Falling Muslim Fertility Rates Raise Grave Concerns By Saif Shahin

How would you imagine a typical Muslim family? A god-fearing husband,
an uneducated wife (or wives), and lots and lots of children breaking
out the door and spilling onto the streets? That, however, is not what
a typical Muslim family does or is going to look like in the years
ahead.
New research shows a historically unprecedented decline in fertility
rates or the number of births, among Muslim women worldwide. In
Muslim-majority countries, such as in the Middle East, the decline has
already brought them on par with the ageing West. Chances are that
fertility rates would fall further.
The trend has grave implications. One, the working age population in
Muslim societies is going to shrink as fewer children are born,
leaving them with a problem similar to that faced by the West. Two,
while the West has already achieved high levels of education,
development and family income, most Muslim countries in Asia and
Africa face demographic stagnation even as they remain largely
uneducated, underdeveloped and with extremely low family incomes.
Declining Births
In 2009, the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life estimated the
global Muslim population at around 1.6 billion, or 23% of the global
population at that time. However, Muslims form […]

Dr Zakir Naik and the Facts of Life: Tasneem Faridi

June 15-21, 2012
Tasneem Faridi has been listening to the popular TV preacher Dr Zakir
Naik, who supports polygamy and seems to know a lot about women's
menstrual cycles…
Zakir Naik, a medical doctor by profession is renowned for his dynamic
oratory skills on Islamic teachings and Comparative Religion. He is
the president of Islamic Research Foundation (IRF) in Mumbai, which
serves the purpose of clarifying Islamic viewpoints and misconceptions
about Islam. The research team is a self-proclaimed user of the
Qur'an, authentic Hadith and other religious scriptures as a basis, in
conjunction with reason, logic and scientific facts, for a wide range
of commentaries.
In the last 15 years, Naik has delivered more than 1500 public talks
in the U.S.A., Canada, U.K., Italy, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, U.A.E.,
Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa,
Botswana, Malaysia and Singapore. These are in addition to his
numerous televised public talks in India. Naik is 46 years old and has
been popular for his critical analysis and convincing answers to
challenging questions posed by audiences at the ends of his public
talks. To his devoted fans, he is an epitome of Islamic knowledge;
others might know him as the Islamic scholar who makes […]

All Hail My Sectarian God

All Hail My Sectarian God
By Kiran Nazish
08 June, 2012
In Pakistan a mosque is not the house of God, but the house of a
sectarian God. Although Muslim sects across the world have their own
separate mosques for the reasons of Imamat, procedure and methodology
of prayers, no one is ever stopped from entering a place of worship or
called a Kafir inside one just because they do not come from the same
sect.
Recently, I was told by a non-Sunni friend how he was tormented by
fellow worshipers at a Sunni mosque during Friday prayers. He was on
the road and getting late for Jamaat (congregation), so he went for
the nearest mosque he could find – only to discover later that he was
a Kafir for doing so. He was identified as a Shia when he did not
raise his forefinger for Shahadat during the prayers.
We are led to believe that Pakistan is divided by its provincial
politics, and our biggest insecurities come from India and the US, but
some of the worst and the most real and physical crimes that people
commit against each other in this country are based on religion. It is
our pride in sectarian exclusivity […]

Democracy in the Arab world

Democracy in the Arab world
By Ahmad Y. Majdoubeh
Friday, 15 June 2012
Ahmad Y. Majdoubeh
Not long ago, many Arabs used to doubt that democracy was right for
the Arab world. Nowadays, they seem to doubt that anything other than
democracy is right for them.
The argument then, to which some still subscribe, was that the Arab
society is a society of consensus, not of lobbyists or majority votes.
There are no fundamental disagreements on issues, and when people
disagree, the differences are overcome through a process of
negotiations where those who hold minority opinions shift willingly to
the other side, rather than reach a middle ground compromise or a veto
in which the minority loses.
This does not seem to be the thinking anymore. And now that the masses
have rebelled against authoritarian regimes, or seeking further
reforms where some were already introduced but are insufficient, they
are looking to adopt a new model of governance.
The only practical, concrete model available is the West's, which
several eastern countries like Japan, South Korea, Turkey and others
adopted.
In our part of the world all seem to want this democratic model now —
both governments and the opposition, including the Islamists. The
crucial question, however, is if […]

OIC Chief speaks out on major Muslim issues

Jeddah, 26 Rajab/16 June (IINA) – With the violence continuing in
Syria, sectarian tension ever present in Iraq, Afghanistan still
struggling to establish security and Somalia trying to have some sort
of normalcy, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) certainly
has a lot on its plate to handle. As if that's not enough, there are
also issues of economic hardships, natural disasters and internal
strife afflicting some OIC member states from Africa toAsia. In an
interview with Arab News daily, OIC Secretary-General Ekmeleddin
Ihsanoglu touched on the recent developments in the Arab world and
spotlights some of the other issues, such as Muslim refugees,
Islamophobia, human rights and Muslim minorities, which people might
not be aware of as being also on the agenda of concern to the OIC.
The OIC has just organized with the United Nations High Commissioner
for Refugees the first international conference exclusively on
refugees in the Muslim world. What is the significance of this
conference and what are the key decisions that came out of it?
The International Ministerial Conference on Refugees in the Muslim
World held in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan(May 11-12), was indeed a
significant step in the course of the OIC endeavors in the
humanitarian arena. It […]

Analysis: Al Qaeda down, but not out in PakistanBy Michael Georgy and
Saud Mehsud

ISLAMABAD/DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan | Sun Jun 10, 2012 12:56am EDT
(Reuters) – When al Qaeda leader Abu Yahya al-Libi arrived in
northwest Pakistan several years ago, he commanded so much respect
that even some of the world's most dangerous militants held him in
awe.
Already a legend in the shadowy world of jihad for breaking out of a
high security U.S. prison in neighboring Afghanistan in 2005, he
seemed to promise endless funds, training and inspiration for men who
dreamed of unleashing carnage in New York or London.
By the time he was killed in a U.S. drone strike last week, he was the
latest victim of a series of the unmanned aerial attacks that has
crushed al Qaeda's network along Pakistan's border with Afghanistan,
Pakistani intelligence officials and commanders of militant groups
said.
Its finances have dried up, and those who once idolized the group
wonder whether it can survive.
"Imagine. They used to travel in Land Cruisers and double-cabin pickup
trucks a few years ago," said a commander from the Pakistani Taliban,
which is close to al Qaeda. "Now, they are riding motorcycles due to
lack of resources."
The downfall of the network in the border area started with the
killing of Osama […]

Baitul Muqaddas: Why are we Muslims so obsessed with it as our
Qiibla-e-Awwal contrary to Qur'anic teachings?

