The Pencil and the Hijab: Freedom of Expression Includes the Right Not To Be Secular

By Gershom Gorenberg

Jan. 14, 2015

 Muslim women hold posters in Madrid, Spain on January 11, 2015 during a show of solidarity following three days of bloodshed in Paris. Photo by AFP

On a June morning several years ago, I sat on a bench on a side street in central Paris, outside the institute where a prominent expert on political Islam had his office. I'd arrived early for my interview with him. While I waited, I got a brief introductory lesson in cultural Islam: A woman walked by, fashionably dressed in colour-coordinated pastel pants, blouse and Hijab.

Fashion, I know, is an ambiguous and superficial statement. Still, the statement she made was quite French, quite Muslim, and quietly subversive. Her tight-fitting blouse surely would have disturbed some Islamic purists in the Paris slums. Her headscarf would have disqualified her, by law, from teaching at a French public school.

This week, looking at photos of the mass rally in Paris, I was impressed by the apparent show of shared purpose. But I wondered how many of the marchers using the symbol of a pencil to defend free speech would also defend the right to express oneself by wearing a Hijab. This isn't a rhetorical question; I don't know the answer. I'd suggest, however, that acceptance of the woman in the pastel Hijab as a full citizen of the republic, a Frenchwoman, is essential to the war on terror.

That phrase, "war on terror," is usually misused in too wide or too narrow a sense – too wide when it's a synonym for "conflict of civilizations"; too narrow when it refers only to tactical means of preventing attacks or pursuing perpetrators.

What both usages ignore is that modern terrorism is apolitical strategy born in Western revolutionary movements. It's a tool of the few to mobilize the many: Acts of extravagant violence are expected to spur the enemy – the regime, or colonial power, or post-colonial powers – to overreact, to harm the innocent. People whom the terrorists believe should be on their side will be unable to remain quiet or seek compromise. In the larger conflict that ensues, the terrorists expect victory.

Renamed jihad, terror takes on a religious garb but the goals of polarization and escalation remain. So responding to an act of terror by Islamic radicals as if Islam alone produces such violence, or as if all Muslims were automatic terror suspects, plays into the hands of the terrorists. When Israel reacts to Hamas terror in ways that hurt the entire Palestinian population, it serves the terrorists. Those people in France who react to the brutal attacks of the past week by voting for the radical right will grant the terrorists a victory.

On the other hand, to the extent that the sombre crowds in Paris demonstrated the civic unity of a diverse France, they handed a strategic defeat to terror. Those Israeli commentators who dismissed the demonstration as a useless gesture were mistaken.

The signs saying "Je Suis Charlie" bore a more contradictory message. Correct: Nothing that the magazine Charlie Hebdo published could provide a shadow of justification for murder. To identify with the victims seems a natural way to insist on freedom of expression. Intentionally or not, though, the slogan "I am Charlie" also suggests identifying with the magazine's content.

"Dumb, crudely executed, and not particularly witty," is how Slate writer Justin Peters described most Charlie Hebdo caricatures dealing with Islam. But then, Charlie Hebdo treated Catholicism and other targets with similar puerile vulgarity. Peters makes a strong case that the magazine wasn't specifically Islamophobic, but belonged to the long anti-clerical tradition in French politics.

The problem is that opposing clerical power and negating religion aren't the same thing. As long as religion is neither violent nor forcibly imposed, it is also a form of expression that deserves protection. Secularizing the state does not require secularizing all its citizens.

In recent years, though, insistence on a secular France has sometimes meant that one can't be obviously Muslim and truly French at the same time. The 2004 law that banned conspicuous displays of religion in public schools - such as wearing a Hijab – is an establishment expression of the same anti-clerical tradition. The line between anti-clerical and Islamophobic isn't so clear.

To underline the point: If Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai, the heroic advocate of education for girls, lived in France, she wouldn't be able to attend a public school wearing her headscarf. I humbly submit – from a distance, from a country suffering its own forms of intolerance – that this narrow form of republicanism is polarizing. It negates the fashionable pastel Hijab along with deeper ways of melding Islam and Frenchness.

So "Je Suis Charlie" isn't a particularly thoughtful response to terror. In Sydney, during the café siege by a sole Islamic extremist a month ago, a slogan was born that defied terrorism's goals much more effectively: the Twitter hashtag #Illridewithyou. It began with one woman upset to see another removing her headscarf on a train for fear of retribution. It was adopted almost instantly by non-Muslim Australians volunteering to ride public transportation with Muslims to protect them. It spoke of inclusiveness. Inclusiveness is a defeat for terror.

Gershom Gorenberg is the author of "The Unmaking of Israel" and "The Accidental Empire: Israel and the Birth of the Settlements, 1967-1977." Follow him on Twitter: @GershomG 

Source: http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.637011

URL: http://www.newageislam.com/islam,terrorism-and-jihad/gershom-gorenberg/the-pencil-and-the-hijab--freedom-of-expression-includes-the-right-not-to-be-secular/d/101098

The Silence of Corpses

By Praveen Swami

January 19, 2015

In the year 1192, al-Hakim Yusuf al-Sabti watched as an angry mob burned down the library of a great doctor from Cordoba, who had been accused of atheism by the clerics of Baghdad. He saw in the hands of Sheikh Ibn al-Maristaniya, the leader of the mob, a rare copy of the Tadhkirah fi’Ilm al-Haya’a, a masterwork by the great medieval scientist Abu Ali ibn al-Haytham that contained proofs that the earth was round. Al-Sabti recorded: “The sheikh exclaimed: ‘here is a huge disaster’, and as he said that he ripped up the book and threw it into the fire.” The heirs of the medieval Islamic rulers who had been al-Haytham’s patrons did not resist the tide: with no challenge to their power then in sight, science was a small sacrifice to appease increasingly powerful clerics.

