Ground Zero was sanctified by the blood of the fallen on 9/11 – regardless of religion.