From the Desk of Editor (09 Jun 2012 NewAgeIslam.Com)
Baitul Muqaddas: Why are we Muslims so obsessed with it as our
Qiibla-e-Awwal contrary to Qur'anic teachings?
We are reproducing in original Urdu and in English and Hindi
translations a widely syndicated article in India's Urdu Press by
Maulanama Nadeemul Wajidi of Deoband seminary detailing Muslims's love
for and claims to Haram Ash-Sharif Baitul Muqaddas and Masjid-e-Aqsa,
also known alternatively as Temple Mount and Solomon's Temple or First
Temple in Jerusalem. Muslim Press the world over is constantly full of
Muslim lamentation over the loss of full control over Baitul Muqaddas
and Masjid-e-Aqsa since Israeli occupation of East Jerusalem. Fighting
an occupation is one thing. All Justice-loving people in the world are
with Palestinians on that issue. But world Muslim community making an
ideological claim over a building complex that God told us belongs to
our religious cousins, the Ahl-Kitab Jews and Christians, is something
quite another.
Muslims revere these structures as their first Qibla, as it was this
direction they faced in their prayers in the formative phase of Islam
when Prophet was still hoping for reconciliation with and
acceptability as a Biblical prophet by the Jews and Christians. Even
though the Prophet […]

Democratic Muslims? Why not?

By Haroon Siddiqui Editorial Page
The advent of democracy in the Arab Middle East has prompted heated
debates over the role of Islam in government, and over the rights of
women and non-Muslim minorities, especially in Egypt, the largest Arab
nation that also has the largest Christian community in the region.
The issues are fraught with misunderstandings, primarily because of
the antagonism between the West and Islam. Cultural stereotypes
distort the debate with improper or deliberately misleading language.
Islam, the faith, is not government.
Some governments may call themselves Islamic — as in Saudi Arabia and
Iran. But many Muslims routinely question the Islamic credentials of
those two governments. This tells us the obvious: There is no one,
monolithic Islam. There's great diversity of thought and
interpretation among Muslims, as in people of any faith.
In Muslim democracies — or, more precisely, Muslim-majority nations
that are democratic or becoming so — a government may be led by a
political party that calls itself Islamic. Or it does not but others
do, because it is "rooted" in Islam or "political Islam." Or its
leaders and/or rank-and-file are pious Muslims.
If we were to use such a template for, say, European Christian
Democrats, what would that tell us […]

Don't Panik! Islam and Europe's 'Hip Hop Wars' Hishaam Aidi

The debate over Islam and hip hop in Europe is heating up as
governments wade in.
Last Modified: 05 Jun 2012
New York, NY – Three months ago, just as the French presidential
campaign was heating up, the rapper Kery James uploaded a track titled
"Letter to the Republic" ("Lettre à la République") explaining what he
and youth in the banlieues thought of the republic's political class,
or as he described them, "Pillagers of wealth, murderers of Africans,
torturers of Algerians / The colonial past is yours, you chose to link
your history to ours."
The track promptly provoked public outrage; the far-right group, Le
Bloc Identitaire, tried to cancel James' concert tour, its
spokesperson calling on the rapper – a Guadeloupe-born convert – to
leave France and move to a "Muslim land".
Meanwhile, in Germany, state officials are trying to indict former
rapper Deso Dogg – another convert – for his lyrics which allegedly
inspired a 21-year old Kosovar to fire at a busload of American
servicemen in Frankfurt.
Kerry James – Lettre à la République
In Britain, the BBC is still addressing protests regarding decisions
made in 2011 by Radio 1 Xtra to tune out the words "Free Palestine" in
a track by […]

Distrust Fuels Anti-Muslim Violence in Myanmar: Lucile Andre

Distrust Fuels Anti-Muslim Violence in Myanmar
Lucile Andre | June 06, 2012
Sittwe, Myanmar. An eruption in religious tensions in Myanmar has
exposed the deep divisions between the majority Buddhists and the
country's Muslims, considered foreigners despite a decades-long
presence.
The violence threatens to overshadow reconciliation efforts in the
country formerly known as Burma, where there has been a series of
dramatic political reforms since almost half a century of military
rule ended last year.
The trigger for the latest surge in sectarian tensions was the rape
and murder of a woman in western Rakhine state, which borders
Bangladesh, for which three Muslim men have been detained, according
to state media.
On Sunday a mob of hundreds of people attacked a bus, believing the
perpetrators were on board, and beat 10 Muslims to death.
"These innocent people have been killed like animals," said Abu Tahay,
of the National Democratic Party for Development, which represents the
country's much-persecuted stateless Muslim Rohingya community.
"If the police cannot control the situation, maybe the [unrest] is
going to spread," he said, adding that the biggest fear was for
Rakhine state, where there is a large Muslim minority population
including the Rohingya.
In Myanmar's main city Yangon, dozens of Muslims protested on Tuesday, […]

Dawud Walid, the Quran and Jews "Did Muhammad order the killing of Jews?"

