This article acknowledges that the practice is permitted under Sharia law. But far too few people realize that the persistence of this practice in Muslim communities stems from Muhammad's own example:
"Narrated 'Aisha: the Prophet married her when she was six years old and he consummated his marriage when she was nine years old, and then she remained with him for nine years (i.e., till his death)" (Sahih Bukhari7.62.64).
"Muslim child brides on rise," by Tom Godfrey for theToronto Sun, March 12:
"Federal immigration officials say there's little they can do to stop "child brides" from being sponsored into Canada by much older husbands who wed them in arranged marriages abroad.
Top immigration officials in Canada and Pakistan say all they can do is reject the sponsorships of husbands trying to bring their child-brides to Canada. The men have to reapply when the bride turns 16. The marriages are permitted under Sharia Law.
Muslim men, who are Canadian citizens or permanent residents return to their homeland to wed a "child bride" in an arranged marriage in which a dowry is given to the girl's parents. Officials said some of the brides can be 14 years old or younger and are "forced" to marry. The practice occurs in a host of countries including: Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan and Lebanon.
Not valid in Canada
Canadian visa officer Steve Bulmer said in classified documents he refused to allow one Pakistani man to sponsor his 15-year-old bride in August 2009.
"I can find no section (of law) that states the marriage is 'invalid' or 'void," Bulmer wrote in e-mails obtained by lawyer Richard Kurland under Access of Information. "I am afraid the age does not invalidate the marriage even if it is illegal to marry."
Abdul Hameed, of the Canadian embassy in Islamabad, said child marriages are not valid in Canada.
"A child marriage is punishable but it does not render the marriage invalid," Hameed said. "We are refusing such application on grounds the marriage will not be valid as per Canadian laws."
William Hawke, of immigration's Permanent Resident Unit, said the young brides won't be allowed in Canada.
"Sponsorship applications submitted for a spouse under 16 will be refused," he said.
What happens next will have major implications for Muslims everywhere.
The arrest and indictment of top military figures in Turkey last week precipitated what is potentially the country’s most severe crisis since Ataturk founded the republic in 1923. The weeks ahead will probably indicate whether the country will continue its slide toward Islamism or revert to its traditional secularism. The denouement has major implications for Muslims everywhere.
Turkey’s military has long been both the state’s most trusted institution and the guarantor of Ataturk’s legacy, especially his laicism. Devotion to the founder is not some dry abstraction but a very real and central part of a Turkish officer’s life; as journalist Mehmet Ali Birand has documented, cadet-officers can hardly go an hour without hearing Ataturk’s name invoked.
On four occasions between 1960 and 1997, the military intervened to repair a political process gone awry. On the last of these occasions, it forced the Islamist government of Necmettin Erbakan out of power. Chastened by this experience, some of Erbakan’s staff re-organized themselves as the more cautious Justice and Development Party (AKP). In the decisive election of 2002, they surged ahead of discredited and fragmented centrist parties with a plurality of 34 percent of the popular vote.
Parliamentary rules then transformed that plurality into a 66 percent supermajority of assembly seats and a rare case of single-party rule. Not only did the AKP skillfully take advantage of its opportunity to lay the foundations of an Islamic order, but no other party or leader emerged to challenge it. As a result, the AKP increased its portion of the vote in the 2007 elections to a resounding 47 percent, with control over 62 percent of parliamentary seats.
Repeated AKP electoral successes encouraged it to drop its earlier caution and hasten moving the country toward AKP’s dream, an Islamic Republic of Turkey. The party placed partisans in the presidency and the judiciary while seizing increased control of education, business, media, and other leading institutions. It even challenged the secularists’ hold over what Turks call the “deep state” — the non-elected institutions of the intelligence agencies, security services, and judiciary. Only the military, the ultimate arbiter of the country’s direction, remained beyond AKP control.
Several factors then prompted the AKP to confront the military: European Union accession demands for civilian control over the military; a 2008 court case that came close to shutting down the AKP; and the growing assertiveness of its Islamist ally, the Fethullah Gülen movement. An erosion in AKP popularity (from 47 percent in 2007 to 29 percent now) added a sense of urgency to this confrontation, for it pointed to the end of one-party AKP rule in the next elections.
The AKP devised an elaborate conspiracy theory in 2007, dubbed “Ergenekon,” to arrest about two hundred AKP critics, including military officers, under accusation of plotting to overthrow the elected government. The military responded passively, so the AKP raised the stakes on January 22 by concocting a second conspiracy theory, this one termed “Balyoz” (“Sledgehammer”) and exclusively directed against the military.
