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…adapted from Dr. Peter Hammond’s book: Slavery, Terrorism and Islam: The Historical Roots and Contemporary Threat
Wake up America.
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Muslim Cleric offers cash reward to kill Christian woman convicted of blasphemy against Islam
A hardline Pakistani Islamic cleric has offered a reward to anyone who kills a Christian woman convicted of blasphemy against Islam.
Maulana Yousef Qureshi made the announcement Friday at a rally in the northwestern town of Peshawar.
He said his mosque would give $6,000 to the person who kills Asia Bibi.
“We will strongly resist any attempt to repeal laws which provide protection to the sanctity of Holy Prophet Mohammad,” Qureshi told a rally of hardline Islamists.
“Any one who kills Asia will be given 500,000 rupees in reward from Masjid Mohabat Khan,” he said referring to his mosque.
Bibi was sentenced Nov. 8 to hang for insulting Islam’s Prophet Mohammed. She and her family say the charge is baseless.
Her case has attracted international attention and a personal appeal from Pope Benedict XVI for her freedom, while government officials have talked about the possibility of a presidential pardon.
Islamist groups have protested any leniency toward her.
Qureshi, a cleric who has been leading a congregation at the 17th-century Mohabat Khan mosque for decades, told Reuters he was determined to see her killed.
“We expect her to be hanged and if she is not hanged then we will ask mujahideen and Taliban to kill her.”
Punishment ‘at all costs’
Bibi, a 45-year-old mother of four, is the first woman to be sentenced to death under the blasphemy law.
Blasphemy convictions are common in mainly Muslim Pakistan. Although the death sentence has never been carried out as most convictions are thrown out on appeal, angry mobs and fanatics have killed many people accused of blasphemy in the past.
In 2006, Qureshi and his followers announced rewards amounting to over $1 million for anyone who killed Danish cartoonists who drew caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad that had enraged Muslims worldwide.
After her conviction, Bibi appealed to President Asif Ali Zardari to pardon her, saying she had been wrongly accused by neighbors due to a personal dispute.
Last week, a government minister said an initial inquiry into the case showed she had not committed blasphemy. But the Lahore High Court last month prevented Zardari from granting a pardon and ruled that the High Court should be allowed to decide her appeal.
“No president, no parliament and no government has any right to interfere in the commandants of Islam. Islamic punishment will be implemented at all costs,” said Qureshi.
Bibi is currently in jail. Authorities were not immediately available for comment on Quereshi’s announcement.
- Prophecy News Watch
Lagging Far Behind: Women in the Middle East
Lagging Far Behind: Women in the Middle East
By Judith Colp Rubin *The following article is an extract from the author’s book Women in the Middle East (Sharpe, forthcoming).
This article reviews the political and social situation of women in the Islamic Middle East over the past decade. It concludes that while these women have been guaranteed equal rights under their own constitutions and international laws adopted by the government, in practice, they have not enjoyed these rights in politics, marriage, divorce, freedom of movement, education, or work.
Two major studies conducted in 2005 of the situation of women in the Arab Middle East states all came to the same conclusion: Women there are lagging behind the rest of the world. The May 2005 Freedom House report ranked 16 Arab nations on a scale between one and five in several categories related to women’s rights, including freedom; economic, political, and social rights; and nondiscrimination. The highest overall score was given to Tunisia, which received an average rating of 3.24, while Saudi Arabia had the lowest score of 1.26.
“The Middle East is not, of course, the only region of the world where women are, in effect, relegated to the status of second-class citizens,” the Freedom House report stated, pointing out that in Asia, Africa, Latin America, Europe, and North America, there is still a gender gap. “It is, however, in these countries where the gap between the rights of men and those of women is the most visible and significant and where resistance to women’s equality has been most challenging.”[1]
The second study, “Towards the Rise of Women in the Arab World,” issued by the Arab Human Development Report, which examined the same countries, concluded that women there “have entered the twenty-first century still dragging behind them the dead weight of such issues as a woman’s right to education, work and political activity, matters long resolved elsewhere.”[2]
The majority of Middle Eastern countries have long had constitutions granting women equal rights with men. With the exception of Iran and Qatar, these countries have also ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Again Women (CEDAW), an international document that calls for guaranteeing women’s rights. However, these documents have not translated into equality in marriage and divorce rights or employment, or to a decline in domestic violence against women. One major reason for continued inequality is that there have not been enough women from these countries elected to political office.
According to a public opinion poll included in the Arab Human Development Report, which canvassed participants in four sample Arab countries–Morocco, Egypt, Lebanon and Jordan–79 percent said women have an equal right to political activity. Women have been able to vote and run for office in 22 Arab League countries as well as in Iran and Israel. The two exceptions have been the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia.
One of the last Middle Eastern countries to grant women suffrage was Kuwait, in May 2005, although women there were first promised that right in 1991 by the emir, who took seven years to introduce the measure. It was then defeated in parliament. This was due in part to liberal members, who while favoring other democratizing reforms, opposed female suffrage because they feared that women–who would become the majority of the electorate–wouldn’t vote for them.