Posted By Daniel E. Rogell On June 5, 2012
Originally published by the Investigative Project on Terrorism
The Council of American Islamic Relations [CAIR] may tout itself as an
"organization that challenges stereotypes of Islam and Muslims," and
as group that was formed "to challenge anti-Muslim discrimination
nationwide." But in fighting the good fight against hate, at least one
of its regional leaders demonizes Jews as the source of Muslims'
problems.
"Who are those who incurred the wrath of Allah?" CAIR-Michigan
Executive Director Dawud Walid asked in a May 25 sermon at the Islamic
Organization of North America mosque in Warren, Mich. "They are the
Jews, they are the Jews," he answered himself in Arabic.
Audio 1
Aside from being one of CAIR's most visible spokesmen, Walid appears
frequently in the media and has traveled abroad at least twice on
trips paid by the State Department. During a 2010 trip to Mali, for
example, he criticized treatment of Muslim Americans after 9/11,
saying they "have been subjected to increased discrimination from
racial and religious profiling by law enforcement." And he cast the
2009 shooting death of a Detroit imam as unjust, even though the imam
refused orders to lay down his weapon and surrender, and […]

Muslim women demand platform

Posted by SHABIBAH NAKIRIGYA
Muslim women have urged government to provide them with a platform
where they can discuss issues that affect them.
The women, under the Uganda Muslim Network in conjunction with Islamic
Medical Association of Uganda (UMNET), said they face many challenges
due to lack of rights.
They made the remarks while celebrating the first National Muslims
Women's Conference under the theme 'unleashing the full potential of
the Muslim woman' in Kampala on Sunday.
The women cited poor education levels, poor health facilitation and
not participating in peace and conflict resolutions. The chairperson
of UMNET, Dr Zainab Akol, said they wanted Muslim women voices at
national and global stage.
For instance, Ms Akol said the selected team to sort out the
Kibuli–Old Kampala factions had no women. She also said Muslim women
cannot access micro finance opportunities because they have interest
rates which is not compatible with Islamic teaching.
The women also said money was collected from them across the country
with a promise to get them jobs but todate, they have not received any
feedback.
The Speaker of Parliament, Ms Rebecca Kadaga, advised Muslim women to
focus on taking their children to kindergartens and vocational
institutions in order to have a strong platform.
"Children should […]

Can Washington Ever Welcome a Nonviolent Muslim?

Michael Shank
CBS News' 60 Minutes recently produced a show about Turkish Muslim
scholar Fethullah Gulen, spurred by concern about the so-called Hizmet
movement's alleged connection to a growing network of high performing
and nationally ranked charter schools in the U.S. These schools rank
in Newsweek's top ten miracle schools in America and have a waiting
list of 30,000 students, a testament to their academic rigor and
reputation.
So what's wrong with these schools and what in the world would merit
investigative journalism on this topic? Could it be because Fethullah
Gulen is a Muslim scholar, the movement is historically comprised
largely of Muslims, and Turkish Muslims built and teach at the charter
schools in the U.S.? I'd say yes. CBS would likely say no, citing
public concern about potential for Islamic teaching in the classroom,
Turkish teachers taking American jobs, and a Muslim scholar who was
disinclined to be interviewed.
Despite CBS host Leslie Stahl's attempt to show both critique and
compliment — and in most cases, to her credit, she walked a fair and
balanced line — the script was loaded with innuendos, describing Gulen
as a "personality cult", "wizard of Oz" and "prophet."
Why is this troublesome? And why do I […]

Questions Facing the Muslim World

By: Harold Rhode
June 4th, 2012
Many parts of the world, such as Korea, China, and India – basically medieval kingdoms fifty or sixty years ago — are now among the pacesetters of the modern world, both producing, and improving on, existing inventions. The Muslim world, however, often better off than these countries just half a century ago, has remained as it was, or has even, in many instances, deteriorated. This inertia in the Islamic world seems to stem not from any genetic limitations, or even religious ones, but purely from Islamic culture.
Although one can gain some insight into Islamic culture from books and other written material, if one is to really understand the Muslim world, there is no substitute for sitting in coffee or tea houses, spending time with Muslims, and asking them questions in their own surroundings and in their own languages. A result of these approaches would seem to indicate, with respect, some of the factors citizens of the Arab and Muslim world might wish to consider to use their extraordinary talents even more fully:
The Ability to Question – Western culture is predicated on questioning: inquiring of authorities how they came to the conclusions they reached — a concept […]

Ahmadinejad warns of enemy plots to urge division among Muslim Ummah

Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, warned here on Monday against the enemy plots to encourage division among Muslim nations.
Ahmadinejad warns of enemy plots to urge division among Muslim Ummah
(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) – He made the remarks in a meeting with Egyptian journalists and political activists, who were here to attend the 23rd anniversary of demise of Islamic Republic Founder late Imam Khomeini which was observed on June 3.
"Iran is ready to confer with the Arabic nations as brother counties on various regional and international issues; Muslim nations of the region are rich enough and their cooperation will boost their independence; Tehran is ready to extend its experience in all fields to all Muslim countries, including Egypt."
"Imam Khomeini believed that betterment of world affairs would be possible in light of betternment of each country's problems and all nations can lead peaceful co-existence if their governments are changed positively."
"All people form any background or color or region or races are regarded the same in Islam and it is a religion for all mankind."
President underlined that Iran's view toward recent regional Islamic Awakening is optimistic because it believes that these developments are rooted in the nations' desires.
"Iranian and Egyptian nations should work actively […]

Latest Article

Do Mullahs Represent Islam? Farooq Ahmad Khan

June 3rd, 2012
Unfortunately, several miscreants among the Muslims are found among the Mullahs of Pakistan and perhaps the Islamic world at large. The problem at hand is that these Mullahs have swerved from the actual teachings of Islam and have blemished its image all over the world. And they are also found in various other countries such as Bangladesh, Malaysia and Indonesia etc. Many a time, they are quoted in news related to extremism, sex scandals and militancy.
The sayings of the Holy Prophet (pbuh) make prophecies regarding the Mullahs (many of them are also so-called Ulema) of today. For example, in one saying we find:
"There will come a time when there will be nothing left of knowledge. People will make the ignorant their leaders and will seek guidance from them in matters of religion. These leaders will issue fatwa's without any knowledge. They will themselves be misguided and will lead others astray." (Mishkat, Kitab ul-Ilm, Chapter 3, P. 38)
Another Hadith adds to this:
"Their mosques will apparently be full of people, but they will have no soul in them. Their Ulema will be the worst miscreants and they will be a safe haven for discord." (Kanzal Ummal, Chapter […]

War with Iran is Inevitable: Dr. Avi Perry

Either the U.S. or Israel will have to undertake military action to stop Iran before the mullahs reach a nuclear status because sanctions and negotiations will not come up to scratch.
In my latest talk show on the Paltalk News Network, I discussed Iran's quest for becoming a nuclear power.
I predicted that the Islamic fundamentalist regime will not yield to the world's demands, that Iran will keep its macho talk loud and condescending. I claimed that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei will not cave in to pressure no matter what sanctions the Americans or the EU impose on the Islamic republic.
I asserted that although macho talk in the Islamic Middle East was a standard adopted by all militant Islamic leaders, the Iranian government would be flexing its muscles, flaunting its sharp teeth. It believes that economic sanctions will hurt but not as much as caving in to American demands.
I explained that in a culture where false honor precedes anything that moves under the sun, where life without "honor" is far worse than death, where honor killing is a religious diktat, caving in to economic sanctions is equivalent to an unconditional surrender. And surrendering to the "Great Satan" merely because life is […]

Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti – A Model For Sufi Islam

By Asghar Ali Engineer
(Secular Perspective June 1-15, 2012)
Sufi Islam, as pointed out by us repeatedly is most tolerant Islam which is highly compatible with multi-culturalism and pluralism. It flourished in India precisely for this reason. Not only that it produced many great Sufis of indigenous origin but many great Sufis were attracted to India from Persia, Arabia and other countries, especially Central Asia. India has been pluralistic for centuries. It never witnessed any period which had only one religion, or one language or one culture. It was always multi-cultural and multi-religious.
Hazrat Moinuddin Chishti, who was from Seistan, Iran also migrated to India via Central Asia after seeing Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) in dream who asked him to go to India and spread the message of Islam. Hadith literature also tells us that the Prophet (PBUH) had great attraction for India and in one of the hadith he is reported to have said that I am getting cold breeze from India.
This year is the 800th year of visal (death) of Hazrat Moinuddin Chishti as he died in 1212 AD. There was unprecedented gathering at Ajmer where he is buried. More than 30,000 people came on this occasion to pay their respects to […]

Fight Terrorism, Not Terrorists

Fight Terrorism, Not Terrorists
Saturday, 02 June 2012 03:57 Amil Imani
To my thinking, Islam is the problem because there are Muslims who take its holy book, the Quran, as gospel and carry out its divisive and deadly provisions. Without Muslims, Muhammad's Quran would be just another historic relic sitting on library shelves, next to Hitler's Mein Kampf, gathering dust and criminals of the world have to find other instruction manuals to guide their activities.
What good is it to burn the Quran or desecrate it? The fire from burning the Quran only energizes the already zany fanatical believers of Allah to further engage in their world-dismembering acts.
People who keep proclaiming that they have nothing against Islam, but their battle is with Muslim terrorists are an enigma. Perhaps these people are the politically correct; the delusional who rearrange reality to their fancy; or the naïve who are incapable of dealing with facts. These people are either incapable or do not want to see that it is the Muslims, the active jihadists as well as their masses of supporters who are and remain culprits committing much of what is repugnant and harmful to civilized humanity.
If the fight is with Islam and not with Muslims, […]

Arab Intellectuals and the West

Arab-Muslim intellectuals have a responsibility to seriously reevaluate our relationship with the West now that the Arab Spring has provided a rare opportunity for such a worthwhile undertaking, insists Fathi El-Shihibi.
Middle East Online
Even though many Arab intellectuals have expressed hope that the Arab Spring would significantly change the dynamics permeating the relationship between the Arab and the Western worlds, however based on the outcomes of revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen and Libya, popular attitudes remain similar if not identical to those that were prevalent following the Napoleonic invasion of Egypt in July of 1798 which brought Egypt and with it the Arab Muslim world face to face with the scientific and technologically superior Europe. As I elaborated in details in my book, Arab, Muslim Travelers and the West, Arab/Muslim, attitudes towards the West since then took four different yet interwoven directions that continue to dominate intellectual discourses on the subject in and outside of academia.
The first direction which is still popular among both Arab secularists and Islamists is a selective process by means of which the Arab/Muslim culture adopts from European culture particularly those elements that complement and conform to the Arab/Islamic values and traditions. This trend was initially adopted […]

All-American 45 American Men on Being Muslim

Islam , Keith Ellison , American Muslim Men , Congressman Ellison , I Speak For Myself , Islam In America , Religious Books , White Cloud Publishing , Religion News
"It's not what you call me, but what I answer to."
–African proverb
Although a decade has passed since Sept. 11, 2001, and the world has been abuzz about Islam and what it means since then, it is clear Muslim-Americans must tell their own stories.
Many have attempted to define Islam and the people who adhere to the faith. Islam in America is not something new. Islam has been practiced in America for 14 generations, but our beliefs, our practices and even our daily lives remain woefully misunderstood.
As a Member of the United States Congress I can assure you that I have been well treated, well received and well respected by my colleagues. But because I get to discuss policy matters and be part of the public conversation every day, I can admit that misconceptions still exist.
What is regrettable is that in the past decade American Muslims have been associated with individuals who claim to practice the faith but actually use it as a means to establish their identity. These individuals have been willing […]

Chicago Islamic leader uses education as weapon against terrorism and discrimination

by Nolan Peterson
May 30, 2012
Gain Peace websiteTribune blog post about billboard controversy
Education is the weapon of choice for an area Islamic leader in his fight against the radicalization of Islamic youth and the discrimination of American Muslims.
Dr. Sabeel Ahmed, 36, is the director of the Gain Peace project, an Islamic outreach program based in Chicago. Ahmed blames misinterpretations of the Quran and Islam for the dual extremes of Islamophobia and violent Islamist radicalism. He sees education as the way forward to both break down stereotypes and counter terrorist groups looking to recruit Muslim-Americans to commit acts of violence.
Ahmed's organization sparked controversy five years ago after erecting a billboard near O'Hare Airport that asked "Why Islam?" But the Indian-born medical doctor insists education and peace are his goals, not conversion.
Q: What was the inspiration for creating Gain Peace? What are your goals?
A: Gain Peace is a part of the Islamic Circle of North America, a national organization with 26 chapters created in 1971. Gain Peace is an outreach to make sure we educate fellow Americans about the faith of Islam to do away with misconceptions about the religion. We do many projects, including inviting fellow Americans into mosques, to fight the […]

It Is Allowed to Marry a Girl at the Age of One: Dr. Ahmad Al-Mub'i, a Saudi Marriage Officiant

