Islamism & Islamophobia Abroad - News & Analysis (9-8-2014)

[A_Gupta]

^^^They write Article 11 of the Malaysian Constitution gives the right to an individual to choose freely his or her religion. But conversion from Islam to your former religion is either not allowed by the law or is a criminal offense in each of the 13 states of Malaysia.

[shiv]

I am cross posting a post I made in the shitland thread because, re reading it gave me a sudden "aha" moment - which I have recently learned has a word for it - an "epiphany" . Will make a separate post to explain the epiphany

Seriously, why are we conceding to this rhetorical subset of violent Indian Muslims that they represent Islam? Just because they say so? We can certainly tell this group where to stuff their religious constitution, and that we don't respect it. We don't have to take a position that what they have **is** Islam (or **is not** Islam). The basis for fighting them is that they are violent and unconstitutional..

I think we have been though the types of dilemmas this situation throws up because it is never just the two parties - i.e the terrorists purporting to attack in the name of Islam and the Indian state - i.e government. The third party are the Indian people at large who observe he actions of the other two parties and bear the consequences

For example - from 1993 to 2009 we had regular terrorist attacks on Indian soil and every time the culprits were nailed they had names that are traditionally given in Muslim families and rarely used by non Muslims. It was never acknowledged by the government but widely accepted in pubic that bestial bomb blasts in markets and crowded places were being conducted by Muslims. In the course of time, when culprits were caught it emerged that they were people who had links with terrorist groups with obviously Islamic names like "Army of Mohammad" led by Islamic clerics from Pakistan. The connection between terrorism in India and Pakistan and Islam was patently clear to the Indian public.

When confronted by the media, the government would state Islam and Muslims could not be blamed for terrorism and that terror has no religion. So we had a situation in which the terrorists were openly and merrily using Islamic justification to murder Indians while the Indian government was unable to explain to the Indian public why Islam and Muslims were continuously involved. The acts were often carried out or supported by indoctrinated Indian Muslims.

The Indian government in effect was doing what you have said i.e.the government was not "conceding to this rhetorical subset of violent Indian Muslims that they represent Islam". But for the Indian public this was the most fake and insincere way of handling the issue. In fact the Islamists had made a point and a very clever one at that and I do think we need to concede that the Islamists showed a great deal of craftiness in putting the Indian government in a "heads we win, tails you lose" situation. The idea of the Islamists was to create and sustain an Islamic jihad, an Islamic holy war against India, using Indian Muslims to create mayhem in India. In order to do that they put the Indian government in a spot. If the India government admitted that Islam was being used to start a holy war, the government would be nailed as being "communal". For this reason the government did not do that - but the Indian public very quickly figured out that it was Muslims fighting India in the name of Islam and "secularism" was forcing the Indian government into denial.

What Pakistan and Islamists have done is to show up the hollowness of the Indian model of secularism - or at the very least they have taught Indian governments what secularism means and what it does not mean.

It makes no sense whatsoever to continue in denial that a group of Muslims from multiple countries (probably led by Pakistan) are engaged in a holy Islamic war against countries deemed to be non Islamic. These fake secularist ideals do nothing to convince Islamists that they must live in peace with others because they do not want peace with others. That does not mean that all Muslims are guilty. But the fact that it is Muslims who fight jihad and jihad is: 1. An Islamic concept and 2. being waged against us should not be denied. No one is fooled by denials or re-framing the terminology.

[shiv]

Quoting myself, from my previous post ^^

I do think we need to concede that the Islamists showed a great deal of craftiness in putting the Indian government in a "heads we win, tails you lose" situation. The idea of the Islamists was to create and sustain an Islamic jihad, an Islamic holy war against India, using Indian Muslims to create mayhem in India.

I think that if you look at the tactics used by Islamists you will find a common thread runing through their methodology. Obviously it is a well thought out strategy to deal with "enemies of Islams" that exists somewhere in their literature and memes and they use it time and again

Islamists use disaffected people within host non Islamic populations to indoctrinate and use violence against their own country and people. The "disaffected people" that Islamists use are most often criminals or people who are being forced into criminality because of - whatever reason. Alternatively they provoke dissatisfaction and a sense of grievance among Muslims in a host country saying that the country is unislamic. This leads to a situation where the violence can be blamed on the host country itself - "indigenous terrorists"

1. Indian Muslims being indoctrinated to commit terror as in SIMI. These people are indoctrinated about the injustices of Indian society
2. In the US a very large segment of the population being converted to Islam are in jails and many are blacks. Jail populations are an obvious target of "disaffected people" ripe for being declared "innocent" in the eyes of a new faith. 9-11 was an act that used residents of America and American goods to attack the US. Faizal Shazad and Dr Aafia are examples of Americans of Pakistani Muslim origin whose grievances against America were fine tuned enough for them to support terror
3. In Pakistan, Ajmal Kasab, by his own admission wanted to steal a weapon to comit burglaries in Pakistan and become rich. But he was selected and indoctrinated to conduct violent jihad in India as part of the MUmbai attacks
4. Brits who have joined jihad have often been Muslims with a grievance in Britain

So there is a pattern in Islamism. In the absence of violent conquest, there is first a peaceful settlement of hardworking law-abiding people who are taught twin principles:
1. Stay devoutly Muslim
2. Set aside your Islamic requirements to work in a kafir society

Later as the community grows and gains wealth, they then demand that society must change to accommodate sharia and other Islamic tenets. The very people who have been law abiding all this time turn around (or their children do) and demand the imposition of Islamic rules. A refusal becomes a grievance.

Once there is a grievance - taht grievance is fed by examples of how the entire world has been trying to suppress Islam right from the time of Mohammad and how Islam has survived by fighting and that fighting is a duty.

That then leads to radicalization of Muslims and young people who are most disaffected are selected for terrorism

This is a common theme all across the world.

May I point out that this post is a sociological analysis of the way things pan out. It need to be either trashed as fake or shown to be accurate in part or in full. Denial is not an option IMO.

[arun]

A La Ham Sand-Witches!, as “The Amazing Mumford” might say.

Overwhelmingly Mohammadden Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan bans Christist festival of “Feast of All Saints” aka “Halloween”.