Nor did female voters vote for other women. The first electoral test for female voters and candidates in Kuwait was in April 2006, when two women were among the 11 candidates vying for a seat that had become vacant on the municipal council in the district of Salmiyya, 15 kilometers from Kuwait City. Women voters were in the majority, but the female candidates lost by wide margins. Female candidates have fared equally badly in other countries.
April 2005 statistics from the Interparliamentary Union ranking the representation of women in elected governments worldwide found that Arab states were at the bottom, with an average of less than seven percent representation in the parliament. That was compared to 20 percent in North America, 16 percent in sub-Sahara Africa, and 14 percent in Israel. In Iran, women only made up four percent of parliament in 2006, while Israel the figure was 15 percent–still below that of North America and sub-Sahara Africa.
THE QUOTA SYSTEM
The two most effective ways shown to get women into elected office in the region has been through appointments, uncontested elections, and quotas. The first two ways were illustrated in Bahrain. When no women were elected in their first parliamentary elections in 2002, the king appointed six women. In the next round of parliamentary elections in 2006, the sole female candidate, Latifa al-Qu’ud, was among 221 candidates vying for 40 seats. Yet she was the only one running in her district–a virtually uninhabited island, Hawar, in southern Bahrain–thereby ensuring her victory.
Electoral quotas have meant that women must constitute a certain number or percentage of a candidate list or parliamentary assembly. Egypt’s case dramatically illustrated the difference quotas have made in getting women into government. Egypt was one of the first countries in the Middle East to institute electoral quotas, with a 1979 decree by President Anwar Sadat reserving ten percent of the seats in parliament for women. However, in 1986, quotas were abolished. As a result, the number of women in parliament has consistently plummeted.
Following December 2005 elections, only two percent of the Egyptian parliament were women. In Morocco, women comprised only 0.66 percent of the elected deputies in 1993, placing it 118th internationally. After quotas were imposed in 2002, that figure increased to 10.77, making Morocco a respectable 69th in the world. In the Arab world, it was surpassed only by Tunisia, where quotas ensured that 14 percent of the parliament has been female. In Jordan no women were elected between 1993 and 2003, when an electoral law reserved six seats for the top female vote-getters.
Two recent successes in getting quotas imposed were in Iraq and Afghanistan after U.S. military intervention changed the governments there. In Iraq, 25 percent of the seats in the parliament has been reserved for women, and in the 2005 parliamentary elections, close to that percentage, 20 percent, were elected. In Afghanistan, where 25 percent of seats in the lower house of parliament and the provincial councils were reserved for women, about that number were elected the same year.
A new phenomenon in the Middle East has been the rise of elected Islamist women. Many of the women elected in Iraq in December 2005 were from the Shi’a United Alliance ticket, which was dominated by religious parties. Another example was the January 2006 Palestinian Authority Legislative Council elections; the largest number of women elected were from Hamas, an Islamist party with the highest electoral plurality.
An electoral quota required that Palestinian political parties had to have at least one woman among the first three candidates on a list, at least one woman among the next four, and for the rest a woman for every fifth. That resulted in six of Hamas’ 74 seats in parliament being held by women. One of those elected was Mariam Farhat, a mother of three Hamas supporters killed while waging terrorist attacks on Israelis. Female support for Hamas was critical to their party’s victory in 2005. The reason was the success of Hamas’ social programs, which have included financial assistance for widows of suicide bombers, health clinics, day care centers, kindergartens and preschools, and even beauty parlors and women-only gyms.
WOMEN IN POLITICS
Although most Middle Eastern countries have permitted women to run for parliament, it has been even more of a struggle for them to run for head of state. In 2005, women were legally barred from running for president in Iran. One of the only countries where a woman has run for head of state is in Algeria with the 2004 presidential candidacy of Louisa Hanoun, leader of the left-wing Algeria’s Worker’s Party. Hanoun, however, only placed fifth out of a six-person race. Moreover, only 51 percent of those participants in the Arab Human Development Report poll said that women have the right to become head of state.
All the Islamic Middle Eastern countries have had women as government ministers, with the exception of Saudi Arabia. One of the most recent countries that did so was the UAE, which in 2005 appointed a woman as economics minister and in 2006 appointed a woman as minister of public works. In 2005, Kuwait appointed its first female cabinet minister with the portfolio of planning and administrative development. Yet these appointments, as well as the vast majority throughout the region in the past, have been in social or women’s affairs and none have been in the most important positions, such as foreign affairs, defense, interior, or finance.
Attitudes toward women in the cabinet differed, according to a Gallup poll released in 2006 in which participants were asked whether women should be allowed to hold leadership positions there. While 91 percent of those in Lebanon, 78 percent in Iran, and 74 percent in Morocco answered in the affirmative, the number dipped down to 55 percent in Jordan, 54 percent in Egypt, and 40 percent in Saudi Arabia.
WOMEN IN THE JUSTICE SYSTEM
For advocates of women’s rights as important as getting women elected as politicians and named as cabinet members has been getting them appointed as judges. A female judge in the Islamic world has been even more taboo than a female politician or cabinet, because this is discouraged by the interpretation of Islamic doctrine. A judge, by the nature of that job, has represented the essence of reason, something in which women have been supposedly innately lacking. In Iran, following the revolution, women were no longer able to become judges, although they remained in the government. In the Arab Human Development Report poll only 66 percent of those polled said they supported women as judges.