Dr. Ahmad Al-Mub'i, a Saudi Marriage Officiant: It Is Allowed to Marry a Girl at the Age of One, If Sex Is Postponed. The Prophet Muhammad, Whose Model We Follow, Married 'Aisha When She Was Six and Had Sex with Her When She Was Nine
Following are excerpts from an interview with Dr. Ahmad Al-Mu'bi, a Saudi marriage officiant, which aired on LBC TV on June 19, 2008:
Dr. Ahmad Al-Mu'bi: Marriage is actually two things: First we are talking about the marriage contract itself. This is one thing, while consummating the marriage – having sex with the wife for the first time – is another thing. There is no minimal age for entering marriage. You can have a marriage contract even with a one-year-old girl, not to mention a girl of nine, seven, or eight. This is merely a contract [indicating] consent. The guardian in such a case must be the father, because the father's opinion is obligatory. Thus, the girl becomes a wife… But is the girl ready for sex or not? What is the appropriate age for having sex for the first time? This varies according to environment and traditions. In Yemen, girls are married off at nine, […]

Islam Is a Religion, and Therefore Protected by the Constitution

By Wendy Kaminer
May 30 2012
Plaintiffs in a Tennessee lawsuit want to deny local Muslims the right to build a mosque. Why? They claim it's not a legitimate faith and shouldn't be allowed First Amendment rights.
mosque-body.jpgThe Islamic Center of Murfreesboro, Tennessee, under construction (Reuters)
It's unclear whether a procedural victory for opponents of a controversial Islamic center in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, will delay or permanently enjoin completion of a mosque, under construction since last September. Equally unclear, without detailed knowledge of the facts, are the merits of Chancellor Robert Corlew's ruling that the planning commission had not provided proper public notice of the construction before granting a permit. But if this ruling is not a victory for bigotry (Corlew explicitly acknowledged the Islamic congregation's rights under the First Amendment and a federal statute), it is a victory for the bigots who opposed the mosque out of antipathy toward Islam and the idiotic claim that it is not a religion.
Mosque opponents effectively "put Islam on trial," KATV reports. At 2010 hearings, "a string of witnesses questioned whether Islam is a legitimate religion and promoted a theory that American Muslims want to replace the Constitution with extremist Islamic law and the mosque was a part […]

Deoband / Barelwi Unity: Destroying the Wahabis

The same thing i posted on deoband.org & waiting for a reply.
As Salaam alaikum
In the Name of Allah The Most Gracious , The Most Mericiful
May Peace & Blessings be upon the leader of Mankind , The Best of Allah creation , Muhammad Sallalahu Alahi wa sallam and on his family & companions
I have come here with good intentions not to disturb the peace of people of this forum. I am a Hanafi from the sub continent and i am fed up with this Deobandi & barelwi bashing.
I expect good conversations with elders like Amir Ibrahim on this forum who i have talked before on Orkut.
1) whats up with this deobandi & barelwi bashing ?
2) Do you realise that between the war of deobandi & barelwi has given a 3rd Deviant group known as Najdi / ahle-khabees great advantage .
3) while you were still bashing each other the deviant group planted its seeds with in the sub continent in front of your eyes.
Note : For the sake of ALLAH swt and the love of Imam Abu Hanfia (ra) the madhab which you both follow , why can't you keep your differences aside .
Don't you see how much damage this Najdi has […]

--
Asadullah Syed

Is Islam Compatible with Capitalism?

GUY SORMAN

Is Islam Compatible with Capitalism?

The Middle East's future depends on the answer.

BEBA/IBERFOTO/THE IMAGE WORKS

A sixteenth-century Turkish bazaar. Muslim tradition has long accepted the marketplace, though sharia constrained its efficiency.

The moment you arrive at the airport in Cairo, you discover how little Egypt—the heart of Arab civilization—is governed by the rule of law. You line up to show your passport to the customs officer; you wait and wait and wait. Eventually, you reach the officer . . . who sends you to the opposite end of the airport to buy an entry visa. The visa costs 15 U.S. dollars; if you hand the clerk $20, though, don't expect any change, let alone a receipt. Then you make the long hike back to the customs line, where you notice that some Egyptians—important ones, apparently—have helpers who hustle them through. Others cut to the front. It's an annoying and disturbing welcome to a chaotic land, one that has grown only more chaotic since the January revolution. It's also instructive, effectively demonstrating why it's hard to do business in this country or in other Arab Muslim lands, where personal status so often trumps fair, universally applied rules. Such personalization of the law is incompatible with a truly free-market or modern society and helps explain why the Arab world's per-capita income is one-tenth America's or Europe's.

The airport experience, had he been able to undergo it, would have been drearily familiar to Rifaa al-Tahtawi, a brilliant young imam sent to France in 1829 by the pasha of Egypt. His mission: figure out how Napoleon's military had so easily crushed Egypt three decades earlier, a defeat that revealed to a shocked Arab world that it was now an economic, military, and scientific laggard. At the outset of the book that he wrote about his journey, The Gold of Paris, Rifaa describes a Marseille café: "How astonished I was that in Marseille, a waiter came to me and asked for my order without my looking for him." Then the coffee arrives without delay. Finally—most amazing of all—Rifaa gets the bill for it, and the price is the same as the one listed on the menu: "No haggling," he enthuses. Rifaa concludes: "I look for the day when the Cairo cafés will follow the same predictable rules as the Marseille cafés." But nearly two centuries later, the only Egyptian cafés that live up to Rifaa's hopes are the imported Starbucks.

Egypt is, of course, a Muslim nation. Should Islam be indicted for what was in Rifaa's time, and remains today, a dysfunctional economy? The question becomes all the more important if you extend it to the rest of the Arab Middle East as it is swept by popular revolts against authoritarian rule. Will the nations that emerge from the Arab Spring embrace the rule of law and other crucial institutions that have allowed capitalism to flourish in the West? Or are Islam and economic progress fundamentally at odds?

Muslim economies haven't always been low achievers. In his seminal work The World Economy, economist Angus Maddison showed that until the twelfth century, per-capita income was much higher in the Muslim Middle East than in Europe. Beginning in the twelfth century, though, what Duke University economist Timur Kuran calls the Long Divergence began, upending this economic hierarchy, so that by Rifaa's time, Europe had grown far more powerful and prosperous than the Arab Muslim world.