L.A. Times reports that Jordanian Interior Ministry spokesman, Ziad Zoubi, cited previous years' festivities as being of "a character that hurts Jordan's security." :

Jordan gives Halloween a dressing-down

[arun]

Headline in UK’s Daily Mail:

“Muslims must accept Asian and Pakistani men are grooming young girls off the street for sexual abuse and do more to stop it, senior CPS prosecutor says”

Activities of those originating in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan have certainly brought ill repute to the Mohammadden religion.

From here:

Daily Mail

[member_28397]

English translation of clip showing ISIS fighters discussing "buying and selling Yezidi slaves".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVISyjF ... e=youtu.be

ISIS made small kids play football using beheaded heads. ISLAM IS A RELIGION OF PEACE.

http://www.bhaskar.com/news-ht/INT-isis ... 1-PHO.html

Mod can you please correct this I cant seem to embed youtube videos.

[arun]

“IT” aka “Information Technology” student Younes Tsouli who was sentenced to 14 years in jail for committing acts of “IT” aka “Islamic Terrorism” is pleading against getting deported back to live with Mohammadden Momins in Dar-ul-Islam Morocco upon completion of jail sentence and would rather live with Non-Mohammadden Kaafir Dhimmi’s who sent him to jail in the in Dar-ul-Harb United Kingdom:

All jihadis are heroes...but let me stay in UK: Astonishing human rights demand by Al Qaeda operative due for release from British jail

[Brad Goodman]

Again it is just an image/ perception problem in west otherwise nothing is wrong.
View from abroad: Causes of Islamophobia

What percentage of the total population is Muslim? This was a question in a recent UK poll. The average number calculated from the replies given by respondents was 21 per cent. The actual figure is 5pc. This ignorance was even worse in the United States where people think Muslims make up 15pc of its total population when it’s only one per cent.

The situation in France is even worse: people think 31pc of its population are Muslims when the figure is actually 8pc.

So what makes people overestimate the number of Muslims in their midst so wildly? While respondents in the opinion poll were also off the mark when it came to guessing the total number of immigrants as a percentage of the population, the difference between reality and their estimates was not as wide.

It would appear that the bigger the figure for Muslims in a person’s mind, the greater his discomfort at their presence. Over the years, a number of factors have fed into an anti-Muslim prejudice and perceptions.

People in the UK were appalled when Mohammed Asghar, a 70-year-old British citizen with a known history of mental illness, was condemned to death for alleged blasphemy. In a newspaper interview, his daughter expressed her rage over the fact that he had been shot while in jail.

not over the law but just that he was shot in jail

on grooming crime

Although many non-Muslims have also committed similar crimes, in the public’s perception, it is Muslims — and specially Pakistanis — who prey on vulnerable young white girls.

[arun]

Green on Green Intra-Mohammadden religion motivated massacre in Saudi Arabia on during Mohammadden religious occasion of Ashura. Shiite / Shia Mohammadden sect followers’ machine gunned to death outside Shiite / Shia Mosque by Mohammadden co-religionists presumably of the majority Sunni sect:

Unidentified gunmen shot dead five people in Saudi Arabia's Eastern Province late on Monday evening, the state news agency reported.

Nine people were wounded in the attack in al-Dalwah town in al-Ahsa district, a police spokesman was quoted as saying.

"As a group of citizens was leaving a building...three masked men opened fire at them with machine guns and pistols," the spokesman said, adding that the incident was under investigation.

It gave no further details. Al-Ahsa is one of the two main centers of minority Shi'ite Muslims in Sunni-ruled Saudi Arabia, along with the district of Qatif.

Videos purporting to show the aftermath of the attack posted to social media showed a body lying in a pool of blood outside a building, with people milling around calling for help. The authenticity of the videos could not immediately be confirmed.

One of the videos showed a man holding spent bullet casings at the bloodstained entrance to what appears to be a Shi'ite place of worship.

From Reuters:

Gunmen shoot dead five people in Saudi Arabia: state news

[Agnimitra]

Green on Green Intra-Mohammadden religion motivated massacre in Saudi Arabia on during Mohammadden religious occasion of Ashura. Shiite / Shia Mohammadden sect followers’ machine gunned to death outside Shiite / Shia Mosque by Mohammadden co-religionists presumably of the majority Sunni sect:

Gunmen shoot dead five people in Saudi Arabia: state news

In Arabia, the epicenter of Islam, two Muslim sects cause bloodshed on the occasion of Muharram. Meanwhile in India, Hindus lead the Muharram procession in order to defuse a tense situation:

Hindus To Lead Muharram Processions in Riot-Hit Trilokpuri in Delhi

Will any of this cause Muslims to reflect on their religion and culture, and its 1400 year inclination to sadomasochistic violence?

[member_28539]

Quoting myself, from my previous post ^^

I do think we need to concede that the Islamists showed a great deal of craftiness in putting the Indian government in a "heads we win, tails you lose" situation. The idea of the Islamists was to create and sustain an Islamic jihad, an Islamic holy war against India, using Indian Muslims to create mayhem in India.

I think that if you look at the tactics used by Islamists you will find a common thread runing through their methodology. Obviously it is a well thought out strategy to deal with "enemies of Islams" that exists somewhere in their literature and memes and they use it time and again

Islamists use disaffected people within host non Islamic populations to indoctrinate and use violence against their own country and people. The "disaffected people" that Islamists use are most often criminals or people who are being forced into criminality because of - whatever reason. Alternatively they provoke dissatisfaction and a sense of grievance among Muslims in a host country saying that the country is unislamic. This leads to a situation where the violence can be blamed on the host country itself - "indigenous terrorists"

1. Indian Muslims being indoctrinated to commit terror as in SIMI. These people are indoctrinated about the injustices of Indian society
2. In the US a very large segment of the population being converted to Islam are in jails and many are blacks. Jail populations are an obvious target of "disaffected people" ripe for being declared "innocent" in the eyes of a new faith. 9-11 was an act that used residents of America and American goods to attack the US. Faizal Shazad and Dr Aafia are examples of Americans of Pakistani Muslim origin whose grievances against America were fine tuned enough for them to support terror
3. In Pakistan, Ajmal Kasab, by his own admission wanted to steal a weapon to comit burglaries in Pakistan and become rich. But he was selected and indoctrinated to conduct violent jihad in India as part of the MUmbai attacks
4. Brits who have joined jihad have often been Muslims with a grievance in Britain

So there is a pattern in Islamism. In the absence of violent conquest, there is first a peaceful settlement of hardworking law-abiding people who are taught twin principles:
1. Stay devoutly Muslim
2. Set aside your Islamic requirements to work in a kafir society

Later as the community grows and gains wealth, they then demand that society must change to accommodate sharia and other Islamic tenets. The very people who have been law abiding all this time turn around (or their children do) and demand the imposition of Islamic rules. A refusal becomes a grievance.