Eleven Islamic Middle Eastern nations had female judges by 2006–Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Libya, Jordan, Egypt, Afghanistan, and Yemen. However, getting these appointments wasn’t easy. In Egypt, for example, where only about half of those participating in the Arab Human Development Report poll supported female judges, it took 25 years. In 1949, a female lawyer, Aisha Ratib, unsuccessfully sued the government when she was passed over for a judgeship on the State Council, the highest administrative court. It was the same result 40 years later when another female attorney, Fatma Lashin, filed a sexual discrimination suit after being denied a position on the bench, but also failed to get an appointment. The government’s refusal to appoint a female judge was consistent with public opinions on the subject. A 1997 opinion poll conducted by the Cairo-based Arab Center for the Independence of the Judiciary and Legal Profession found that the strongest opponents of female judges in Egypt were women. In 2003, the government appointed Tahani al-Gibali as the first nation’s first female judge. Although Gibali’s appointment was prestigious, since she was tapped to the Supreme Constitutional Court, some activists said it would have been better if she had been appointed to a family court, where she could influence divorce and children’s custody issues.
In Iraq, where the Middle East’s first ever female judge was appointed, efforts in 2003 to appoint the first female judge in Najaf, a Shi’a religious city, resulted in fatwas (religious edicts) being issued by two prominent clerics and angry demonstrators against it. The U.S. military indefinitely suspended the appointment, although women have remained on the bench in other parts of the country.
PERSONAL STATUS LAWS
Judges in Islamic countries are especially important, because they are able to render decisions interpreting personal status laws dealing with marriage, divorce, guardianship, and children’s custody. In these countries, these personal status laws have been influenced by Shari’a, or Islamic law. The sources of Shari’a are the Koran and the Hadith, or the recorded actions and sayings of Muhammad. At one extreme are those nations, such as Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states, that strictly follow Shari’a, and at the other extreme are those like Tunisia that have replaced much of Shari’a with laws meeting international standards on these issues. Most Islamic countries fall in the middle.
In those Islamic Middle Eastern countries more strictly governed by Shari’a, women have not been entirely their own guardians with the right to make major decisions or have unrestricted freedom of movement. Rather they have been under the control of a male guardian, their husband (if married), or their father or another close relative (if unmarried). A guardian has been able to prevent their ward’s marriage, although in many countries–even Saudi Arabia, which has the strictest rules regarding the role of guardian–not to force her into marriage. The guardian has also been empowered to hinder a woman’s freedom of movement outside the home, especially from leaving the country, since their permission has been needed to acquire and use a passport.
However, that provision is no longer strictly enforced in many countries. In Kuwait, for example, while women have traditionally needed to seek permission from guardians to travel outside the country or even inside the country overnight, violations have not been enforced. Moreover, while a married women in Kuwait is able to acquire a passport without the approval of her husband, an unmarried woman over the age of 21 cannot.
Although Syrian laws empower a husband to stop his wife from leaving the country by contacting the Ministry of Interior, this has rarely happened; and a Syrian woman may obtain a passport without her husband’s permission. Yet only 54 percent of those in the Arab Human Development Report poll believed that women should be allowed to travel on their own.
Legal marriage ages for women in several countries in the Islamic world are lower than the international norm of 18, since this is mandated in Islamic law, and which could be made even lower with consent from a religious judge. In Iran, the legal age of marriage for women has been 13, while in Yemen and Kuwait, it has been. In Afghanistan, 57 percent, of all girls were married before the legal age of 16, some as young as six.
A husband is empowered to support his wife and in exchange to receive her full obedience, while a wife is not allowed to act against her husband’s wishes, according to Shari’a. That has meant, for example, that in Yemen and Algeria, a woman was not allowed to work outside the home if her husband didn’t give her permission to do so, while in Syria, a wife whose husband refuses her right to work may do so anyway, but only if she forfeits financial support from him.
Men have been allowed by Shari’a law to have up to four wives simultaneously, if they could treat them all equally and provide them with separate places to live. This has been the situation in the Gulf states. On the opposite end of the spectrum has been Tunisia where polygamy was made illegal in 1956, while in Morocco, although it was not officially outlawed, polygamy was made so difficult in 2003 as to have been de facto eradicated. Most Islamic nations fall between these cases. Algerian women have been granted the right to a “no-polygamy clause” in their prenuptial agreement and to initiate divorce if they were not informed in advance of the existence of other wives. Egyptian husbands have had the rights to another wife if the man has told his other wives who could then initiate a divorce on those grounds, but only if she can prove to a judge that an additional marriage would harm her. Jordan has required a judge to ascertain that the husband can financially support multiple wives, and that each wife was informed of other marriages.
In divorce, in those nations that strictly govern under Shari’a, such as Saudi Arabia, a man has been able to divorce his wife without cause by simply uttering “I divorce thee,” three times over three months. One concession to women was that he had to then pay her a sum of money agreed to before the wedding in the marriage contract and let her keep her dowry. Women’s rights to divorce have been extremely limited, only possible in such cases as male infertility at the time of marriage, insanity, or a contagious skin disease such as leprosy. Some countries have granted women other conditions under which they can initiate a divorce, a right which was supported by 68 percent of those participating in the Arab Human Development Report poll.