The military denied any illegal activities and the chief of general staff, İlker Başbuğ, warned that “our patience has a limit.” Nonetheless, the government proceeded, starting on February 22, to arrest 67 active and retired military officers, including former heads of the air force and navy. So far, 35 officers have been indicted.
Thus has the AKP thrown down the gauntlet, leaving the military leadership basically with two unattractive options: (1) continue selectively to acquiesce to the AKP and hope that fair elections by 2011 will terminate and reverse this process; or (2) stage a coup d’état, risking voter backlash and increased Islamist electoral strength.
At stake is whether the Ergenekon/Balyoz offensives will succeed in transforming the military from an Ataturkist to a Gülenist institution; or whether the AKP’s blatant deceit and over-reaching will spur secularists to find their voice and their confidence. Ultimately the issue is whether sharia will rule Turkey or the country will return to secularism.
Turkey’s Islamic importance suggests that the outcome of this crisis has consequences for Muslims everywhere. AKP domination of the military would put Islamists in control of the umma’s most powerful secular institution, making them unstoppable. But if the military retains its independence, Ataturk’s vision will remain alive in Turkey and offer Muslims worldwide an alternative to the Islamist juggernaut.
Kadhafi calls for jihad against Switzerland over minaret ban
Feb 25 03:22 PM US/Eastern
Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi called on Thursday for jihad (holy war) against Switzerland over the ban adopted last year on the construction of minarets in the country.
"It is against unbelieving and apostate Switzerland that jihad ought to be proclaimed by all means," Kadhafi said during a speech in the Mediterranean coastal city of Bengazi to mark the birthday of the Muslim Prophet Mohammed.
"Jihad against Switzerland, against Zionism, against foreign aggression is not terrorism," Kadhafi said.
"Any Muslim around the world who has dealings with Switzerland is an infidel (and is) against Islam, against Mohammed, against God, against the Koran," the leader told a crowd of thousands in a speech broadcast live on television.
In a November 29 referendum, Swiss voters approved by a margin of 57.5 percent a ban on the construction in their country of minarets, the tower that are a signature part of mosques.
Iran clerics start taking control of schools
Nov 25 12:48 PM US/Eastern By ALI AKBAR DAREINI Associated Press Writer
TEHRAN,Iran (AP) - Islamic religious authorities have begun tightening their grip on Iranian public schools, a report said Wednesday, as hard-liners expand an ideological "soft war" against Western influence.
The effort appears to be part of a wider drive to counter opposition groups and other pro-reform factions that have been emboldened by the unprecedented protests after June's disputed presidential election.
Authorities have recently emphasized the need to battle the reach of Western media, viewpoints and culture—which resonate strongly in a country where nearly half the population was born after the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Officials also have stepped up blocks on Internet links and closures of the few remaining liberal-leaning news outlets, while expanding state-run media arms and giving hard-liners more sway over education.
"Now, the enemy has put soft war on its agenda and the top priority today is to fight the soft war," Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on state television Wednesday during a meeting with Revolutionary Guard commanders and its affiliate paramilitary Basij forces.
Mousavi's statement said the Basij, the street wing of the Guard, was created by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the father of Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution, as a popular body to serve the public and not to become stooges of the government and kill citizens holding peaceful protests.
"Basij, which the Imam (Khomeini) favored, didn't stand against the people, it stood by the people," he said in the statement. "It was not expected that Basij ... rob the people of their free votes ... and be rewarded for detaining people at gatherings."
Mousavi says President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stole the June 12 election from him through massive vote fraud. Hundreds of thousands of protesters poured into the streets in the weeks after the vote, prompting a violent government crackdown.
The opposition says at least 72 people died in the security crackdown on protesters and that many of those detained were abused in custody. The government puts the number of dead at half that figure.
Although the street protests died down months ago, Mousavi and other leading opposition figures have refused to silence their protests and their pressure on the country's Islamic leadership.
In his Wednesday statement, Mousavi said the Revolutionary Guard has under Khameini, Khomeini's successor, deviated from the values it was once committed to.
"Should anyone who rejects the superstition offered to the people in the name of religion ... be beaten up in the streets, tortured in prison and sentenced to long jail terms? Does Islam ... allow that people who seek justice from their rulers be killed?" he asked.
Cleric Ali Zolelm, who heads a joint school-seminary committee, said Islamic clerics have already widened control in some schools, the daily Etemad newspaper reported.
Full details of the plan have not come out and it was not known whether the Education Ministry would relinquish full oversight. But hard-liners, including Ahmadinejad, have criticized Western influence in school curriculum.