In the centuries that followed, the Middle East’s intellectuals plunged into what the Germans call kadavergehorsamkeit: the silence of corpses. The historian Abdur Rahman ibn Khaldun could even assert that Ilm al-Kalam, or intensive logical reasoning, was no longer “necessary in this era for the student of knowledge, since apostasy and heresy have become extinct”.

Al-Haytham’s work was rediscovered in Renaissance Europe, though; his breakthroughs on astronomy, mathematics, and optics and, above all, the scientific method, helped lay the foundations for the continent’s long ascendancy.

The lessons from the book burning of Baghdad ought to be evident in a world just days away from the massacre of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo’s staff: blasphemy must be protected not as some pious credo, but because ideas that challenge the very foundations of our beliefs are critical to human progress. Yet, even as the world mourns Charlie Hebdo’s murdered cartoonists, liberals have begun asking if the dead gave their lives for a worthwhile cause. In a widely circulated cartoon, cartoonist Joe Sacco asked his readers to introspect on exactly why Muslims find it hard to “laugh off a mere image”. In essence, the liberal multiculturalist case is this: though murder is wrong, so is gratuitous offence, particularly of a besieged religious minority. This multiculturalist argument is profoundly misguided. For one, the Charlie battle isn’t one that pits one set of arbitrary beliefs against another, offering us the choice of moral ambivalence.

It is, instead, part of a much larger struggle of theocrats against republican values — key among them the idea that human beings have inalienable rights but not ideas, like the divine right to rule. In much of the world, this is not a trivial debate. Through the Middle East, murderous authoritarians have long cloaked themselves in the robes of the pious to legitimise their rule. The jihadist campaign against blasphemers is intended to show that their Kalashnikovs can guard god better than kings and their armies. Algerian anthropologist Mahfoud Bennoune, writing in 1994 while his country’s government was still seeking to appease the Islamists slaughtering intellectuals, noted that jihadists had “induced a part of the popular classes to think that the Algerian state, which was created after an eight-year war of national liberation, is impious, and its head of state is a hypocritical tyrant and the majority of its citizens are infidels who must be re-Islamised by terror”.

Pakistan is the most egregious example of this process at work. Bowing to clerical pressure, the political establishment gave scripture a veto over the legislature’s working in 1956. In subsequent years, ever more concessions were made to the religious right. Today, the country is on the edge of the theocratic abyss, with clerics now riding the donkey cart the military had once recruited them to pull.

Saudi Arabia’s monarchy, fearful of a restive youth population easily seduced by jihadists, appeases its clerics by punishing apostates and blasphemers — the latest case that of Raif Badawi, sentenced to 1,000 lashes for critical commentary on religion. In Malaysia, Christians may no longer call their god Allah, a word all communities there have used for centuries.

Like Western reactionaries, ironically, multiculturalists seem incapable of seeing Muslims other than through what Maxime Rodinson called a theologocentric lens — the notion that all believers are driven by faith, and by faith alone. Yet, in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Pakistan and the West, it is Muslims who spearhead resistance to god’s gunmen. Even in France, vastly more Muslims serve their security services than the jihadists.

Islamism is in fact a radical break from the history of the faith, and a perversion of its traditionalist practices. The scholar Olivier Roy has pointed out that the Western jihadist by no means represents the vanguard of Muslim communities. Roy notes that the jihadists “are deliberately at odds with the Islam of their parents, as well as Muslim culture overall”. Their Islam, he argues, is an invention fired by “displays of violence in the media of Western culture”.

For many progressives in the Middle East, multiculturalism itself smacks of the racism it decries. Lebanese-born architect Karl Sharro suggests the multiculturalists are guilty of “essentially suggesting that Muslims are incapable of responding rationally”. Though “dressed up in the language of social justice and marginalisation”, he writes, this is “a patronising view of ordinary Muslims and their capacity to advocate for their rights without resorting to nihilistic violence”.

In response, multiculturalists would argue that Charlie Hebdo incited racism, not republican resistance. This fashionable argument, though, rests on weak empirical ground. In one cartoon recruited to their cause, the women slaves captured by Boko Haram are shown pregnant, demanding their welfare benefits. The cartoon, claimed to denigrate the slaves, in fact attacks France’s rightwing, mocking its claims that refugees were benefit-seeking “welfare queens”.

Christiane Taubira, a black French minister represented as a monkey in one Charlie cartoon used by multiculturalists to press their racism case, has come out strongly in defence of the magazine — understanding, as Anglophone liberals did not, that the image caricatured attacks on her the reactionary National Front. It is worth noting Charlie draws its politics from France’s feisty leftwing, assaulting religions of all shades and fighting for the rights of workers and minorities — including, notably, the so-called sans-papiers, or undocumented immigrants. The magazine also builds on a long European tradition of raucous satire, given a venerated place in the literary canon. Jonathan Swift, after all, assailed the English parliament by calling on its members to “toast Old Glorious in your piss”.

Geoffrey Chaucer’s “The Miller’s Tale” has the teenage Alison cuckolding her aged husband with a young lover — and sticking her rear end out of a window for an unlucky admirer to kiss. For all its failings, the multiculturalist argument is seductive to Indian liberals, precisely because it permits silence. Hindutva, Islamist and Christian reactionaries have, for many years, used violence and intimidation to censor dissent.