In Syria, both husbands and wives have been able to claim adultery as grounds for divorce. Yet a husband would only be considered guilty if he cheated in the couple’s home and has also confessed or there has been testimony of a third witness. A Syrian wife could be accused of adultery committed anywhere, backed up by any evidence.
There were also different penalties for men and women regarding adultery. Egyptian male adulterers have been likely to get imprisonment for only six months, while women have received two years. Under Egyptian law, a husband who kills his wife after finding her in bed with another man would be charged with a non-felony crime, while a woman doing the same would be charged with a felony. In Lebanon, men have also received lighter sentences for such cases of murder than women have.
By 2007, there were no reported cases where a Syrian woman successfully filed for divorce based on adultery. A Kuwaiti woman who has been physically abused may initiate divorce but she must provide at least two male witnesses to attest to the injury committed. In Jordan, a woman can divorce without cause provided she gives up her financial rights, which she can keep if she can prove that she was physically abused. From 2001 to 2005, only 500 Jordanian women initiated and received divorces. A Jordanian man could still divorce without providing any reason, although he had to pay his wife’s expenses for at least one year and no more than three.
After a divorce when there are children involved, there are few Islamic Middle Eastern countries in which a woman has been able to become a legal guardian of the children. This has meant that although the children have been able to stay with mother in several countries just until the end of childhood–age seven for both boys and girls in Iran, 13 for boys and 15 for girls in Syria–she has had to rely upon the father to register for school or for passports. It has also meant that divorced mothers who remarry have lost custody of their children. Even in countries like Morocco and Tunisia a woman has only been able to become a legal guardian if her husband were deceased or legally incompetent, while in countries governed by Shari’a that right has gone to paternal grandparents.
The only such nations where women have been able to pass on nationality are Tunisia, Algeria, and Egypt. In the UAE, a woman has been required to surrender citizenship if she marries a man who was not a citizen of a Gulf state. These laws have created major logistical problems for those families with members without citizenship. Non-citizens must constantly renew residence permits in their own country, cannot travel without visas, and are prohibited from holding certain jobs (such as in the government). Morocco, Jordan, and Bahrain have adopted measures to allow children from a citizen mother and a non-citizen father to receive more services and benefits if the family decides to reside in the mother’s country.
In most of the Middle Eastern Islamic countries, even Tunisia, women have inherited less, usually half the amount that men inherit. A woman who is an only child still receives only half, with the rest going to the closest male relative. These inheritance laws have been fair, say some, because male Muslim heirs have the duty to provide for all family members, which women do not. Even in Saudi Arabia, a woman has been allowed to keep her money throughout marriage, while in Syria a male heir can even be sued if he doesn’t provide financially for his close female relatives.
In a courtroom, women in those countries with a strict interpretation of Shari’a, such as Iran and Saudi Arabia, have considered a woman’s testimony worth half that of a man, and a woman’s life half that of a man for purposes of blood money–murder cases which are settled by payment from the perpetrator’s family to the victim’s family.
Courts in the region have been reluctant to go after perpetrators of domestic violence. Although 97 percent of those in the Arab Human Development Report poll believed that women should not be subject to physical violence, domestic violence has been rampant. In Bahrain, an estimated 30 percent of the nation’s married women were victims of verbal, physical, or psychological spousal violence in 2004, while in the UAE the figure was 66 percent. In Syria, 25 percent of married women have claimed to have been beaten.
Yet there is no Islamic Middle Eastern nation with a law clearly prohibiting domestic violence or marital rape, and courts have made it difficult to prove. In Algeria, spousal abuse can be prosecuted only if a victim were incapacitated for over two weeks and had a doctor’s evaluation. Not surprisingly, a 2004 study by women’s groups there found that 70 percent of domestic violence victims did not file a complaint. A Bahraini man convicted in 2004 for beating his wife to death was found guilty to a lesser degree, involuntary manslaughter, because the court ruled that the beating was a form of discipline. In Saudi Arabia, Rania al-Baz, host of a popular morning show, lapsed into a coma in 2004 as the result of a brutal beating from her husband. Her husband, however, only ended up serving three months and receiving 300 lashes, after he worked out an arrangement with Baz, who agreed to a lesser sentence in return for a divorce and custody of her sons.
Muslim clerics both parallel and inspire the judicial situation. They may set limits on domestic violence–one suggesting that hitting be done with a toothpick–but do not oppose it, which has meant effectively endorsing it. For example, Lebanese cleric Zakariyya Ghandur provided specific advice for wife beaters saying on television that:
Disciplining by beating occurs as a reprimand–not brutal beating. Brutal beating is forbidden. Use of a ruler or… beating on the hand, the shoulder, the buttocks, or anything like that [is permitted] as a reprimand of a woman when all methods of guidance have failed. [This should be] like a mother or father who beat their son or daughter to prevent them from wrongdoing, and not out of hatred or animosity.[3]
Muslim women are also victims of “honor killings.” This usually occurs to unmarried women who were killed by a close relative after they were believed to have “disgraced” their family by having sexual relations, or even unchaperoned contact, with a man who was not a relative. Whether the woman was a willing participant or was raped was not even relevant; she had to be murdered to save the family’s honor, a situation which largely or partly exonerated her murderer. This has been practiced in many countries including Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, and Lebanon, and has been tough to eradicate.