"Recently, seminaries took management control of some schools in several provinces," the paper quoted Zolelm as saying.
Elementary grades were believed to be the focus of the nationwide plan. It was not immediately clear whether higher grades also would fall under clerical influence.
Earlier this month, Iranian officials announced plans to appoint a cleric in every school—a move widely seen as an effort to bring stricter Islamic interpretations into the public education system and address growing divides between clerics and many young, secular-oriented Iranians.
An Education Ministry official, Ali Asghar Yazdani, was quoted as saying that the clerics could lead collective prayers in schools and answer religious questions by students.
Last month in Tehran, pupils elected a classmate in student elections because his name was similar to opposition leader Mousavi's.
In the central city of Isfahan, a student running for school office copied Mousavi's campaign and used the green as his signature color.
While Iranian government officials tried hard to stop spread of the news, words of the student vote spread across the nation.
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press
The Million Muslim March?
2009 November 12
by Jamie Glazov
On yesterday’s O’Reilly Factor, O’Reilly had a profound discussion about the Fort Hood massacre with Bernie Goldberg, author of the new book, A Slobbering Love Affair: The True (And Pathetic) Story of the Torrid Romance Between Barack Obama and the Mainstream Media. Goldberg is always superb and this time he narrowed in wisely on the pathologies that the Fort Hood massacre has exposed: the political correctness nurtured by the Left in our society and the disinclination of so-called “moderate” Muslims to stand up in mass numbers and denounce the likes of Nidal Malik Hasan.
In making his point, Goldberg shrewdly asked when we are going to see a Million Muslim March take place in Washington – in which a million Muslims gather to denounce terror and declare that what Nidal Malik Hasan did was un-Islamic.
Goldberg’s point is crucial, but we need to add to it. The key that is often missed in our nation’s discussion on Islamic terrorism is that this is not necessarily about Muslims themselves. As the scholar Robert Spencer has stressed over and over again, the problem is not Muslims, the problem is Islam – in the sense that the problem is what Islam teaches. So the crucial issue in all of this is not what this Muslim may think or that Muslim may think. It’s not about these empty arguments about whether the majority or minority of Muslims are peaceful or not. The issue is what Islamic theology mandates.
And so the crux of the issue is this: if Islam is really a Religion of Peace and if the majority of Muslims really do support peace and reject violence, then when are they going to rise up in majority numbers and denounce the teachings within Islam that inspire and sanction the terrorism that Islamic terrorists engage in? When will they renounce the verses and teachings that Islamic terrorists point to and quote in justifying and explaining their violence?
So here is an idea. Thank you Bernie Goldberg, there does need to be a Million Muslim March. And if Islam is a Religion of Peace, then in this Million Muslim March the million Muslims who gather can demonstrate it by categorically doing the following:
[1] Repudiate Sura 9:29 of the Qur’an, which commands Muslims to fight Jews and Christians (“the People of the Book”) until they “pay the jizya [a non-Muslim poll tax] with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.” The teaching is that, if they refuse to pay the jizya, Jews and Christians should be killed. Are Muslims ready to join the Million Muslim March and reject this as un-Islamic? Are they ready to completely negate Islamic law when it comes to the teaching of the necessity to subjugate Jews and Christians?
[2] Collectively agree that a woman has a right to engage in a love life she chooses without having to fear for her life. In other words, to accept that women have the right to self-determination, including in the sexual realm, and that their lives must not be at stake in this matter. This reality is in many respects, and on many realms, at the heart of our terror war, as jihad is very much inspired by the impulse to keep women enslaved under a system of gender apartheid. As Wafa Sultan, Hirsi Ali, Nonie Darwish, Brigitte Gabriel, Phyllis Chesler and others can tell you, jihadists are infuriated by women’s freedom in the West and see this as a grave threat to their misogynistic systems of totalitarian Puritanism.
If Muslims at the Million Muslim March cannot agree on this principle of women having the right to be free, then they are in the end legitimizing violence against women and declaring Islamic ideology to be incompatible with the democratic system in which they live. And this reality, of course, explains why honor killings are perpetrated by Muslims throughout the world and why they are on a skyrocketing increase in America and in the West.
[3] Reject the Islamic doctrine on apostasy, which holds that a Muslim has to be killed if he changes his religion.
[4] Reject the Islamic doctrine that Muslims are obligated to turn the whole world into committed Muslims, by force and jihad if necessary. In other words, the Muslims who arrive at the Million Muslim March can prove their religion is one of peace by repudiating all the schools of Islamic jurisprudence that teach that it is part of the responsibility of the umma to subjugate the non-Muslim world through jihad.