Liberals, with some honourable exceptions, haven’t summoned the courage to resist. Now, as a result of this silence, the state decides on our behalf whether we may read The Satanic Verses or Aubrey Menen’s irreverent retelling of the Ramayana. It chooses not to prosecute the vandals who block stores from stocking D.N. Jha’s The Myth of the Holy Cow, James Laine’s history of Shivaji, or Paul Courtright’s Explorations Of Oedipal Undertones In Hindu Mythology. The silence of these corpses will cost us, just as it did the Middle East centuries ago. praveen.swami@expressindia.com

Source: http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/the-silence-of-corpses/

URL: http://www.newageislam.com/islam,terrorism-and-jihad/praveen-swami/the-silence-of-corpses/d/101104

Muslims Have Embraced Images Of The Prophet Mohamed Throughout History — Why Are So Many Of Them Upset Now?

By Sajjad Rizvi

16 January 2015

 

Our debate is misguided: it's not about whether you represent the Prophet, but how

After the Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris last week, much of our discussion has focused on whether anyone has the freedom to depict Mohamed. But this is misguided in my opinion.

Back in 2006, many Muslims were angered when a right-wing Danish newspaper published a series of cartoons that portrayed the Prophet Mohamed in a negative light. At the same time, many other Muslims were rather taken by a portrait of Mohamed as a young man that was making the rounds in the markets.

That image was understood to be an old image of Mohamed on one of his early trading journeys up to Syria. It had been sketched by the Christian monk Bahira, the legendary figure of early Islam, who confirmed the prophetic status of the young man.

The contrasting responses to these two sets of images suggest that the issue is not whether one represents Muhammad, but how.

A study of the scriptures does not confirm any prohibition on images. The Quranic proscription of idolatry, the story of Abraham as a idol-breaker, and the condemnation of the Golden Calf, are all specific elements of the prohibition of images as objects of worship. But they do not prevent anyone from producing images of men — even sacred ones.

In early Islam, there is actually some positive acceptance of images. At the conquest of Mecca, when Mohamed helped destroy the idols housed in the sanctuary of the Kaaba, he preserved an icon of the Virgin and child, as well as a painting of Abraham.

Another early story shows how Muslims could be moved to devotion by encountering the image of their Prophet. In 871, a Muslim merchant to China recorded his encounter with the emperor who asked the merchants whether they could identify prophets from the pictures that he had.

At one point in the narrative, the merchant records: "I saw the picture of the Prophet Mohamed, God bless him and keep him, mounted on a camel with his companions around him on their camels, with Arab sandals on their feet and tooth sticks in waistbands, and I wept." “Ask him why he is weeping,” the emperor said to the interpreter.” “This is our prophet and our master, eternal peace be upon him.”

Added to this is the extensive artistic heritage portraying Mohamed’s nativity, his ascension to heaven and in the company of other men of God. And aside from Mohamed, Muslim cultures in the early period were also perfectly happy using coinage with human images, most famously the "standing caliph dinar".

What's clear from all of this, is that Muslim cultures were never necessarily hostile to images. So the question is: what accounts for the offence felt by some Muslims when faced with images of the Prophet?

It's not a case of him being depicted or not, but rather how he is depicted. It all hinges on whether he is being portrayed as a man of violence, of sensuality, of depravity. All of these arise out of medieval Europe’s caricaturisation of Mohamed as part of their campaign against Islam.

That pejorative portrayal offends the sensibilities of those who see Mohamed as much more than just a man. In the words of a famous Arabic poem, he was an ordinary man in the same way as a ruby is an ordinary stone.

Because of this, the way many Muslim respond to images of Mohamed have less to do with a lack of creative imagination and disdain for free, artistic expression, and more to do with what they consider to be a perverted image of an exemplary man of God.

Source: http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/muslims-have-embraced-images-of-the-prophet-mohamed-throughout-history--why-are-so-many-of-them-upset-now-9983412.html?icn=puff-1

URL: http://www.newageislam.com/islamic-ideology/sajjad-rizvi/muslims-have-embraced-images-of-the-prophet-mohamed-throughout-history-—-why-are-so-many-of-them-upset-now?/d/101103

Terror of Hypocrisy: Let’s Not Be Selective or Hypocritical In the Debate Surrounding Freedom of Expression and Demand for Condemnation from ‘Moderate’ Muslims

By Irena Akbar

January 19, 2015

Another year. Another cartoon lampooning the Prophet. Another terrorist attack by the “violent” Muslim. And another round of condemnation of the attack by the “moderate” Muslim.

Yes, the “moderate” Muslim has performed her “duty” of condemning the acts of her “violent” co-religionists. She has told her non-Muslim friends and colleagues that she doesn’t support the terrorists who murdered the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists. But she has also explained to them that she is deeply offended by the obnoxious cartoons. Depicting the Prophet naked, crouching, with genitals exposed? It’s unfunny, nonsensical and nothing but bigotry hiding behind freedom of expression. It’s not even satire. Satire is meant to convey a message in a funny, irreverent way. But can somebody please explain to the “moderate” Muslim what message such a cartoon is trying to convey? Because satire requires wit and a sense of humour. And she, as a Muslim, lacks both. Even if she is “moderate”.

But freedom of expression includes the freedom to offend. Well, she has the freedom to feel offended, too. Agreed, both are exercising their respective freedoms. But no, her friends say that “‘moderate’ Muslims need to condemn violence by your radicalised youth even more”. There’s way too much terror being unleashed by Muslims worldwide, thanks to the Islamic State, al-Qaeda, Taliban and Boko Haram. So, “your voice needs to be louder, more forceful”, she is told.