Once there is a grievance - taht grievance is fed by examples of how the entire world has been trying to suppress Islam right from the time of Mohammad and how Islam has survived by fighting and that fighting is a duty.

That then leads to radicalization of Muslims and young people who are most disaffected are selected for terrorism

This is a common theme all across the world.

May I point out that this post is a sociological analysis of the way things pan out. It need to be either trashed as fake or shown to be accurate in part or in full. Denial is not an option IMO.

@Shiv Sir: This is absolutely true!...A small example of it was on display last week to me.

I was getting a haicut, shop owned by a IM (From UP). The whole row with Shahi Imam was on TV so someone at the shop throws the bomb of "how important is that Imam?" and then I got lectured on how Imam is important & that IMs are very Piss-ful and are harressed for no reason The person in question brought it down to finally to " First it was Muslim Rule, Now it is Hindu Rule & In future again it will be Muslim Rule (Like a Caliphate or something in India)"...Alas! I was in Middle of Shaping my Mohawk properly & all that I could wonder was that if it were really to be hindu rule...would he still be here? ...

[SBajwa]

by Agnimitra
Will any of this cause Muslims to reflect on their religion and culture, and its 1400 year inclination to sadomasochistic violence?

What percentage of muslims in Trilokpuri are Shia? Only Shia take out muharram processions., sunnis actually attack them too in these processions!!

[arun]

Yet more persecution of religious minorities by Mohammadden majority in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan as fellow Abrahamic Christist’s get burned alive in a brick kiln. “Land of the Pure” just got more “Purer” .

Pakistani Christian Couple Burned Alive in Kiln for Torching Quran :

NBC News

Pakistan mob kills Christian couple over 'blasphemy':

BBC

[JE Menon]

Sam Harris & Cenk Uyghur - an extended discussion on Islam; both are atheist, but Harris is much clearer about Islam...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVl3BJoEoAU

Good discussion points to pick up.

[Dipanker]

^^
Cenk Uyghur, being a uyghur, has plenty of residual malsi still left in him, despite his claim of atheism.

[SanjayC]

I do think we need to concede that the Islamists showed a great deal of craftiness in putting the Indian government in a "heads we win, tails you lose" situation. The idea of the Islamists was to create and sustain an Islamic jihad, an Islamic holy war against India, using Indian Muslims to create mayhem in India.

I think that if you look at the tactics used by Islamists you will find a common thread runing through their methodology. Obviously it is a well thought out strategy to deal with "enemies of Islams" that exists somewhere in their literature and memes and they use it time and again

Islamists use disaffected people within host non Islamic populations to indoctrinate and use violence against their own country and people. The "disaffected people" that Islamists use are most often criminals or people who are being forced into criminality because of - whatever reason. Alternatively they provoke dissatisfaction and a sense of grievance among Muslims in a host country saying that the country is unislamic. This leads to a situation where the violence can be blamed on the host country itself - "indigenous terrorists"

1. Indian Muslims being indoctrinated to commit terror as in SIMI. These people are indoctrinated about the injustices of Indian society
2. In the US a very large segment of the population being converted to Islam are in jails and many are blacks. Jail populations are an obvious target of "disaffected people" ripe for being declared "innocent" in the eyes of a new faith. 9-11 was an act that used residents of America and American goods to attack the US. Faizal Shazad and Dr Aafia are examples of Americans of Pakistani Muslim origin whose grievances against America were fine tuned enough for them to support terror
3. In Pakistan, Ajmal Kasab, by his own admission wanted to steal a weapon to comit burglaries in Pakistan and become rich. But he was selected and indoctrinated to conduct violent jihad in India as part of the MUmbai attacks
4. Brits who have joined jihad have often been Muslims with a grievance in Britain

So there is a pattern in Islamism. In the absence of violent conquest, there is first a peaceful settlement of hardworking law-abiding people who are taught twin principles:
1. Stay devoutly Muslim
2. Set aside your Islamic requirements to work in a kafir society

Later as the community grows and gains wealth, they then demand that society must change to accommodate sharia and other Islamic tenets. The very people who have been law abiding all this time turn around (or their children do) and demand the imposition of Islamic rules. A refusal becomes a grievance.

Once there is a grievance - taht grievance is fed by examples of how the entire world has been trying to suppress Islam right from the time of Mohammad and how Islam has survived by fighting and that fighting is a duty.

That then leads to radicalization of Muslims and young people who are most disaffected are selected for terrorism

This is a common theme all across the world.

May I point out that this post is a sociological analysis of the way things pan out. It need to be either trashed as fake or shown to be accurate in part or in full. Denial is not an option IMO.

This is very much true, not only for Muslims but the Church too when it operates in pagan countries. Both monotheistic strains have a common modus operandi (only tactics are different). Strange that polytheists have not been able to set up study groups till now to scholarly analyze how these ideologies spread and the tactics they use. Study of monotheism and its memes needs to be a legitimate subject of study in pagan / infidel society, just like Christian and Muslim countries have professors in their universities specializing in study of pagan / infidel societies.

[arun]

X Posted from the STFUP thread.

http://www.dawn.com/news/1142680

Gujrat policeman kills man in custody alleging blasphemy
{You'd think, "Pretty normal, whats the big deal". But wait!}

A police officer on Wednesday night murdered a detained man with an axe

Police have arrested ASI Faraz Naveed and taken the axe into custody.