[5] State that Christians and other non-Muslim religions can freely proselytize in a Muslim land or community and remain unharmed.
[6] Reject the Qur’an’s description of Jews being apes and pigs. (Suras 2: 62-65, 5:59-60, 7:166)
These are the first six ideas for the Million Muslim March. There are, of course, many more. Perhaps various scholars of Islam, like Robert Spencer, will be invited to contribute more ideas by the organizers of the Million Muslim March. But I have a feeling all of this will not happen, just as I have a feeling that the six suggestions I have made, and the facts that are contained within them, will not be ingredients for discussion in our media, especially among those who are vehemently denying that the Fort Hood massacre has anything to do with Islam, jihad or Islamic terror.
Somali rebels say bra un-Islamic, whip women
REUTERS 17 October 2009, 01:24am IST
|
MOGADISHU: Somalia’s hardline Islamist group al Shabaab has publicly whipped women for wearing bras they say violate Islam by constituting a
deception, north Mogadishu residents said on Friday.
The insurgent group, which seeks to impose a strict form of sharia Islamic law, amputated a foot and a hand each from two young men accused of robbery. They have also banned movies, musical ringtones, dancing at wedding ceremonies and playing or watching soccer.
Residents said gunmen had been rounding up any woman seen with a firm bust and then had them publicly whipped by masked men. The women were then told to remove their bras and shake their breasts.
“Al shabaab forced us to wear their type of veil and now they order us to shake our breasts,” a resident, Halima said adding that her daughters were whipped. “They first banned the former veil and introduced a hard fabric which stands stiffly on women’s chests. They are now saying that breasts should be firm naturally, or just flat.”
GOP Lawmakers Accuse Muslim Advocacy Group CAIR of Planting Spies on Capitol Hill
Four congressmen are asking for an investigation into the Council on American Islamic Relations after discovering an internal memo noting the group's strategy.
FOXNews.com
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Four House Republicans on Wednesday accused the nation's largest Muslim advocacy group of trying to "infiltrate" Capitol Hill by placing interns in the offices of lawmakers who handle national security issues.
The four lawmakers, members of the anti-terror caucus, asked for an investigation into the Council on American Islamic Relations after discovering an internal memo noting the group's strategy. They also highlighted a new book by Paul Sperry titled "Muslim Mafia," scheduled for release on Thursday, which claims the group has been actively infiltrating Congress.
Reps. Sue Myrick of North Carolina, Trent Franks of Arizona, Paul Broun of Georgia and John Shadegg of Arizona asked the Internal Revenue Service to determine whether CAIR deserves its nonprofit status. They also are asking their colleagues to review a summary of findings that led the Justice Department to name CAIR as a co-conspirator in a terrorism case.
The internal memo, provided to FOXNews.com, stated that CAIR would "focus on influencing congressmen responsible for policy that directly impacts the American Muslim community."
The memo cited three House committees -- Homeland Security, Intelligence and the Judiciary -- as panels on which lawmakers preside over policy affecting American Muslims.
"We will develop national initiatives such as a lobby day and placing Muslim interns in Congressional offices," the memo read.
Earlier this year the FBI severed its once-close ties with CAIR as evidence mounted of the group's links to a support network for Hamas, which the U.S. has designated a terrorist organization.
"It's frightening to think that an organization with clear-cut ties to terrorism could have a hand in influencing policy -- especially national security policy -- within our government," Myrick said. "The investigations that we're asking for are simple, and I'm hopeful that they will bring to light any and all information regarding the goals of CAIR."
Franks called on CAIR to renounce its ties to terrorist groups and state publicly that it does not support Hamas or the Muslim Brotherhood.
"I take the charges levied against CAIR and laid out in this book very seriously because they affect our national security," Franks said in a statement. "This Congress must be deliberate in taking a strong stance against those groups and organizations that align themselves with terrorists."
"We live in a post-9/11 world where the coincidence of nuclear proliferation and Islamic terrorism pose a very dangerous combination and real threat to America's national security," he said. "That is why it is critical, in light of the well supported documents and information, that the U.S. Congress take this issue seriously."
CAIR decried the call as a "racist" and "insidious" attack on Muslims and mocked the allegations.
"If it wasn't so insidious, it would be laughable," CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper told FOXNews.com. "What are their charges? CAIR seeks political participation of Muslims. I'm shocked."
Hooper said the evidence proves only that the group is trying, like every other minority group, to engage Muslims in the political process.
"Why is it evil when Muslims seek political participation?" he asked.