This “demand”, however, irks the “moderate” Muslim. Each time a terror attack is carried out by “violent” Muslims, the “moderate” Muslim does stand up. After the latest Paris attack, the heads of at least four Muslim-majority states — Jordan, Turkey, Egypt and Palestine — took part in the solidarity march. On Facebook, Muslims are sharing videos explaining that the Prophet never attacked poets and artists who routinely insulted him. In offices and colleges worldwide, the “moderate” Muslim has been condemning acts of terror carried out by her “violent” co-religionists since 9/11, including 7/7 and 26/11. In recent years, social media has given voice to the invisible, ordinary “moderate” Muslim. After the IS made its ugly debut in the theatre of terror last year, a group of British Muslims released “Not in My Name”, an online video in which they say they don’t want terror to be committed in their name. It set off the Twitter hashtag “NotInMyName”, which had many Muslims tweeting against the IS. Muslim organisations, too, have denounced terrorism. The Darul-Uloom Deoband had issued a fatwa some years back condemning terrorism. After 26/11, Muslim actors wore black bands on Eid, which fell on December 10 that year, and said they wouldn’t celebrate the festival in solidarity with the terror victims. “Moderate” Muslims are now sick of condemning. Their condemnation has plateaued and they are now laughing at demands for denunciation of all acts of terror. In a blogpost now gone viral among Muslims, American Muslim blogger Daniel Haqiqatjou writes, “According to my calculations, we need to be denouncing things at 50 times the volume and at least 20 times the speed to meet all the demand That’s why I am developing the world’s first Muslim denunciation app: The iCondemn®!”

“Moderate” Muslims are now asking “moderate” non-Muslims to reciprocate and condemn crimes committed by their “violent” co-religionists against Muslims. Yes, the neat boxes of “moderate” and “violent” need to be extended to other religious communities too. Have “moderate” Buddhists condemned the atrocities of “violent” Buddhists against Muslims in Myanmar and Sri Lanka? Did “moderate” Jews condemn the massacre of Arab Muslims in Gaza last year? (There were plenty of stories about Israeli tweeps celebrating the massacre of “stinking Arabs”).

Did “moderate” Hindus condemn “violent” Hindus for the 2013 anti-Muslim Muzaffarnagar riots? Have “moderate” Christians condemned the deaths of millions of Iraqis in the “war on terror”? If they have all condemned, have they condemned enough, to the satisfaction of the “moderate” Muslim? A few days ago, J.K. Rowling shot back at Rupert Murdoch’s tweet asking “all Muslims to take responsibility for jihadist cancer” with her tweet, “The Spanish Inquisition was my fault, as is all Christian fundamentalist violence. Oh, and Jim Bakker.”

But this can set off a vicious “I condemn-you condemn” cycle. So, it’s best to stop this business of demanding condemnation from all Muslims when a few idiots commit an act of terror.

In the latest context of the freedom of speech, the “moderate” Muslim, too, is questioning the hypocrisy of it all. Why did Charlie Hebdo sack cartoonist Maurice Sinet in 2008 for his anti-Semitic remark? Why did France ban pro-Palestine demonstrations last year in the wake of the Gaza siege? Why was John Galliano, chief designer of French fashion house Dior, sacked for his allegedly anti-Semitic rant in 2011? Why did Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, which published cartoons of the Prophet (with creepy smiles and his turban shaped as a bomb) in 2005, decide not to print anti-Christ images and vowed not to publish Holocaust caricatures? Why was Prince Harry made to apologise for sporting the Swastika on his Halloween costume some years back? Why was Michael Jackson asked to delete anti-Semitic lyrics from his song “They don’t care about us”? When the West is so careful about not hurting Jewish/ Christian sentiments, why are Muslims expected not to be outraged at clearly Islamophobic cartoons?

Let’s not be selective or hypocritical in the debate surrounding freedom of expression and demand for condemnation from “moderate” Muslims.

Source: http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/terror-of-hypocrisy/

URL: http://www.newageislam.com/islam,terrorism-and-jihad/irena-akbar/terror-of-hypocrisy--let’s-not-be-selective-or-hypocritical-in-the-debate-surrounding-freedom-of-expression-and-demand-for-condemnation-from-‘moderate’-muslims/d/101099

‘Unwed Bride’ Roams Cairo in Her White Dress

Samah Hamdi's viral video project aims to dump social taboos about unmarried women in the country. The sign reads: "Would you like anything else?!" (Courtesy: Hamdi/Facebook)

‘Unwed Bride’ Roams Cairo in Her White Dress

Saudis Alarmed Over Number of Unmarried Women

Lebanon Religious Laws Violate Women’s Rights

The Female Pioneers behind the Golden Age of Egyptian Cinema

Muslim Women Org. Condemns Islamophobic Attacks in Europe

Isis: Jihadi Janes in Syria Incite UK Muslim Women to Violence Says ICSR Study

Haia Objects to Children’s Dance

Saudi Implores Authorities Not To Deport Expat Wife

Woman Admits To Taking Part in Dh2.8m Heist

Compiled by New Age Islam News Bureau

URL: http://www.newageislam.com/islam,-women-and-feminism/new-age-islam-news-bureau/‘unwed-bride’-roams-cairo-in-her-white-dress/d/101107

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‘Unwed Bride’ Roams Cairo in Her White Dress

19 January 2015

An unwed woman is roaming the streets of Cairo in a wedding dress to dump social taboos about unmarried women in the country.