And so the “Land of the Pure” sees yet another murderous attack following yesterdays in which a Christist couple was slung into a brick kiln, that is sought to be justified by Mohammaddens claiming that their murderous action was response to an act of blasphemy .

This Green on Green Intra-Mohammadden religion motivated attack appears to be “Sectarian” in nature. The in custody prisoner killed by the Policeman of Assistant Sub-Inspector rank, was a member of the minority Shia Mohammadden sect. One of the contentious issues in the internecine sectarian squabble among Mohammaddens is the opinion about the “Companions of the Prophet” aka “Sahaba”. Sunni’s routinely respect them while Shia’s routinely revile some of them.:

Policeman uses axe to kill blasphemy accused: officials

[shiv]

Strange that polytheists have not been able to set up study groups till now to scholarly analyze how these ideologies spread and the tactics they use. Study of monotheism and its memes needs to be a legitimate subject of study in pagan / infidel society, just like Christian and Muslim countries have professors in their universities specializing in study of pagan / infidel societies.

Absolutely. All we need is our own scholarship about psychology and sociology. This is nothing new. Hindu texts are full of psychology and sociology - but
1. We don't read them
and
2. we don't believe that it is valid psychology or sociology because a western professor has not validated that

It is easy to codify and describe the behaviour. We need to do it.

[Prem]

I do think we need to concede that the Islamists showed a great deal of craftiness in putting the Indian government in a "heads we win, tails you lose" situation. The idea of the Islamists was to create and sustain an Islamic jihad, an Islamic holy war against India, using Indian Muslims to create mayhem in India.

Once they act like this, they will no longer be considered any which way "indian" but Paki and all the good treatment reserved for Pakkiquitos.

[Haresh]

Why I don’t believe people who say they loathe Islam but not Muslims

It is psychologically unnatural to claim that you hate an ideology without hating the people in whose lives it is expressed

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfre ... ogy-racism

[vishvak]

link - from aljazeera.com website
The Israeli government has changed its criminal code, to make stone-throwing punishable by up to 20 years in prison.

A violent act of stone throwing now also to be made punishable.


link - from jpost.com website
A bill that would consider the Muslim call to prayer played loudly in public to be noise pollution is back on the agenda, after Yisrael Beytenu faction chairman Robert Ilatov submitted it this week.

[RajeshA]

Why I don’t believe people who say they loathe Islam but not Muslims

It is psychologically unnatural to claim that you hate an ideology without hating the people in whose lives it is expressed

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfre ... ogy-racism

Speaking very figuratively here:

Actually Islamism is the process which makes Cocaine from Coca-plant. A Muslim can be coca-tea or he can be cocaine. A Muslim is one who tests HIV+, but that doesn't mean he has AIDS as yet. A Muslim is anywhere on the spectrum between Humanity and Islam.

So one need not necessarily hate Muslim if one hates Islam!

[arun]

Yet more persecution of religious minorities by Mohammadden majority in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan as fellow Abrahamic Christist’s get burned alive in a brick kiln. “Land of the Pure” just got more “Purer” .

Pakistani Christian Couple Burned Alive in Kiln for Torching Quran :

NBC News

Pakistan mob kills Christian couple over 'blasphemy':

BBC

Cardinal Tauran denounces murder of Christian couple in Pakistan

(Vatican Radio) Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, president of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue has denounced the assassination of a young couple in Pakistan, who had been accused of blasphemy.

In an interview with Vatican Radio, the cardinal added that he was “shocked” by the “barbarous acts”.

Listen to the report: ……………..{Snipped}………………

According to the couple’s Christian lawyer, the young Shahzad and Shama Masih were beaten by an angry Mulsim mob on Tuesday and then burned alive. Police instead report the young couple was beaten to death and then their bodies burned.

“Obviously, one remains speechless before such barbarous acts,” said the cardinal. “And what is worse is that religion is invoked in a specific way. A religion cannot justify such acts, such crimes. There is this lay on blasphemy, the ‘blasphemy law’, which poses a problem.”

The cardinal noted that there have been about 60 executions under the blasphemy law since it was adopted. He called for some international intervention in the matter, saying that a minimum of humanity and solidarity is required and that dialogue is necessary.

Since direct intervention in Pakistan’s domestic affairs is not appropriate, said the cardinal, legislators must be helped to understand that laws must respect the dignity of the person.

Cardinal Tauran said the Church must denounce such violent acts publicly, with consistency and force. He said he hopes Muslim leaders will do the same. He said Muslims are victimized by these acts of violence as well, as they give a very negative image of Islam.

“Therefore, it is in their interest to denounce such acts in a vigorous manner,” he said.

The cardinal said solidarity is the way to continue giving hope to Christians facing daily threats and violence. He also underlined some encouraging and well-received initiatives by the Church in the Middle East.

“We need to bet on fraternity,” he said, “which is the theme of the World Day of Peace.”

Report read by Andrew Summerson, article by Laura Ieraci

From here:

Radio Vatican

[arun]

News from the Islamic Republic of Iran.

A group of Iranian MPs has proposed making it a criminal offence to keep dogs as pets or walk them in public, with offenders subject to 74 lashes or a fine.

The text of the proposed law states “Walking and playing with animals such as dogs and monkeys outdoors and in public places …………………. are against our Islamic culture” making it pretty clear that this law is a Mohammadden religion influence law.

So much for the oft parroted line by followers of Mohammaddenism that “there is no compulsion in religion”.

Iran: threat of lashes or fine for walking the dog

Iran’s reformist Shargh newspaper reported on Thursday that 32 members of parliament, who are mostly affiliated to the conservatives, had put forward the proposal for the legislative body to vote on.

If the bill passes the Majlis (Iranian parliament), “walking dogs, trading them or keeping them at home will be punishable by 74 lashes or a fine of 1m to 10m Tomans [an equivalent of £200 to £2,000],” Shargh said.

“Walking and playing with animals such as dogs and monkeys outdoors and in public places are harmful to the health and the peace of other people, especially kids and women, and are against our Islamic culture,” the bill says.

Elias Naderan, Esmail Kowsari and Fatemeh Alia are among influential Iranian parliamentarians who support the proposal.

Iranian police forces, licensed hunters, farmers and shepherds are exempted from the punishment, according to the bill, which aims at cracking down on people who take their pets outdoors.