A key factor in the divergence was Italian city-states' invention of capitalism—a development that rested on certain cultural prerequisites, Stanford University's Avner Greif observes. In the early twelfth century, two groups of merchants dominated Mediterranean sea trade: the European Genoans and the Cairo-based Maghrebis, who were Jewish but, coming originally from Baghdad, shared the cultural norms of the Arab Middle East. The Genoans outpaced the Maghrebis and eventually won the competition, Greif argues, because they invented various corporate institutions that formed the core of capitalism, including banks, bills of exchange, and joint-stock companies, which allowed them to accumulate enough capital to launch riskier but more profitable ventures. These institutions, in Greif's account, were an outgrowth of the Genoans' Western culture, in which people were bound not just by blood but also by contracts, including the fundamental contract of marriage. The Maghrebis' Arab values, by contrast, meant undertaking nothing outside the family and tribe, which limited commercial expeditions' resources and hence their reach. The bonds of blood couldn't compete with fair, reliable institutions (see "Economics Does Not Lie," Summer 2008).

Greif's theory suggests that cultural differences explain economic development better than religious beliefs do. Indeed, from a strictly religious perspective, one could view Muslims as having an advantage at creating wealth. After all, Islam is the only religion founded by a trader—one who also, by the way, married a wealthy merchant. The Koran has only good words for successful businessmen. Entrepreneurs must pay a 2.5 percent tax, the zakat, to the community to support the general welfare, but otherwise can make money guilt-free. Private property is sacred, according to the Koran. All this, needless to say, contrasts with the traditional Christian attitude toward wealth, which puts the poor on the fast track to heaven and looks down in particular on merchants (recall Jesus's driving them from the Temple).

But Duke's Kuran believes that Islam did play a role in the Long Divergence. It wasn't the Koran, which the Muslim faithful see as written by God and unalterable, that impeded Muslims economically, he argues, but instead sharia, the religious law developed by scholars after Mohammed's time. Not that sharia was overtly hostile to economic progress; it established commerce-friendly legal rules that, for instance, allowed for bazaars and for the arbitration of economic disputes. Rather, Kuran maintains, sharia became economically counterproductive because it was less efficient than the Western legal framework.

The most significant of the sharia-rooted economic liabilities was the Islamic partnership, which proved no match for the Western world's joint-stock company. Partnerships were short-lived, dissolving with the death of any of the partners, and they tended to be small, often formed among family members. Joint-stock companies, which sharia prohibited, had much greater reach and risk-hedging power. Sharia inheritance rules were a second drag on economic development, Kuran explains. Since the Koran sanctions polygamy, sharia required a husband's wealth, upon his death, to go in equal portions to his widows and children, which worked against capital accumulation. In the Roman law that held sway in Europe until the nineteenth century, by contrast, the eldest son inherited his deceased father's wealth, creating vast fortunes that could be put to economic work. Some economists point to sharia's prohibition of interest as another hamper on development, but this is much less significant than it appears. From at least the twelfth century on, sharia lawyers authorized "fees" that could accompany money-lending, getting around the ban.

Muslim welfare foundations to aid the poor, called waqf, also undermined economic competitiveness over time, says Kuran. According to sharia, all money given to these charities was exempt from taxation. But Muslim merchants began to establish waqf as fronts for commercial enterprises, depriving the government of sufficient funds to function properly. This tax evasion contributed to the failure of the Arab kingdoms and the Ottoman Empire to build a competent minimal state, which is essential to the effective rule of law.

For evidence that sharia had negative economic effects, consider the Egyptian city of Alexandria. Beginning in the fifteenth century, non-Muslim merchants in the city could opt out of sharia's business rules. Those who did and embraced Western capitalist norms quickly grew richer than those who continued to follow sharia, historians have shown.

Over time, however, sharia adapted to capitalism. In the nineteenth century, it finally allowed Muslims to form joint-stock companies and to borrow other key capitalist institutions from the West. Today, Islamic banks follow the same practices that non-Islamic banks do (including the use of derivatives) but describe them differently, so that they conform with sharia. Yet despite this transformation in Islamic law, Muslim economies still lag behind Western ones. Greif and Kuran may help explain the Long Divergence, but what accounts for the fact that there is no "Arab Tiger" comparable with Asia's remarkable success stories?

Part of the answer may, in fact, be religious: Islam's apostasy law. Sharia holds that a Muslim who breaks with Islam becomes an apostate, an offense punishable by death. And since, at least for Sunni Muslims, there is no central theological authority—the theocratic regime in Iran establishes such authority for Shiite Muslims—any Sunni imam can define what constitutes breaking with Islam. This power may deter potential innovators, including the entrepreneurial kind, from doing anything that could conceivably get them into trouble.

But a bigger reason for the Arab world's stagnation is political. In nearly every Arab Muslim country, the prime enemy of entrepreneurship and the free market is an abusive government—and the strong, unaccountable, and usually despotic regimes that have dominated Arab Muslim populations for decades owe neither their origins nor their legitimacy, such as it is, to Islam. All emerged from the decolonization struggles of the 1950s and 1960s, which, since the primary colonizers were Europeans, provoked angry anti-Western and anticapitalist attitudes in Muslim societies. The decolonization of the Arabs did not go well. Violent confrontations were the norm, even when full-blown war didn't break out, as happened in Algeria. The upheavals brought military regimes to power in most of the decolonized Arab states; even when the military wasn't officially in charge, it controlled puppet governments, as in Morocco. All these regimes espoused nationalism and resisted any rule of law that might limit state power—or give entrepreneurs a freer hand.

Worse, independence took place at a time when the Soviet Union was influential and many believed that centrally planned socialism was a shortcut to power and prosperity. Arab governments thus found it tempting to confiscate private property, eradicate the existing bourgeoisie, and create massive state monopolies in resources like copper, oil, and phosphate. In the name of national independence and economic modernization, all the wealth could be concentrated in the hands of the ruling militaries and bureaucracies.

After the fall of the Soviet Union showed socialism to be far less efficient than the free market, Arab Muslim governments began to free up markets somewhat, but without surrendering their tyrannical authority. This resulted in an Arab crony capitalism, which is now the dominant economic arrangement in the Muslim Middle East. In today's pseudo-market Arab economies, it makes little sense to be an independent entrepreneur. If you want to open a business, you'll need a license, and the only surefire way to obtain it is to belong to (or be close to) someone in the ruling elite; even then, you'll share your profits with the bureaucrats. It's far easier to seek a rent—a benefit based on your position in society. Rent-seeking is particularly prevalent in countries overflowing with natural resources like oil and gas, which bring in massive revenues that reduce the incentive to diversify the economy.