In a viral, award-winning video, Samah Hamdi, 27, is seen riding the subway, walking about, and eating at a restaurant – all while donning her bridal attire.

According to Egyptian news site Ahram Online, an unmarried Hamdi was “tired of being put in a pigeonhole by her family.” She was reportedly inspired by family squabbles over the fact that she is "late" for marriage.

"I just want to appear in the way my family and mother, a microcosm of society, have always pushed to see me in," Hamdi, an interior designer who is pursuing a Master's degree in performance arts, was quoted as saying by the site.

"No matter how accomplished you are, that won't count if you aren't married or haven't undertaken the mission you were purportedly created for: getting married and establishing a family," Hamdi added.

The five-minute video art project produced 56 photographs of Hamdi going about her usual daily routine in the dress. It was shot over the course of almost a year. “The project only came to light when it was shown in the Cairo Opera House's 25th Salon of Young Artists in November 2014. There was a screening of the video, with the photos displayed on an adjoining wall coupled with twin-texts representing Hamdi's replies to the negative conventional image of unmarried women. The project won the Ahmed Basiouny prize for video installation,” Ahram Online reported.

According to official figures in 2011, almost nine million Egyptians reach 33 without tying the knot, nearly half of them women.

"[Society] believes that any other women's plans or aspirations should serve that end: you become a doctor or pursue Master's so you can land on a doctor or a better prospective groom; you dress this way so you appeal to and attract men, etc."

But Hamdi still faces conflicting ideas within her own family about the project.

“Hamdi's mother … thinks her daughter, whom she views as a ‘spinster,’ played in the stunt a role she has ‘failed to accomplish in real life’ — getting married,” Ahram Online reported. — Al Arabiya News

http://www.saudigazette.com.sa/index.cfm?method=home.regcon&contentid=20150119230952

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Saudis Alarmed Over Number Of Unmarried Women

January 19, 2015

Manama: Saudis have called for radical solutions to help address the growing phenomenon of unmarried women in the country.

The latest alarm was sounded this week by Mohammad Al Abdul Qadir, the head of Wiam Family Care Society, who said that around 1.5 million Saudi women above 30 were not married.

The figure represents 33.4 per cent of the number of women in the kingdom, he said, local daily Makkah reported.

“We need to work on a new vision for Saudi families for the next ten years,” he said. “We need solutions that are based on the consolidation of the values of family solidarity and cohesion in order to confront several phenomena, particularly spinsterhood,” he said.

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Some Saudi female activists said that the figure of unmarried women in the kingdom was around two million.

“This is a huge and scary figure that indicates an ominous social catastrophe could happen if no radical solutions are found for this phenomenon,” the activists said.

However, several Saudi women have refused to categorise spinsterhood as a dangerous phenomenon, explaining that many women preferred to remain unmarried by choice.

“There are those who have refused to get married for one reason or the other and there are those who have opted to succeed in their lives over getting into marriage,” they said.

According to the daily, many of the men who did not get married said that they did not have a steady source of income to allow them to start a family.

Social experts said the issue and causes of spinsterhood differed from one country to the other.

“In Saudi Arabia, the main problem is that some families ask for high dowries,” they said. “There is also the problem of the onerous costs of the marriage ceremonies. Such problems often push young men to seek to take foreign wives,” they said.

Even though Saudi and other Gulf men overwhelmingly prefer to marry their countrywomen, thousands of them take foreign wives.

The inability to pay large sums of money for dowry, exorbitant marriage ceremonies and high living costs have often been cited as the major reasons for Gulf men to marry non-Gulf women.

The phenomenon has pushed the Gulf countries to look for ways to address it.

One option was to encourage the concept of mass marriages in a bid to help needy grooms and brides with the high costs of ceremonies.

In 2010, Kuwait set up a committee to limit marriages between Kuwaiti men and foreign women.

In 2007, a Bahraini lawmaker caused a storm by urging his male peers to take four wives, three Bahraini women and one foreigner, in order to help address the issue of the high number of spinsters in the country.

Jasem Al Saidi, an independent who served in the lower house from 2002 until 2014, said that Bahraini men should not hesitate to wed more than one wife for the sake of the nation.

“We do not want to have spinsters in the country and we do not want a rise in the divorce rate, either,” he said. “Taking more than one wife is the solution, and I advise that the members of the Council of Representatives should set the example.”

His suggestion was promptly turned down by the other MPs.

http://gulfnews.com/news/gulf/saudi-arabia/saudis-alarmed-over-number-of-unmarried-women-1.1443366

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Lebanon Religious Laws Violate Women’s Rights

January 19, 2015

Beirut: Lebanese laws and courts governing marriage and child custody “discriminate against women” from all religious groups, often trapping them in abusive unions, a Human Rights Watch report published Monday said.

The small Arab country has a fragile mosaic of Christian and Muslim communities of multiple denominations whose right to oversee their own religious courts is enshrined in the constitution.

“Lebanon has 15 separate personal status laws for its recognised religions but no civil code covering issues such as divorce, property rights or care of children,” the New York-based group said.

“These laws are administered by autonomous religious courts with little or no government oversight, and often issue rulings that violate women’s human rights.”

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The 114-page report, titled “Unequal and Unprotected: Women’s Rights Under Lebanon’s Religious Personal Status Laws,” interviews women from across Lebanon’s sectarian spectrum and analyses hundreds of legal judgements.