According to Islamic custom, dogs are unclean. Iranians avoid keeping them at home in general, though a minority, especially in north Tehran’s wealthy districts, enjoy keeping pets.

[anmol]

Malaysia's Sharia law costs non-Muslims their kids
by EILEEN NG, news.yahoo.com
November 9th 2014

IPOH, Malaysia (AP) — It was the last round of a recurring argument: M. Indira Gandhi's husband wanted her to convert to Islam. A committed Hindu, she refused.

He threatened divorce. Both started shouting. Neighbors came looking. Suddenly, he snatched their 11-month-old daughter from the arms of an older child, tucked her under one arm and sped off on his motorbike.

That was more than five years ago. Gandhi hasn't seen her child since, even though a Malaysian civil court awarded her custody.

Her husband — who converted to Islam shortly before taking his daughter away — won custody in an Islamic court. Because Gandhi is not a Muslim, she was not even called to appear. Police have been unwilling to enforce the civil court's decision.

"I am pining to see my daughter. No mother should ever have to endure this pain," said Gandhi, a kindergarten teacher, in her small rented home in Ipoh city in Perak state, about 200 kilometers (124 miles) north of Kuala Lumpur, the capital. "Give us a chance. We are all Malaysians. We should have equal rights."

Gandhi's case and others highlight perils of Malaysia's divided legal system, where majority Muslims use Shariah courts for religious and family issues such as conversion, divorce and death. The other 40 percent of the country — mainly Christians, Buddhists and Hindus — use a secular legal system inherited from the Southeast Asian country's British colonial rulers.

Critics accuse the ethnic Malay Muslim-dominated government of doing too little to resolve problems when those legal systems collide. The government has become increasingly reliant on support from Islamist and right-wing pressure groups as other constituencies flock to the opposition.

M. Kulasegaran, an opposition lawmaker who is also Gandhi's lawyer, said there are many similar cases, including several he plans to file once Gandhi's case is resolved. Some earlier cases have turned out even worse for non-Muslims than Gandhi's case has so far: In 2007, the top civil court ruled that a Muslim spouse had the right to convert his children without the mother's consent.

Some lawyers and legal experts say spouses in especially bitter custody battles sometimes convert to Islam to gain an upper hand. A Muslim with a non-Muslim spouse who seeks custody from the Shariah court is almost certain to win because the spouse has no standing.

The government has long pledged to tackle legal ambiguities related to religious conversions. But a Cabinet decision in 2009 to allow minors to be converted only with both parents' consent has yet to be made legally binding.

In southern Negeri Sembilan state, Deepa Subramaniam's Hindu husband quietly embraced Islam in 2012 and formally converted both their children without her consent. He was then granted custody of the children by a Shariah court. Deepa turned to the civil court, which annulled her marriage on grounds of domestic violence and granted her custody of the children. Two days later, her ex-husband abducted their 5-year-old son.

National police chief Khalid Abu Bakar has refused to act on court orders to return either Deepa's son or Gandhi's daughter to their mothers. He has been cited for contempt but is waiting for a higher civil court to weigh in.

He was quoted as saying by local media that police were "sandwiched" between legal systems and proposed that children caught in custody tussles be placed in welfare homes. Khalid did not return text messages from The Associated Press seeking comment.

The abduction of Gandhi's daughter, Prasana Diksa, came days before her first birthday. Her mother had bought her a Minnie Mouse blouse and jeans, and had planned to take her to the temple for ear piercing, a traditional Hindu practice when a child turns 1.

Gandhi repeatedly called her husband and begged him to return Diksa, who was still on breast milk, in the hours and days after she was taken. Her husband, an odd-job worker now called Muhammad Riduan Abdullah, initially told her again to convert to Islam, then stopped replying to any of her requests.

Gandhi found out that he had officially converted to Islam when she went to a police station to report the abduction. There she learned that he had also changed the birth certificates of the couples' other two children to state they were Muslims. Fearing that Islamic authorities may seize them as well, Gandhi went into hiding.

The Shariah court granted Riduan temporary custody of all three children days after he abducted Diksa, and granted him permanent custody a few months later. No grounds were given by the Islamic court. In Perak and some other states, Shariah allows one parent to convert children to Islam without the consent of the other.

Gandhi turned to the civil court, which in 2010 awarded her custody of all three children and ruled that the Shariah court had exceeded its jurisdiction.

Last year, a civil court quashed the children's conversion to Islam in a landmark ruling. Civil courts had in the past said they had no jurisdiction in such cases.

Riduan appealed the civil court's custody decision but lost. His appeal of the ruling on his children's conversions has yet to be heard.

In May this year, the court ordered police to arrest Riduan for contempt of court and return Diksa, now 6, to her mother. Yet with police refusing to act, she is no closer to her daughter. The case continues to go through the civil court system, where it may take years to resolve.

Riduan declined to speak to a reporter. His lawyer, Anas Fauzi, said in an email that Riduan refused to comply with the civil court ruling because he was bound by the Shariah order.

Prime Minister Najib Razak has urged parents to resolve their disputes in the Federal Court, the nation's highest civil court, but has not condemned the abductions. An aide to Najib declined to comment further on the cases.

Many Islamic clerics view the prospect of a Muslim child being brought up in a non-Muslim household as unacceptable.

Abdullah Zaik Abdul Rahman, who heads the Islamic right-wing group Isma, defended the Shariah courts' actions, saying the Muslim fathers are in a better position to raise the children as Muslims. He said the law should be changed to allow Shariah courts to hear petitions from non-Muslims, and added that "its decision must be final."

But Muhammad Asri Zainal Abidin, an Islamic scholar and a former state mufti, said children caught in such custody battles should be able to live with non-Muslim mothers as long as they care for them well.

"There is no compulsion in Islam. Nobody can force others to embrace a religion, not even their parents. Leave the matter to the children to decide when they are old enough," he said.

Diksa, now called Ummu Habibah Muhammad Riduan, lives with her father in a Muslim community in northeastern Kelantan state. His lawyer, Anas, said she has adjusted well and that "both the father and the daughter receive moral and physical support from the local society."