Take the case of Jordan, where in 1998 some 100 women were the victims of honor crimes. When in 1999, King Abdallah tried to increase the punishment–which in some cases was only three months–he was met with widespread resistance. The Islamic Action Front issued a fatwa saying that a repeal would, “Destroy… family values by stripping men of their humanity when they surprise their wives or female relatives committing adultery.”[4] According to a Jordan Times poll, 62 percent of Jordanians opposed increasing punishments. The monarch’s effort to tighten the punishment passed the Jordanian Senate but was rejected by the lower house.
Lebanon, whose legal system once outright pardoned honor crime murders, has recently allowed those responsible to get a reduced sentence if they personally saw their victim having sex with a man other than her spouse. However, sometimes even that has not been necessary. In 2005, a 19-year-old Lebanese man who admitted stabbing his older sister to death simply because he thought she was guilty of adultery was sentenced to six months in jail. In 2001, Lebanon held a conference on honor killings citing evidence that on average, one woman per month is killed by a close male relative, although activists believe the figure to be higher.
EDUCATION AND THE WORK FORCE
The area in which women have made the greatest gains has been in education, although the successes there have also been mixed. In 2005, half of all women in Arab countries were illiterate compared to only one-third of men, and only three-quarters of women had access to education compared to four-fifths of men. Those Arab countries that were less wealthy, such as Yemen, Egypt, and Morocco, had female literacy rates of less than 50 percent of women in 2006. The most significant educational gains for women were in the wealthy Gulf nations of Bahrain, Qatar, and the UAE–usually among the most conservative with respect to rights for women but where education has been guaranteed free through university for all citizens. In these countries, and also in Jordan, between 80 to 85 percent were literate.
In all but four Arab countries, less than 80 percent of girls were attending secondary school in 2005. Higher percentages were found in Qatar, Jordan, and the Palestinian Authority. One of the worst rates was in Yemen, where only 20 percent of females were in secondary school–less than half that of boys in school.
At least as many women as men were studying in universities in Algeria, Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, the Palestinian Authority, Oman, Qatar, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Tunisia. In Kuwait, Qatar, and the UAE more women than men were in universities. Yet part of the reason for this was that a certain percentage of men had left the country to study abroad, something which many female students usually could not consider because of parental objections or restrictions on traveling. Female university students in some countries have faced discrimination. Kuwait University increased the minimum grades needed for women to get accepted into the departments of engineering and petroleum so that more men could be admitted. In Saudi Arabia, women were still prevented from studying engineering, astronomy, physical education, agriculture, tourism, computer science, administration and journalism, and could not attend the King Fahd University for Oil and Minerals in Dhahran–the training ground for the nation’s most lucrative industry, among other subjects.
One field that recently opened to women in a few countries is religious clerical studies. Morocco has taken the lead in this area. In May 2006, 50 women graduated along with 150 men from Dar al-Hadith al-Hassaniyya–a religious seminar once just reserved for men–to become the first female imams, or clerics. These women will not lead prayers, like their male counterparts, but will answer religious queries and teach. The efforts to promote women were pushed by the king as one of several ways to promote a liberal Islam.
Yet the high percentage of female students has not resulted in more women in the workforce. Although 91 percent of those surveyed in the Arab Human Development Report believed that a woman should have an equal right to work, Arab women’s economic participation has been the lowest in the world.
The Arab world only had 32 percent of its women in the labor force in 2005. The greatest number of working women was found in Tunisia, where women represented 36 percent of judges, 31 percent of the country’s lawyers, and 51 percent of doctors. In neighboring Morocco during the same time, women comprised 35 percent of the workforce, including one-third of all doctors and one-quarter of university professors. In Syria, working women constituted 13 percent of judges, 15 percent of lawyers, 57 percent of teachers below university level, and 20 percent of university professors.
Even countries such as Saudi Arabia have focused on increasing the number of working women by expanding the kinds of jobs available to them. The UAE also began promoting the role of women in the workplace and has guaranteed public sector employment for all women who have sought it. Women have been the majority of workers in education and health care. By 2000, they were 100 percent of nursery school teachers, 74 percent of primary school teachers, and 54 percent of secondary school teachers. They have even become police officers, military volunteers, and taxi drivers.
Several countries in the Middle East such as Egypt, Bahrain, Lebanon, Tunisia, Morocco, and Kuwait have tried to make conditions easier for working women with paid maternity leave. In Kuwait, for example, women have been entitled to up to two months at their full salary, and an extra four months at half salary if they showed that they were sick due to the pregnancy. Other countries have also passed laws prohibiting gender discrimination in the workplace. For example in 2002, Lebanon’s law was changed to make it illegal for employers to discriminate based on gender in the nature of work, salary, or promotion. Yet women there were loathe to try to sue violators. A group of employers in the Gulf countries said in 2006 that they preferred women for many job openings, because they could pay them ten percent less than their male counterparts, although they also admitted that women were harder-working than men.