In the book "Muslim Mafia," a six-month sting appears to link CAIR to an organized crime network made up of more than 100 other Muslim front groups that make up the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood. The book claims the group is bent on destroying Western civilization.
Hooper said Sperry's efforts only proved the group's good intentions.
"The guy spied on us for months, stole documents -- and the most they came up with is CAIR seeks to work with policymakers on Capitol Hill?" Hooper said.
"I see it as a stamp of approval."
Report: Global Muslim population hits 1.57 billion
By ERIC GORSKI (AP) – 1 day ago
The global Muslim population stands at 1.57 billion, meaning that nearly 1 in 4 people in the world practice Islam, according to a report Wednesday billed as the most comprehensive of its kind.
The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life report provides a precise number for a population whose size has long has been subject to guesswork, with estimates ranging anywhere from 1 billion to 1.8 billion.
The project, three years in the making, also presents a portrait of the Muslim world that might surprise some. For instance, Germany has more Muslims than Lebanon, China has more Muslims than Syria, Russia has more Muslims than Jordan and Libya combined, and Ethiopia has nearly as many Muslims as Afghanistan.
"This whole idea that Muslims are Arabs and Arabs are Muslims is really just obliterated by this report," said Amaney Jamal, an assistant professor of politics at Princeton University who reviewed an advance copy.
Pew officials call the report the most thorough on the size and distribution of adherents of the world's second largest religion behind Christianity, which has an estimated 2.1 billion to 2.2 billion followers.
The arduous task of determining the Muslim populations in 232 countries and territories involved analyzing census reports, demographic studies and general population surveys, the report says. In cases where the data was a few years old, researchers projected 2009 numbers.
The report also sought to pinpoint the world's Sunni-Shiite breakdown, but difficulties arose because so few countries track sectarian affiliation, said Brian Grim, the project's senior researcher.
As a result, the Shiite numbers are not as precise; the report estimates that Shiites represent between 10 and 13 percent of the Muslim population, in line with or slightly lower than other studies. As much as 80 percent of the world's Shiite population lives in four countries: Iran, Pakistan, India and Iraq.
The report provides further evidence that while the heart of Islam might beat in the Middle East, its greatest numbers lie in Asia: More than 60 percent of the world's Muslims live in Asia.
About 20 percent live in the Middle East and North Africa, 15 percent live in Sub-Saharan Africa, 2.4 percent are in Europe and 0.3 percent are in the Americas. While the Middle East and North Africa have fewer Muslims overall than Asia, the region easily claims the most Muslim-majority countries.
While those population trends are well established, the large numbers of Muslims who live as minorities in countries aren't as scrutinized. The report identified about 317 million Muslims — or one-fifth of the world's Muslim population — living in countries where Islam is not the majority religion.
About three-quarters of Muslims living as minorities are concentrated in five countries: India (161 million), Ethiopia (28 million), China (22 million), Russia (16 million) and Tanzania (13 million).
In several of these countries — from India to Nigeria and China to France — divisions featuring a volatile mix of religion, class and politics have contributed to tension and bloodshed among groups.
The immense size of majority-Hindu India is underscored by the fact that it boasts the third-largest Muslim population of any nation — yet Muslims account for just 13 percent of India's population.
"Most people think of the Muslim world being Muslims living mostly in Muslim-majority countries," Grim said. "But with India ... that sort of turns that on its head a bit."
Among the report's other highlights:
_ Two-thirds of all Muslims live in 10 countries. Six are in Asia (Indonesia, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Iran and Turkey), three are in North Africa (Egypt, Algeria and Morocco) and one is in sub-Saharan Africa (Nigeria).
_ Indonesia, which has a tradition of a more tolerant Islam, has the world's largest Muslim population (203 million, or 13 percent of the world's total). Religious extremists have been involved in several high-profile bombings there in recent years.
_ In China, the highest concentrations of Muslims were in western provinces. The country experienced its worst outbreak of ethnic violence in decades when rioting broke out this summer between minority Muslim Uighurs and majority Han Chinese.
_ Europe is home to about 38 million Muslims, or about five percent of its population. Germany appears to have more than 4 million Muslims — almost as many as North and South America combined. In France, where tensions have run high over an influx of Muslim immigrant laborers, the overall numbers were lower but a larger percentage of the population is Muslim.
_ Of roughly 4.6 million Muslims in the Americas, more than half live in the United States although they only make up 0.8 percent of the population there. About 700,000 people in Canada are Muslim, or about 2 percent of the total population.
A future Pew Forum project, scheduled to be released in 2010, will build on the report's data to estimate growth rates among Muslim populations and project future trends.
A similar study on global Christianity is planned to begin next year.
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