Riduan does not provide financial support for his other two children, now 16 and 17, who have remained with Gandhi throughout the dispute. Anas said that since his client converted, "the conditions and the circumstances do not even allow both disputed parties to have any relationship."

Gandhi did, however, finally receive recent pictures of her youngest child this year. In one, a smiling Diksa is clad in a black Islamic headscarf, posing with her father.

Every day, at an altar in her home, Gandhi lights a candle for Diksa and prays that she comes home.

"Whether she is a Muslim or not, it doesn't matter," she said. "She is still my daughter. All I want is to hold and embrace her. I have missed many precious moments with her. I will fight until I get my child back."

[Abhijit]

I didn't know where to put this. This thread may come closest to it.

(Commenting on the horrific school-bombing that killed dozens of students in Nigeria) Jen Psaki (US Spokeswoman): blah blah blah ... the Nigerian Govt must bring the culpritts to justice ... blah blah blah. It is my contention that America in particular and the civilized world in general, has no freakin' idea what they are dealing with here.

It was a suicide bombing, so the actual perpetrator is already dead. How do you punish him any more? What justice do you mete out to him? Boycott his funeral? Make impotent jokes about his 72 virgins?

Obviously behind every suicide bombing, there is a vast apparatus. Going by the pronouncements of this vast apparatus in various places where suicide bombings have happened frequently, the masterminds of this apparatus are also claiming to welcome death. How do you mete out justice to a person/group that (at least claims) to look forward to death? By killing them?

What is behind this vast apparatus? Ever think of that?

Is it sensible to think of old 'justice' in the context of this brave new world? Does the concept of justice, as understood in a civilized world, do 'justice' to these acts (I will not glorify the acts of terrorism by calling them 'crimes')?

The concept of justice, in a civilized world, is based on the premise that the law/authority shall mete out a 'punishment' to the perpetrators of 'crime'. The implicit assumption in this whole thing is that, whatever it is that the law metes out, is something that is wholly and viscerally detested by the perpetrator - such as a jail term or hard labor or physical torture. The highest form of punishment, as understood by the civilized world, is the death penalty. Again based on the presumption that that highest form of penalty is the ultimate deterrent for any future perpetrators and is the ultimate vengeance for the aggrieved party. The entire cornerstone of this edifice is that 'justice', in the form of punishment, is something that is absolutely antithetical and detested by the perpetrators.

Isn't that a stupid and wholly meaningless edifice that comes down like a house of cards when the very basic premise is made null by the terrorists that 'embrace' the highest form of punishment as 'the highest form of reward?

The civilized world needs a different paradigm when trying to mete out justice to these acts of terrorism.

[Prem]

Swisstonian's Poaqonian Zindabad

In a routine control of food security, an inspector noticed that the meat presented for sale didn’t look like calf, as the tag claimed. The manager of the butchery was sentenced to 6 months in jail and a fine 18,000 Swiss francs (about $18,680) “for fraud and misrepresentation.”“If customers had known it was pork, they would not have bought it because Islam forbids the consumption of this type of meat,” says the prosecutor handling the case.The butcher was deceiving his customers double fold. On the one hand, Muslims who were buying meat at his shop did not know it was pork, which is forbidden according to the teachings of Islam. On the other hand, he made substantial profits, since pork is much cheaper than the calf on the meat market.

[chetak]

Swisstonian's Poaqonian Zindabad

In a routine control of food security, an inspector noticed that the meat presented for sale didn’t look like calf, as the tag claimed. The manager of the butchery was sentenced to 6 months in jail and a fine 18,000 Swiss francs (about $18,680) “for fraud and misrepresentation.”“If customers had known it was pork, they would not have bought it because Islam forbids the consumption of this type of meat,” says the prosecutor handling the case.The butcher was deceiving his customers double fold. On the one hand, Muslims who were buying meat at his shop did not know it was pork, which is forbidden according to the teachings of Islam. On the other hand, he made substantial profits, since pork is much cheaper than the calf on the meat market.

you mean that the malsi couldn't tell the difference from the taste??

[SBajwa]

you mean that the malsi couldn't tell the difference from the taste??

It looks different too!!!

[Prem]

http://themuslimissue.wordpress.com/201 ... ill-alive/
– As we know, rape was a tool of war used openly by Kosovo Albanians against Serbs, the elders encouraging the younger generation to rape the province’s Serbian girls so that the Serbs would move out. As for a culture that doesn’t accept girls who aren’t virgins, what culture is that? It doesn’t sound Albanian per se, but Islamic. Yet again, weren’t we told that Albanian Muslims have nothing to do with Islam?Young Serbian girl was raped and tortured (her breasts were cut off) – then she was beaten to death with a steel rod by the Albanian Islamist in Kosovo. Her genitalia were mutilated beyond recognitionRaping in front of families is also something that the KLA engaged in, and this standardly confused Albanian is likely recirculating a KLA crime as a Serb crime. Yugoslav soldier told one of my sources speaking on behalf of himself and other soldiers he knew — namely that by the time of the Kosovo conflict, the Serbs were so disgusted by Muslims in general that the thought of having intercourse with one was the farthest thing from their mind

[shiv]

The concept of justice, in a civilized world, is based on the premise that the law/authority shall mete out a 'punishment' to the perpetrators of 'crime'. The implicit assumption in this whole thing is that, whatever it is that the law metes out, is something that is wholly and viscerally detested by the perpetrator - such as a jail term or hard labor or physical torture. The highest form of punishment, as understood by the civilized world, is the death penalty. Again based on the presumption that that highest form of penalty is the ultimate deterrent for any future perpetrators and is the ultimate vengeance for the aggrieved party. The entire cornerstone of this edifice is that 'justice', in the form of punishment, is something that is absolutely antithetical and detested by the perpetrators.

Isn't that a stupid and wholly meaningless edifice that comes down like a house of cards when the very basic premise is made null by the terrorists that 'embrace' the highest form of punishment as 'the highest form of reward?

The civilized world needs a different paradigm when trying to mete out justice to these acts of terrorism.

Very thought provoking.