An increasing number of women have become more prominent in business by either starting their own companies or rising to high-level positions in others. Most of these women were in the service industry, and more such women than men had family ties to the business. One consistent business growth area for women has been banking to service the growing assets of women. In Bahrain, a woman became the general manager of the National Bank of Commerce while three other women became a bank-branch manager.
With the increase of women in business have come critical networking associations. The 2006 Global Summit for Women, an annual event drawing female business leaders worldwide, was held in Cairo. The main speakers were Sana’a Mun’im al-Bana, chairperson of the Egyptian Petrochemicals Holding Company; and Sahar al-Sallab, vice chairperson and managing director of the Commercial International Bank, the largest private bank in Egypt. In Egypt by 2005, there were 22 businesswomen’s associations, compared to only one ten years earlier. In 2004, the first Gulf Cooperation Council Businesswomen’s Forum was held in Oman, drawing 400 women.
CONCLUSION
Experts have disagreed as to the causes of the continued gap between female and male rights. Some have blamed Islam. Others have blamed the region’s economic failure, corruption, political oppression, armed conflicts in the region, and scarcity of resources. It has not even been clear how eager those in the Arab world have been for change. Some 88 percent of those participating in the Arab Human Development Report poll said that an Arab human renaissance demanded the rise of women. However, when a 2004 poll conducted by Zogby International asked men and women in Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Lebanon, and the UAE to rank the importance of ten different reform issues, they put women’s rights second to last in importance.��
Women in the Islamic Middle East have been guaranteed equal rights under their own constitutions and international laws adopted by the government. Yet women have not enjoyed these rights in politics, marriage, divorce, freedom of movement, education, or work.
*Judith Colp-Rubin is an author and journalist. She is the author of Women in the Middle East, soon to be published by Sharpe Publishers and co-author of Yasir Arafat: A Political Biography, (Oxford, 2003), “Hating America: A History,” (Oxford, 2004) and Anti-American Terrorism in the Middle East, (Oxford, 2001). She was also founder and publisher of Women’s International Net, a magazine about women worldwide. She has reported about the Middle East for several publications in North America.
NOTES[1] Freedom House, “Women’s Rights in the Middle East and North Africa: Citizenship and Justice,” October 14, 2005.
[2] The Arab Human Development Report 2005, “Towards the Rise of Women in the Arab World,” (United Nations Development Program, 2006), p. 146.
[3] Heya TV, December 30, 2004. Excerpted and translated in “Wife-Beating Debated on Lebanese TV Channels,” Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), Clip No. 588, December 30, 2004, http://www.memritv.org/Transcript.asp?P1=588.
[4] Quoted in Jeff Chiu, “Raising their Voices,” Time Europe Magazine, February 15, 2004, http://www.time.com/time/europe/html/040223/story_3.html.
Women in the New Iraq
WOMEN IN THE NEW IRAQ
Judith Colp Rubin**The following article is an extract from Barry Rubin (ed.), Iraq After Saddam (Sharpe, forthcoming).
Iraqi women once enjoyed more civil and social rights than many of their sisters in other Islamic nations. Ironically, that was thanks in part to the dictator Saddam Hussein, although in the last years of his rule women were among those groups whose rights were eroded. Now that Hussein has been overthrown, Iraqi women are among Iraqi special interest groups seeking rights. Yet women here are not a united force as Islamist women have emerged as a political entity. Meanwhile, women remain disproportionately victims of the violence that has gripped the country.
When Iraq’s long-ruling dictator Saddam Hussein was overthrown by U.S. forces in 2003, women were among the special interest groups clamoring to be heard in structuring the new regime and society. In the climate of burgeoning democracy, women started forming nongovernmental organizations–80 of them in Baghdad alone. There were suddenly programs to teach women about computers, political leadership, entrepreneurship, democracy, and the media. There were also handicraft workshops, women’s centers offering free legal advice or aid to battered women, and classes in English.
Yet as the new government was being formed it remained to be seen which women’s view of Iraq would prevail. Mirroring changes in the rest of Iraq’s burgeoning democracy was a struggle between Islamist women versus their secular sisters.
A HUNDRED YEARS OF ACTIVISM
This is not a new struggle in the history of Iraq’s women. The idea of women’s rights came to Iraq at the start of the twentieth century. It began with promoting girls’ education, a step even relatively traditional families had an incentive to support since an educated woman had higher marriage prospects than an uneducated one. An influential booster of girls’ education was King Faisal I who bestowed awards on talented female pupils. One recipient was Sabiha al-Shaykh Daud who, in 1922 when she was only eight years old, caused a stir by reciting verses at a poetry festival, clad in a traditional dress without a veil and astride a camel.
Daud’s story also shows that girls’ education was only to be tolerated so far. When Daud became the first Muslim Iraqi woman to study at Iraq’s College of Law she was forced to attend classes in a special box to separate her from the rest of the class. Even so her male classmates greatly ridiculed her.