It says Sunni and Shiite women have limited access to divorce, while “men... have a unilateral, unlimited right to pronounce a divorce, with or without cause”.

Neither Christian men nor women are allowed to divorce, but “there are instances that allow men more grounds” for divorce or annulment.

Druze women also have limited access to divorce, “while Druze men can obtain a divorce, with or without cause”, said the report.

All Lebanese women suffer from a lack of protection from domestic violence, as well as financial vulnerability if they do divorce an abusive husband, the group said.

In 2014, Lebanon’s parliament passed a landmark law on domestic violence.

While it marked a significant step forward for women, it defined domestic violence “narrowly, thus failing to provide adequate protection”, said HRW.

In the event of conflict between the new domestic violence law and pre-existing personal status laws, the latter take precedence, the report added.

And women who decide to divorce still face serious financial consequences, as “Lebanese law does not recognise the legal concept of marital property”.

After a marriage ends, “property reverts to the spouse in whose name it is registered (typically the husband), regardless of who has made contributions to it”.

The issue of child custody is just as problematic, according to the report, violating the standards set by the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

“Human Rights Watch interviewed women who stayed in abusive marriages, gave up their monetary rights, and did not remarry to maintain primary care of their children in cases where judges did not consider the best interests of the child,” the report said.

One Christian woman, Mireille, was quoted by HRW as saying: “I forced myself to bear beyond what a human being can take, all the injustices and violence. My daughters, who are my soul and my life, were the main reason... I couldn’t even bear the idea of losing them.”

The watchdog called for fundamental changes to ensure equal rights for all Lebanese, regardless of gender or religion.

http://gulfnews.com/news/region/lebanon/lebanon-religious-laws-violate-women-s-rights-1.1443413

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The Female Pioneers behind the Golden Age of Egyptian Cinema

Jan. 19, 2015

Faten Hamama, the greatest of Egypt’s film actresses, died at the age of 83 last Saturday. Hamama, who was known as “the Lady of the Arabic Screen,” acted in about 100 films from the 1940s until 2000.

She was born in 1931, in the village of Sanblawin, and began acting in films in the Egyptian realist genre during the 1950s – the golden age of Egyptian cinema.

In these films, Hamama played women fighting for their place in Egypt’s patriarchal society – sometimes as a young woman from a rural community who flouts convention and leaves; sometimes as an urban woman who fights against the laws that discriminated against women.

Hamama appears in 18 of the 150 films chosen as classics of Egyptian cinema by the Cairo International Festival in the late 1990s, including “Struggle in the Valley,” where she met her second husband, the actor Omar Sharif.

Hamama was awarded many international prizes for her roles, including an honorary doctorate from the American University in Cairo. About a year ago, when Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sissi was addressing various artists and noticed Hamama in the audience, he stopped his speech, stepped from the stage and went to welcome her, as a sign of respect for her unique status as the first lady of Egyptian cinema.

Positions of power

Hamama’s passing provides an opportunity to become acquainted with the women pioneers of Egyptian cinema who preceded her – women who were active during the first half of the 20th century and held positions of power in Egypt’s film industry.

Although women in high-level positions have become something of a rarity in Egypt’s film industry in recent decades, it was not always so. Beginning in the 1920s, women were the ones who held powerful positions in Egyptian cinema – not only as actresses, but also as producers, directors, editors, soundtrack composers and distributors. And, for a brief time, they were even stronger than men within the industry.

There were six particularly prominent female pioneers: Aziza Amir (1901-1952); Assia Dagher (1908-1986); Behidja Hafez (1908-1983); Fatma Rouchdi (1908-1996); Amina Mohamed (1908-1985); and Mary Queeny (1916–2003).

Each came from a different economic and geographic background. Some were Christian, others Muslim. But they all had one thing in common: There was no man in their lives – neither father, brother nor husband – who could impose restrictions on them, keep them from working, or steal the money they earned.

In addition, a significant element that helped their professional success was that most of them were born and grew up during a time that was a turning point in the lives of women in the world in general, and also in Egypt: World War I, when the men in many countries were drafted to fight, and women went out to work.

The idea of women’s liberation had reached Egypt even before then, during the second half of the 19th century, with the influence of European culture and, even more, of the British occupation of Egypt in 1882.

Egyptian travellers who visited Europe called in their letters for the emancipation of Egyptian women, and the national struggle that peaked with the 1919 uprising led to the rapid freeing of women from the shackles of tradition and their going out to demonstrations alongside men.

A feminist movement was active in Egypt during the 1920s.

Women such as Huda Sha’arawi – the leader of the movement to free women from the obligation to wear the veil – and the Palestinian poet May Ziade, who lived in Cairo, worked hard for women’s liberation and advancement in society.

Jewish actresses paved the way

With perfect timing, the Egyptian film industry began to thrive and became one of the areas of employment where women could integrate. But it was not easy. Since theatre professions were off-limits to Muslim women, young men played women’s roles in early Egyptian theater. Later, thanks to the Jewish journalist and playwright Yaqub Sanu (also known as James Sanua) – the founder of Egyptian theatre – Christian and Jewish women who spoke Arabic began appearing on the stage. Jewish actresses paved the way for Muslim women, who began to appear on the stage around the time of World War I. But they were mostly actresses, not directors or producers.

What sets these six women apart from other actresses of the time is that they did not remain actresses.

They took professional risks and embarked on financial adventures that they often had a hard time maintaining, but they stayed on their independent path.

Some of them continued to be active during the 1950s and ’60s, but their power lessened as the years went by, and most of them died penniless.