Egypt exemplifies the crony-capitalist model. During the 1990s, corrupt privatizations transferred state monopolies in energy, steel, cement, and other industries to private "entrepreneurs," most of whom were members of President Hosni Mubarak's family, top military officers, and other well-connected people. Meanwhile, economist Hernando de Soto has calculated, opening a modest bakery in Cairo required two years of slogging through the bureaucracy, at each stage of which the would-be owner would need to grease official palms—and if his bakery finally opened, he would then have to pay ongoing protection money to the local police. Small wonder Egypt suffers from slow growth, massive unemployment, and a large black market.

The authoritarian nature of today's Muslim governments also generates social norms that harm entrepreneurship. For example, a survey conducted by the Casablanca-based business magazineL'Economiste compared the organizational structures of Moroccan firms with those of Western companies operating in Morocco. It found that the boss of a Moroccan firm tends to have a larger office and more assistants, secretaries, and chauffeurs than his Western counterpart does and that his behavior is more autocratic. The likely reason is that the Moroccan boss, mimicking the king and his entourage, finds power—and the exhibition of power—more compelling than profits.

The prosperity-crushing influence of government on Muslim entrepreneurship has nowhere been more evident than in Turkey. In the early nineteenth century, the Turkish sultan, like the Egyptian pasha, tried to import Western science and military methods without introducing Western rule of law. "The Ottoman Empire fell into poverty because the dominant concern of the sultans was always to avoid the emergence of a competing power," explains Turkish economist Evket Pamuk. And the possibility that they feared the most was the birth of a Westernized Turkish bourgeoisie, its power based on private ownership.

When the empire became the Turkish Republic in 1921, little changed. The republic's founder, Mustafa Kemal (later called Atatürk, a name he chose that means "Father of the Turks"), was fascinated by the fashionable Italian fascist ideal. The Turks lacked entrepreneurial spirit, he believed, so it was up to the government to act as a collective entrepreneur and pick those who deserved to start new businesses. Under his regime, which became a military dictatorship after his 1938 death, the Turkish economy made little progress, though a small group of well-connected businessmen grew extremely wealthy.

Islam wasn't to blame for Turkey's poor economy. Indeed, the new republic was fiercely secular; for decades, no openly devout Muslim could hold any significant position in public service, in the military, or even in business. Modern Turkey started to grow economically only after it began to free up the market under former World Bank economist Turgut Özal, a devout Muslim whom the military had installed as prime minister in 1987 to bring inflation under control. Özal's reforms opened the way for the openly Islamic, pro-market Justice and Development Party, or AKP, which has ruled Turkey since 2002. Whatever criticisms one might make of the AKP—it has on occasion sought to impose religious norms on a secular society, among other troubling signs—it has brought about an astounding transformation of Turkey's economy. The state's budget is balanced, prices are stable, free trade is enthusiastically embraced, and crony capitalism has been constrained. As a consequence, the Turkish growth rate has been one of the world's highest: 8 percent annually for several years now. Turkey's per-capita income is now higher than Saudi Arabia's—and Turkey has no oil.

Fueling this economic expansion is a new generation of entrepreneurs from Anatolia, in eastern Turkey. These businesspeople are conservative Muslims, but they aren't extremists. The Anatolians are astonishing; no one can say for sure how they arrived on the scene as the dynamic engine of Turkish modernity. Ask an Anatolian entrepreneur about this success and he may credit a strong work ethic, combined with family values ingrained in the Muslim faith. Or he may mention the business traditions of Anatolia, a crossroads between Asia and Europe under the Ottoman Empire. Pamuk, a secular Turk, points to mundane factors like the Anatolians' low labor costs and Turkey's proximity to the vast European market: Turkey now exports 25 percent of its national production, up from 3 percent in 1980. Whatever the reason for the Anatolian breakthrough, Islam has not impeded it.

Will the Turkish model spread to nearby Arab countries? This year's revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt may answer that question. Remember the man who inspired the revolutions: Mohammed Bouazizi, a young Tunisian who earned a university degree but could find no decent formal employment, a situation all too common for educated young Arabs. Bouazizi sought to make a living from a tiny fruit-and-vegetable stand, but last December, because he hadn't registered it with the authorities, police confiscated it. Bouazizi then set himself on fire.

Bouazizi's suicide brought millions of Arabs to the streets because they could identify with him. Human rights leaders didn't start the revolutions; neither did long-banned Islamic movements like the Muslim Brotherhood. The upheavals weren't characterized by Islamic banners or by Israeli flags going up in flames (though there were disturbing reports of Muslims attacking Christian churches in Egypt after the police had vanished from the streets). No, the dominant message of the Arab Spring was that the Arabs didn't want to remain separated from the rest of the world. The Egyptian students in Tahrir Square couldn't have put it more clearly: they wanted democracy, globalization, and market prosperity, not Islamicization. "We want a normal country, which means free enterprise and democracy," said one of their leaders, Amr Salah of the Cairo Institute for Human Rights, in Paris this April. Even the notorious Muslim Brotherhood is on board with capitalism: "Our economic program is a free-market society in order to pursue social justice," says Sameh al-Barqui, an American-educated economics expert with the Brotherhood.

The transition from the Arab world's authoritarian regimes to democracy, markets, and the rule of law is far from guaranteed, of course. For a reminder of the difficulty of installing successful Western-style capitalism, consider Rifaa, who returned to Egypt after seven years in France and became the pasha's main advisor—overseeing the translation of French scientific books into Arabic, founding the first Arabic newspapers, and opening schools for girls. Though Rifaa faced the hostility of Muslim conservatives, his reforms, accompanying the era's shifts in sharia, inaugurated an era of modernization in Egypt. By the late nineteenth century, Cairo was starting to look like a European city, with electricity, sanitation, universities, and an independent press. But the renaissance didn't last long, because Rifaa repeatedly failed to persuade the pasha to accept a Western-style constitution, which would have limited the ruler's arbitrary power. What kept Egypt back was its failure to establish the rule-governed institutions familiar in the West.