Abhijit, I am currently reading Plato's "Republic" and I am about 70% through. The entire book is about evolving a just democratic society and what constitutes justice. To me the book is truly interesting. The West uses the word "justice" a lot but these are just words with no meaning. The world has gone too far down the road of injustice for justice to come easily.

Actually - for every bomb that used RDX, the people who make RDX need to "repent" and ensure that no more RDX is exported. Guess what that would mean? It would mean the end of free trade, prosperity and profit making and make some people poorer. Is it justice to make some people poorer?

In fact Plato deals with dilemmas such as these.

Long before Plato these things were discussed in terms of dharma in India. Justice and injustice depend on context. That is what dharma tells us. Platos idea of a just society in his book involves plenty of adharma in between in order to get there.

There is too much faking and pretence in the world to take words like "justice" and "international law" seriously.

[Hari Seldon]

Is Britain hardening its heart against muslims (Spectator)?

http://www.spectator.co.uk/features/930 ... t-muslims/

Interesting read.

[KJo]

Is Islam destroying itself? (That would be good for the world)

Mecca under threat: Outrage at plan to destroy the ‘birthplace’ of the Prophet Mohamed and replace it with a new palace and luxury malls

The site in Mecca where the Prophet Mohamed is said to have been born is about to be “buried under marble” and replaced by a huge royal palace. The work is part of a multibillion-pound construction project in the holy city which has already resulted in the destruction of hundreds of historic monuments.

The project, which began several years ago, aims to expand the al-Masjid al-Haram, or the Grand Mosque, to cater for the millions of pilgrims who make their way to the holy city each year for the Hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca that all Muslims are obliged to make at least once.

Mecca is the holiest city in Islam because of its link to the birth of the Prophet, and because it is the site of the Kaaba, a cube-shaped building made from black granite and said to have been built by Abraham. The Grand Mosque is built around it, and Muslims face towards it when they pray.

[Singha]

paving over Makkah might be a coded peace offering by the saudi royals to the ISIS because the ending of makkah as a site of pilgrimage is what the ISIS is also demanding.

the royals probably have no understanding or respect for history or any faith other than $$.....but they have a perpetual lease on a iconic site like disneyworld always can count on 50 million visitors...and they will milk it to the last possible $.

[JE Menon]

Not strictly "Islamo"phobia, but still.. a Dutch comedian gives far better than he gets (sub-titled).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryYETmi9lNA

[Singha]

the whole iran==liberal and arabs==bad fundoo seem like a figment of imagination. iran is as strict as anyone else who has found the true glory of islam.

its just that they are not hounding us at the moment.

[JE Menon]

Any of these absolutist twats get a bit of power in their hands, they'll be as bad as the next one... For the most part, sectarian difference is only about the founder's ego.

[chetak]

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says Muslims, not Columbus, discovered Americas

16 Nov, 2014,
ISTANBUL: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan today said that the Americas were discovered by Muslims in the 12th century, nearly three centuries before Christopher Columbus set foot there.

"Contacts between Latin America and Islam date back to the 12th century. Muslims discovered America in 1178, not Christopher Columbus," the conservative president said in a televised speech during an Istanbul summit of Muslim leaders from Latin America.

"Muslim sailors arrived in America from 1178. Columbus mentioned the existence of a mosque on a hill on the Cuban coast," Erdogan said.

Erdogan said that Ankara was even prepared to build a mosque at the site mentioned by the Genoese explorer.

"I would like to talk about it to my Cuban brothers. A mosque would go perfectly on the hill today," the Turkish leader said.

History books say that Columbus set foot on the American continent in 1492 as he was seeking a new maritime route to India.

A tiny minority of Muslim scholars have recently suggested a prior Muslim presence in the Americas, although no pre-Columbian ruin of an Islamic structure has ever been found.

In a controversial article published in 1996, historian Youssef Mroueh refers to a diary entry from Columbus that mentions a mosque in Cuba. But the passage is widely understood to be a metaphorical reference to the shape of the landscape.

[chetak]

Why is it that all other religions must always accommodate the malsis and never the vice versa....


In a first, Muslims pray inside Washington’s National Cathedral

WASHINGTON: Prayer rugs were laid out. “Prepare for the prayers, prepare for the prayers,” a man in the first row said the final call for prayers in Arabic. “Allah ho Akbar,” said the imam and the prayer began.

These rituals are repeated in millions of mosques across the world every Friday but this was a historic occasion for Washington: the first ever namaz-e-juma at the National Cathedral in the US capital.

“Amazing, a truly spiritual experience,” said a worshipper as the azaan echoed from the vaulted stone arches and spread across the huge cathedral.

“Let us stretch our hearts and let us seek to deepen mercy for we worship the same God," said Reverend Gina Campbell as she welcomed Muslim worshippers to the cathedral, calling it “a place of prayer for all people.”

South African ambassador to the US, Ebrahim Rasool, led the prayers, reminding the worshippers they were holding this service in troubled times “when mischief is threatening the world.”

“If we do not stop them, they will also disturb the peace that we experience at our places of worship,” he said while referring to the “sensitivity and humility” they experienced at the cathedral.

He specifically mentioned the militants who were slaughtering Christians in the Middle East and urged Muslims to stop them before it was too late.

“A great interfaith gesture, a reminder that now is the time to act for peace,” said Victor V. Gill, a leader of the Pakistani Christian community in the United States.

“Everyone there from the National Cathedral was just so friendly to me and to all Muslims attending,” said Seeme Gul Khan Hasan, a Muslim community leader.

The event was closed to the public, and there was heavy security. Only those invited could attend the prayers and police checked everyone entering the cathedral to make sure others did not come.

Organisers said they were forced to take extra security measures because of threats they received after the event was publicised.

Nevertheless, a protester – a well-dressed middle-aged woman – managed to enter the premises and reminded the audience that not all shared their vision for interfaith harmony and peace.

“America was founded on Christian principles, leave our church alone,” she shouted before she was led out of the prayer hall.

A hate message also came from Reverend Franklin Graham, the son of a world-renowned evangelist Billy Graham, who said that the cathedral was an Episcopal church established under a charter granted by Congress more than 100 years ago.

“It is sad to see the church” opening its doors to Muslim worshippers, he said.