Also, although women producers and directors existed in Egypt later on – such as Magda (born, 1931), the producer and actress (her birth name was Affaf Kamel Elsabahy), or the feminist director Inas El-Degheidy (born 1953) – they were subjected to limitations as time went on and Egypt’s film industry became more and more controlled by men.

Fading glory

There are various reasons why this happened. Unfortunately, the national independence that is often won at the end of a struggle contains men’s independence on the one hand and the restriction of women by patriarchal tradition on the other.

It is possible that the fading glory of Egyptian cinema – which dipped in the late 1960s and dived to its lowest point in the 1980s and ’90s – brought with it a reduction in the status of the women who worked in the industry.

It is also likely that the return to religion and tradition kept women from continuing to work in the cinema over the years.

Either way, it is obvious that women no longer occupy the honored place that they held in the first half of the 20th century.

The issue of women’s underrepresentation in Egypt’s film industry is one of the major issues that Egyptian director Marianne Khoury dealt with in her acclaimed documentaries “Women Who Loved Cinema” (2002, 2003).

Each of the young women interviewed recounts the difficulties she encountered in the field, and her fear of working with a production company that might dismiss her or expropriate her work.

But much has happened in Egypt since the film reached the big screen.

The founding, in 2005, of the Rotana Cinema satellite channel – the first open channel to broadcast Arab films – heralded the entry of a great deal of capital into the local film industry, which led to the renewed blossoming of the industry and an increase in the number of films produced per year.

Also, Egypt embarked on a new national struggle, which, while not calling for liberation from colonialism, definitely sought to free the country from the yoke of the previous regime, from tyranny and the ongoing exploitation of most of the population.

The Rotana Cinema channel marked its 10th anniversary on New Year’s Eve with a day of special broadcasts, which included interviews that Hala Sarhan conducted with Egypt’s best actors and actresses, past and present.

Among those interviewed was actress Ilham Chahine, who began acting in Egyptian films in the 1980s and quickly became a star. Chahine, a successful film producer, now symbolizes an important trend in the industry.

“I want to restore Egyptian cinema to what it used to be: the lighthouse of Egyptian culture,” she said in the interview.

The existence of other women producers in the industry, such as actress Mona Zaki and Sarhan herself, could be good news for Egyptian cinema, and perhaps for Egypt as a whole.

http://www.haaretz.com/life/movies-television/1.637775

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Muslim Women Org. Condemns Islamophobic Attacks in Europe

18/01/2015

(MENAFN - Kuwait News Agency (KUNA)) The European Forum of Muslim Women has condemned the rise in Islamophobic attacks and abuse in Europe following the tragic event in Paris last week.

Mosques and veiled women were violently targeted, said the Brussels-based Forum in a press release. "In this hate-fighting climate, we must adopt a responsible attitude refusing the stigmatisation of any community. Together, we must stand united against terrorism. This is because terrorism strikes indiscriminately without distinguishing between ethnicity, gender or religion," it noted.

The Forum also strongly condemned the shooting at the headquarters of the Charlie Hebdo newspaper in Paris and called on French and European citizens to unite against violence and stand together for peace. The European Forum of Muslim Women was formed in 2006 to work within the EU to support the involvement of the Muslim woman in the society as a citizen and to defend her interests in Europe.

http://www.menafn.com/1094078305/Muslim-women-org-condemns-Islamophobic-attacks-in-Europe?src=RSS

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Isis: Jihadi Janes in Syria Incite UK Muslim Women to Violence Says ICSR Study

Mark Piggott By Mark Piggott

January 18, 2015

The International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation (ICSR) at King's College, London has monitored social media communications by some of the 50 or so British women who have gone to Syria to join Isis – many of them marrying jihadists.

It had been thought that these so-called "Jihadi Janes" played a passive role, cooking and cleaning for their men and bearing their children. However it now appears they are playing an active role both in repressing women in Syria and inciting female fanatics in the UK to commit atrocities.

Some of those now in Syria have praised the Charlie Hebdo killers and encouraged the killing of Westerners, including beheadings.

"British women tend to incite [attacks]," ICSR research fellow Melanie Smith told The Observer. "They say to people that can't move to the Islamic State: 'Why not carry out something at home?' That's a common message: if you can't leave your family behind or afford to move to Syria then carry out something."

Smith administers the first database of British female jihadists overseas, and warns that women who return from the Middle East may pose a threat to the UK.

"I don't think anyone talks about women returning as a risk," said Smith. "While they might not have the same military training, you can see women online being frustrated about the fact they can't fight and they suggest to each other that they could do something else. Women historically have been used in suicide bombings and singular operations."

British women who have gone to Syria include Chorlton twins Salma and Zahra Halane, 16, who have married Isis fighters, and Glasgow public schoolgirl Aqsa Mahmood, 20, who leads the al-Khanssaa brigade which runs brothels of sex-slaves, many believed to be from the Yazidi tribe.

Last year Mahmood tweeted: "Follow the examples of your brothers from Woolwich, Texas and Boston. If you cannot make it to the battlefield, then bring the battlefield to yourself."

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/isis-jihadi-janes-syria-incite-uk-muslim-women-violence-says-icsr-study-1483971

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Haia Objects to Children’s Dance

19 January 2015

The Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, or Haia, in the Qasim region has taken exception to a video clip circulating on social networking sites featuring 8-year-old girls dancing during the ongoing Buraidah Spring Festival in Qasim.

The Haia threatened to punish those responsible for the dance video, despite the fact that members of the Haia committee were present when the dance item was included in the festival, and did not object.