However, other Iraqi men were the nation’s major proponents of women’s rights. Iraq’s poets took the lead on social issues, including the status of women. Jamil Sidqi al-Zahawi, one of the most prominent Iraqi poets, championed education for women and, far more controversially, called for abolishing the veil. “They claim that the veil protects women. They lie because in reality it is calamitous,” al-Zahawi wrote. “They claim that unveiling is shameful; wrong! Unveiling is perfect chastity. A veil does not protect woman’s chastity; an education does.”[1]
Another Iraqi poet who wanted to abolish the veil was Zahawi’s professional rival, Ma’ruf al-Rusafi, who bluntly told Iraqi women that the hijab (clothing preserving an Islamic woman’s modesty by covering her, especially her head) imprisoned them. Women, he wrote, needed freedom instead.
It was not only men who were writing about women. After the women’s literary movement exploded in Egypt it made its way to Iraq. In 1923, a Palestinian immigrant, Paulina Hassoun, published the first women’s publication in Iraq, called Leila. In one of her early editorials, Hassoun wrote that “The time in which women were treated like playthings or as breeding animals, in which men were considered the absolute masters, doing whatever they liked with their women and children, is over.”[2] The magazine, however, only lasted two years, and it took another 13 years for another to be launched.
The same year Leila commenced publication, Asma Zahawi, the poet’s sister, started the first women’s association in Iraq. Known as the Awakening Club, the organization provided classes in such subjects as literacy, hygiene, and child care and also sponsored social welfare projects. It attracted such prominent women as Nuri al-Sayid, wife of the then prime minister. Yet when clerics demanded its name be changed to the more innocent-sounding Women’s Club, Zahawi refused to give in, so the club closed.
By the late 1940s, the situation for Iraqi women improved. One of the most prominent poets to emerge was a woman, Nazik al-Mala’ika, herself the daughter of two prominent poets. Her father also edited a 20-volume encyclopedia on Arab grammar but still found time to take over his daughter’s education in Arabic after being dismayed by some of her writing errors. He drilled her in the principles of Arabic grammar and classics of literature. At age ten, Mala’ika penned her first poem in Classical Arabic.
While a student at the Higher Teachers’ Training College in Baghdad, she published poems in newspapers and magazines. Her breakthrough poem was written in 1947 and dealt with the cholera epidemic that was claiming thousands of lives in Egypt. The poem received attention not only because of its powerful subject but also because of its style. Mala’ika had become one of the first in the region to reject the rigid rules about meter and verse used in Arab poetry in favor of free verse. After earning a scholarship at Princeton University, one of the few women studying at the all-male college, she worked as a university professor in Kuwait and later moved to London.
She also tried to promote the rights of women in Iraq and gave a famous lecture entitled “Women between passivity and positive morality.” The title of that lecture indeed described Iraqi women, who were divided between the traditional and the modern. In 1957, a group of Iraqi women who had taken off their veils within the confines of an all-female company in a private home hurriedly put them back on when a man could be seen on a new gadget known as a television set. It took days before they were reassured that they could not be seen by the men on television but considerably longer before many women felt ready to be seen without their veils outside the home.
Yet during this time Iraqi women enjoyed more rights than their sisters in the Islamic world, thanks to the changing political situation. In 1959, the leftist-nationalist government of Abd al-Karim Qasim, a military officer who came to power in a coup, passed a new personal status law that, even by today’s standards, was one of the most progressive such laws in the Arab world. It was greatly opposed by the nation’s religious and conservative leaders. The law replaced courts that ruled according to Shari’a (Islamic law) with those making decisions on such issues according to state law. The law further set the minimum marriage age to 18, ensured equal inheritance rights for sons and daughters, and prevented men from unilaterally divorcing their wives. It also made polygamy virtually impossible by requiring men seeking a second wife to get judicial permission that was granted only if the judge believed the man could treat both wives equally.
These are measures that are considered progressive today–nearly a half century later–in many Arab countries. When they were passed, some supporters led demonstrations with slogans such as “By the end of the month there will be no dowries,”[3] although that proved to be considerably over-optimistic.
Qasim also appointed the first Iraqi female government minister, albeit with a relatively minor portfolio of municipalities. The appointee was Naziha al-Dulaimi, a member of the Communist Party and president of the Iraqi Women’s League, which had been founded in 1952. He also appointed the first female judge not just in Iraq but in the entire Middle East. The latter was something particularly unthinkable since under Islam women are explicitly not permitted to be judges. The woman he tapped for the job was Zakiyya Hakki, a member of Iraq’s Kurdish minority, who later became the only woman in the leadership of the Kurdish Democratic Party.
Underscoring how progressive Iraq was at the time compared to many other Arab countries, one Iraqi woman recalls the reaction of Libyan officials when the Iraqi Red Crescent delegation, which happened to be all female and were clad in Western clothes, attended a conference in Libya in the 1960s. “We got off the plane and they [the Libyan hosts] said, ‘Where is the delegation?….’ Because we were all women, they couldn’t believe we were the representatives of a country.”[4]
However, in 1963 Qasim was ousted from power and soon a new army officer, Abd al-Salam Arif, took power. After an appeal by religious leaders, Arif diluted the new personal status law, reverting to traditional Islamic inheritance laws that greatly favored men.