Rev. Campbell and Ambassador Rasool, who were the first to plan a Friday prayer inside the cathedral, said they were not discouraged by such remarks as they believed that it was important to promote interfaith harmony to curb violence.

The two thought of holding the prayers when they organised an interfaith memorial service for Nelson Mandela last year.

In an interview with VOA, Rasool said he hopes someday non-Muslims will be allowed to pray according to their own traditions even in mosques in Saudi Arabia.

“I think that we must return to the Muslim prophetic tradition in which the Holy Prophet, may peace be upon him, invited Christians to his own mosque that he established in Medina – and to say to them, you can pray here.”

The cathedral made special arrangement for the worshipers to face Mecca during prayer without seeing crosses or Christian icons.

[SSridhar]

Radical face of Saudi Wahhabism - S.Irfan Habib, The Hindu

It is ironical indeed that the Turkish regime today is implicated in propping up a terrorist group called the Islamic State (IS), which has vowed to spread Wahhabi Islam all over the world. The present Wahhabism, legitimated and empowered by the Saudi regime, has violent, almost criminal, origins in the 19th century. If we care to look into its beginnings, we won’t be surprised at its utter contempt for human life and everything else which doesn’t conform to its own narrow/sectarian agenda. Let me explain the irony first.

It was the Ottoman regime which bore the brunt of Wahhabi Islam soon after it became a force in the Central Arab region. The toxic combine of 18th century Islamic scholar Abdul Wahhab and the first monarch of Saudi Arabia Ibn Saud posed a challenge to the Ottoman rule. They also questioned the prevalent Islamic beliefs and practices. The Turks not only defended their power but also assiduously fought for the mystic Islam they had professed and supported all these years. The Ottomans fought and exiled the Wahhabis to the Arab deserts where they remained for almost a century. This Wahhabi bigotry was condemned by the Turks as criminal and unIslamic. The sad irony is that the current Turkish regime has joined the Wahhabi bandwagon, forgetting all about the Bektashis, Qadiris and other dervishes they had cherished all these centuries. The IS agenda today is merely an extension of the devious plan laid down by Abdul Wahhab almost 200 years ago. Let us look at this so-called puritan Islam proposed by the Wahhabis, its violent ‘othering’ of Muslims they disliked and the parallels with the present day IS terrorists.
Hate-filled agenda

Muhammad ibn Abdul Wahhab, the founder of Wahhabism, and his radical, exclusionist puritanism became deadlier when Ibn Saud decided to add its religious fervour to his banditry. (The latter was then no more than a minor leader amongst many of continually fighting and raiding Bedouin tribes in the desperately poor deserts of the Nejd.) Thus Abdul Wahhab, in collaboration with Ibn Saud, the founder of Saudi Arabia, laid down its sectarian and hate-filled agenda. He denounced his opponents and all Muslims unwilling to accept his views as idolaters and apostates, and abused the prophets, scholars, saints and other pious figures of the past. All those who did not adhere to his proposed version of Islam were to be killed; their wives and daughters violated. Shias, Sufis, and other Muslims whom he judged unorthodox were to be exterminated, and all other faiths to be humiliated or destroyed. With this awful doctrine, the foundation was laid for Islamic fundamentalism, leading ultimately to terrorism, vitiating the lives of not only Muslims but everyone else in the world.

Most of the so-called Islamic terrorist groups today are inspired by this devious political ideology. Saudi money and power has succeeded in mainstreaming this hate-filled conning of Islam as the true, puritan Islam, where any deviation is dubbed as unIslamic. Unfortunately, most Western writers on Islam took Wahhabi claims to represent reform against the alleged decadence of traditional Islam at face value. American journalist Stephen Schwartz says that the Wahhabi rejection of ostentatious spirituality is much the same as the Protestants detesting the veneration of saints in the Roman Church. Western observers have seen the movement as analogous with Christian Reformation. Sadly, they have failed to make a distinction between reform and bigotry.

IS and other terrorist groups today have taken the original Wahhabi perversion to even greater heights where they don’t even refer to their roots. The Saudi regime itself feels threatened by the monster their ideology helped create. They have publicly distanced themselves from IS terrorism and even used the chief cleric of Mecca to declare IS terrorism a heinous crime under sharia law. This is one consistent duplicity which the Saudis have pursued whenever they found themselves stuck in a tight spot.

However, the stark parallels between IS and its ilk and the Saudi-Wahhabi travesty are telling. If IS is detonating shrines, it is following the precedent set in the 1920s by the House of Saud with the Wahhabi-inspired demolition of 1,400-year-old tombs in the Jannat ul Baqi cemetery in Medina. Again, the hatred for the Shia Muslims is one of the core beliefs of the Wahhabis. The earliest destructions and killings they carried out were in Karbala in the early 19th century, which was followed by the looting and wrecking of the tomb of Hussain, the grandson of the Prophet. Whatever be the face, bile against the Shias has remained a constant throughout Wahhabi-Saudi history, which is being carried forward by its latest flag bearers, the IS and Al Qaeda.

Wahhabism’s reinvention

Why did hydra-headed Wahhabism become so menacingly active during the past few decades? One factor may be the Iranian Revolution of the 1970s, which was perceived as a threat by Wahhabism that had begun to look dated by then. It, therefore, had to reinvent itself to remain relevant. This reinvention had deadly manifestations such as the Boko Haram, the Al Shabab, the Al Qaeda, the Taliban and now the IS, and many others all over the world. Even Shia Islam changed radically in the post Ayatollah Khomeini era; it is no more as relaxed as it used to be.

The Saudi and Qatari regimes seem to have realised that they have created a monster in ISIS, which is now a threat to their own peaceful existence. Though IS remains deeply Wahhabist, it is ultra radical and “could be seen essentially as a corrective movement to contemporary Wahhabism.” Today, a collective military action seems to be the only way to check the IS menace, but a lasting peace in the Islamic world is possible only if a battle is waged within Islam to change the mindset. Besides we need to look beyond the usual Islamophobic and Islamophilic perspectives.

(S. Irfan Habib holds the Maulana Abul Kalam Azad Chair, National University of Educational Planning and Administration, New Delhi.)

Irfan Habib is a Shi'a ?