Abdullah Mansour, spokesman for the Haia, denounced the video and said in a press statement that those responsible for organizing the event will be held accountable.

Mansour said that the executive director of the festival affirmed to Haia members that this mistake will not be repeated and that the responsible persons will be punished.

Although the video seemed acceptable and innocent at first, later several social networking sites featured the clip and were met with widespread criticism. Some Twitter users expressed their indignation over the clip and described the little girls as "naked women."

Conservatives exchanged angry words on Twitter with those who supported the dance. The supporters said the video is far from being immoral and showed children dancing.

Many commercial centres in Buraidah and Unaiza witness from time to time such festivals and activities where little girls present songs and poems, including the latest held last weekend, but such events in the past never aroused such media clamour.

http://www.arabnews.com/saudi-arabia/news/691711

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Saudi implores authorities not to deport expat wife

18 January 2015

MAKKAH — A Saudi citizen has called on the authorities to issue a residency permit for his pregnant Indonesian wife instead of deporting her, Al-Madinah newspaper reported.

Amro Muhammad Kurdi, 26, married the Indonesian woman, who did not have a residency permit, eight years ago. The couple had a daughter and is expecting their second child as she is seven months pregnant.

“I’m extremely worried about the future of my little daughter and future baby. I know I made a mistake when I married her without obtaining proper approval from the authorities. But my hard financial situation made me do it,” Kurdi said.

Kurdi is unemployed and lives with his wife in a small two-room house, the rent of which is paid by a philanthropist in Makkah. He said high dowries and his poor financial situation made it difficult for him to get married to a Saudi woman.

So, when he started searching for an expatriate to marry, he was told about an orphaned Indonesian woman who was living with a Saudi family. The woman had never seen her homeland and was born and raised in the Kingdom. The couple got married shortly afterwards.

“I’ve tried so many times to apply for a residency permit for my wife but all my attempts were unsuccessful. I spent so much time running back and forth between government agencies trying to issue her the permit,” he said.

He approached the Makkah Police and explained his situation to them and how he wanted to get a residency permit for his wife. But officers told him that his wife was violating residency regulations and would be deported.

He has urged the concerned authorities to help him regularize the status of his wife so the couple can raise their children together.

Lawyer Abdulkarim Al-Qadi said the Interior Ministry is the only authority that can solve the case. He recommended that Kurdi approach the National Society for Human Rights and explain his situation.

http://www.saudigazette.com.sa/index.cfm?method=home.regcon&contentid=20150118230825

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Woman Admits To Taking Part In Dh2.8m Heist

January 19, 2015

Dubai: Two men have been accused of beating up a company owner in public and stealing Dh2.8 million that he was carrying in a laptop bag.

The Russian duo, 43-year-old M.M. and 35-year-old A.S., were said to have shadowed the Chinese man after he withdrew money from an exchange house and then a bank in Naif before they mugged him in September.

Prosecutors accused the two Russians, who remain at large, of beating the company owner, T.B., in the street and stealing his cash.

A 39-year-old Tajik woman, Z.A., was accused of aiding and abetting the fugitives.

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M.M. and A.S. did not show up before the Dubai Court of First Instance where they are being tried in absentia.

Meanwhile, Z.A., who is in custody, pleaded guilty and confessed before presiding judge Ezzat Abdul Lat that she kept part of the money.

“I took part of the money from them, but later I gave it to the police. Two weeks prior to the heist, I accompanied the duo to the man’s place… then they mugged him,” she said in courtroom three on Monday.

T.B. testified to prosecutors that he withdrew Dh2 million from the exchange house and Dh800,000 from the bank before he was mugged.

“I own a company that trades in clothes and shoes. I left my home around 2pm and withdrew the cash and put it in the laptop bag. I was walking in front of a hotel while heading back home. Two men [the runaway suspects] took me by surprise and attacked me. They beat me and kicked me… then they snatched the bag and ran away. I did not realise that they had been tailing me since I left my place. They beat me really hard and caused me several bruises that prevented me from chasing them,” the Chinese claimed to prosecutors.

A police lieutenant testified to prosecutors that the Russian duo was caught on surveillance cameras mugging the company owner.

“Primary interrogations also revealed the involvement of Z.A. and a fourth suspect [who used to drive the Chinese man to the bank] in the heist. In October, Z.A. and the fourth man were detained at Al Buraimi checkpoint trying to leave the country. The Tajik and the fourth suspect were not seen on surveillance cameras… however witnesses alleged that they were seated in a car waiting for the duo while they mugged T.B. Police recovered around Dh2 million in Z.A.’s flat in Al Buraimi. The fourth suspect was said to have rented the flat. During questioning, Z.A. admitted that she informed the runaway suspects that the Chinese man was a company owner and constantly received money transfers from abroad. That was when they decided to rob him. Meanwhile, the fourth suspect claimed that he was not aware of the heist,” claimed the lieutenant.

Records said Z.A. had been sentenced to three years in jail followed by deportation for her involvement in a similar case in which she was accused of aiding and abetting in a Dh2 million heist.

The Tajik was said to have participated in the Dh2.8 million heist while she was on bail in the case of Dh2 million heist.

A ruling will be heard on February 26.

http://gulfnews.com/news/gulf/uae/courts/woman-admits-to-taking-part-in-dh2-8m-heist-1.1443437

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URL: http://www.newageislam.com/islam,-women-and-feminism/new-age-islam-news-bureau/‘unwed-bride’-roams-cairo-in-her-white-dress/d/101107