It should be sobering, therefore, that the military isn't likely to surrender its political privileges easily in any Arab country. Still, most of the political parties emerging in the ferment are supporters of free markets. (Some socialist parties remain in Morocco and Tunisia, where the French influence left its mark, but they are socialist in name only.) The young men and women behind the Arab Spring will continue to push for more open markets where millions of Bouazizis will be able to become entrepreneurs—where it won't take two years and countless bribes to open a bakery. And there appears to be no cultural or religious reason that someday, in the not-so-distant future, we won't find cafés in Cairo that run as efficiently and reasonably as those in Marseille.

Guy Sorman, a City Journal contributing editor, is the author ofChildren of Rifaa: In Search of a Moderate Islam and many other books.

URL of this Page: http://www.city-journal.org/2011/21_3_muslim-economy.html

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Asadullah Syed

Humaira Ameer Rasuli, Head of Medica Afghanistan

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01.07.2011''It's Not Easy Being an Afghan Woman''

She may laugh a lot, but Humaira Ameer Rasuli lives dangerously. The Afghan human rights activist speaks out in a country where women are still excluded from the development process. By Sandra Petersmann

Humaira Ameer Rasuli doesn't mince her words. "Women play no part in Afghan society. Their rights as citizens of this country are neither acknowledged nor respected." This fundamental criticism is directed against both the Afghan government and the international community. "At the moment all they are concerned with is trying to keep the peace. But what is peace worth if half the population has no share in it?"

Ameer Rasuli is the director of 'Medica Afghanistan', an aid organization that has been independent since December 2010. Like its German parent organization 'medica mondiale', it acts on behalf of women who have been the victims of violence. Rasuli laments "the persistent silence" that still surrounds Afghanistan's female population almost a decade after the fall of the radical Islamic Taliban regime.

Ameer Rasuli believes the root cause of this is the brutalization of the population through three decades of war. She says that the ongoing violence has reinforced the traditional, patriarchal tribal structures and made them even more difficult for women to break out of. "But it is also because of mistaken interpretation of the Sharia. It was always men who interpreted Islamic law, to their own advantage."

Lagging behind

"What is peace worth if half the population has no share in it?" - Humaira Ameer RasuliRasuli, the mother of a young son, knows that in making statements like these she also makes powerful enemies in the Islamic republic of Afghanistan, but it's something she is prepared to do. "After almost ten years of democracy, there are in reality only small democratic refuges. Women do not feel any real freedom. We're not allowed say what we think." She tries to do so nonetheless, as often as she can.

Ameer Rasuli is one of very few privileged women in Afghanistan. She studied for a degree in business management, followed by a couple of terms studying medicine.

"It's not easy being an Afghan woman," she says, smiling. She recalls an international workshop she took part in Germany. Other participants included women's rights activists from Bosnia, Liberia, Kosovo, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. "In these countries the violence against women is certainly comparable, but at least these countries do already have laws to protect them, and do sometimes apply them. It made me so depressed, because we're still so far behind in our development."

Article 23 of the new Afghan Constitution of 2004 declares that men and women have "the same rights and duties before the law", and that all forms of discrimination are forbidden. But Ameer Rasuli stresses that, for Afghan women, this is not their daily reality. "If the political will to apply the laws is not there, they mean nothing at all." The reality is that confident women in Afghanistan live in fear for their lives. Zakia Zaki, a brave radio journalist, was shot dead in 2007. One year later the courageous policewoman Malalai Kakar was assassinated.

Constitution and constitutional reality

The young women's rights activist acknowledges that, particularly in the big urban centres such as Kabul, Mazar-i-Sharif and Herat, there has been visible progress. Women are seen on the street again; girls are going to school; some are also attending colleges of further education and universities. There are currently four more female ministers sitting in the lower house of the Afghan parliament than prescribed by the quota.

Devastating statistics: According to UN data, at least 1,600 mothers die for every 100,000 births, and 280 children in every thousand die before the age of fiveBut if you look at the country as a whole, for the vast majority almost nothing has changed as a result of the Western intervention in the autumn of 2001. The mortality rate for mothers and children is still one of the highest in the world.

The statistics are devastating. According to UN data, at least 1,600 mothers die for every 100,000 births. 280 children in every thousand die before the age of five.

Around 80% of all marriages are forced marriages. Around half of all brides are under 16. On average, every Afghan woman gives birth to six children. For almost 90% of Afghan women domestic violence is part of daily life, and in the majority of rape cases it is the woman who is deemed to have been at fault.

An un-Islamic organization

Only about 12% of all women over the age of 15 can read and write. The 31-year-old Ameer Rasuli can list endless cases of abused women who didn't know that using violence against them was forbidden. She tells of members of the Afghan parliament who pressurize her to abandon her work, saying that Islam envisages justice, not equal rights.

"I don't know what justice means to these members of parliament. In their eyes we are an un-Islamic organization, because as far as they are concerned violence against women doesn't exist."

Rasuli appeals to the international community not to abandon Afghanistan after the planned withdrawal of Western combat troops. "Our great hope is that if foreign powers continue to intervene, the government will have to enforce internationally applicable rights. We need the international community to care about and help us."

Membership without influence: The National Peace Council includes nine women, but they have "no clear role", Rasuli admonishesNonetheless, the director of Medica Afghanistan knows that there will not be a military solution for the problems of the Hindu Kush. She too thinks that the only way to achieve a solution is through difficult negotiations. She believes that negotiating with representatives of the Taliban movement is the right thing to do, but she also says that "the rights of women should not be sacrificed for peace".

However, Ameer Rasuli has little hope for the work of the High Peace Council under the leadership of ex-president Rabbani, who is to conduct talks with the Taliban movement on behalf of the Afghan government. Alongside powerful regional leaders, religious scholars and tribal elders, the 70-strong council also includes nine women, but they have "no clear role", and are again shrouded in silence.

Rasuli criticizes the fact that the West is financing the work of the Peace Council without first developing a joint strategy and establishing common aims. "This has been the fundamental problem of Afghan development for almost ten years," she says: the lack of a joint strategy and the lack of clear objectives. Nonetheless, she believes that without the support of the international community the women of Afghanistan will not benefit from any development at all.

Sandra Petersmann

© Deutsche Welle/Qantara.de 2011

Translated from the German by Charlotte Collins

Editors: Diana Hodali/Deutsche Welle, Lewis Gropp/Qantara.de

URL of this Page: http://en.qantara.de/wcsite.php?wc_c=16484&wc_id=16707

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Asadullah Syed