SADDAM AS FEMINIST/ANTI-FEMINIST
Women’s rights seemed once again on track when the Ba’th Party again took power in 1968. Women’s equality was enshrined in the 1970 Iraqi Provisional Constitution. In January 1971, Iraq also ratified the International Covenants on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), which provide equal protection under international law to all.
In 1979, Saddam Hussein, who had been the power behind-the-scenes for years, fully established himself as Iraq’s leader. Although Saddam Hussein was undeniably a despot who terrorized the nation and created a republic of fear for both male and female Iraqis, he also—-at least initially—-promoted women’s rights. He wanted Iraqi women to be educated, to be part of the workforce and political landscape (such as it was under the dictatorship), and to enjoy rights in marriage and divorce; and, of course, whatever Hussein wanted, Hussein got.
The promotion of women’s rights fit in with Hussein’s interest in building a secular, non- traditional Iraq. Women could be used to help the nation achieve their goal of rapid economic growth. Rather than rely upon foreign labor, Hussein decided to use women to deal with labor shortages.
Incorporated into Hussein’s rhetorical flourishes about the great nation of Iraq were flattering references to its women: “The women of our country are the descendants of the immortal Arab women who fought valiantly side-by-side with their men folk, wrote the poetry of chivalry and glory, and participated in the great Arab heritage of civilization.”[5]
Hussein, however did more than talk about women’s rights. Iraqi women were among the greatest beneficiaries of his widespread literacy programs for all Iraqis. That included mandatory education for children between the ages of six and ten and literacy classes for all Iraqis between the ages of 15 and 45, of which women were a disproportionate number. By the 1990s, the female illiteracy rate in Iraq was among the lowest in the region. Female high-school graduates were encouraged to attend one of the many newly opened colleges and universities, after which they were guaranteed jobs.
Women were further lured to the workplace by promises of equal opportunity, generous maternity benefits, subsidized day care, free transportation, and in some cases, even free housing. That most of the jobs for women were in the civil service made them respectable even for traditional families. By the late 1970s, it was estimated that women made up about 60 percent of the Iraqi civil service.
In 1980, women were part of the nation’s oil industry, comprising 37 percent of government oil-project designers and 30 percent of construction supervisors. By 1982, women were 46 percent of teachers, 29 percent of doctors, 46 percent of dentists, 70 percent of pharmacists, 15 percent of accountants, 14 percent of factory workers, and 4 percent of the senior management positions in Iraq.
In 1980, Iraqi women were granted suffrage and the right to run for office. That parliamentary election year, women won 16 out of 250 seats on the National Council. Five years later, women won 33 council seats, representing 13 percent of the total body. However, it should be emphasized that these were strictly party-controlled elections in which only the Ba’th Party ran candidates. By 1984, 13.2 percent of the National Assembly was female.
Women were also given increased benefits in a new personal status law. Compulsory marriage became a punishable crime. A woman could get a divorce if her husband did not fulfill any of the conditions from their marriage contract. Divorced mothers could now get custody of their children until the age of ten (it had previously been seven for boys and nine for girls), and, with court approval, custody could even be extended to the child’s fifteenth birthday. The child could then choose with which parent to live.
“Unjustified divorce ought to be condemned everywhere. Polygamy ought to be condemned in every corner of our society,” said Saddam Hussein.[6]
Yet, as with so many other things, Hussein was untroubled by an obvious hypocrisy; he himself had two wives. There is also evidence that not all of the personal status law’s provisions were enforced.
In 1986, Iraq became one of the first countries to ratify the Convention on Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). Yet like many Muslim countries, when it accepted this document Iraq cited reservations on the basis of Islamic law that diluted some of the legislation’s effect. For example, while CEDAW guarantees a woman the right to pass on her own nationality, Iraqi law gives that right only to the father.
Moreover, the general repression of political activity prevented women from freely organizing. Hussein closed the Iraqi Women’s League and made the Ba’thist General Federation of Iraqi Women the only women’s organization allowed to function. By 1997, some 47 percent of all women in Iraq reportedly belonged to this organization, although other sources put the figure as lower.
By 1998, the Federation had 21 branches and ran some 250 rural and urban community centers offering job training, education, and other social programs for women. It also helped promote women in public office and initiated the changes in the personal status law. One of its most important functions was educating women about their legal rights through a radio and television campaign, and it even focused on abolishing gender stereotypes in education. A U.S. reporter who visited Iraq in 1999 was told by a federation member that after they discovered that the cover of a children’s textbook showed a boy holding a pen and notebook and a girl carrying a doll, they contacted the publisher and asked that the cover be changed. Presumably, it was. The reporter was also told of how federation members run workshops for elementary school teachers to train them how to teach housekeeping and cooking classes to both boys and girls and run sports events for girls, many of which were televised. Broadcasting images of female athletes wearing shorts and swimsuits is considered nothing short of scandalous in many other parts of the Arab world.[7]
Iraq’s eight-year war with Iran initially provided another boost to women’s rights before creating a major backlash against them. After the war started in 1980, women were needed to join the labor force in even greater numbers as men were going off to the battlefield. In a program known as the “National Campaign to Increase Women’s Participation in the Economic Development Process,” women were trained to work as gas station attendants, bus conductors, and even in the army as doctors and engineers.
However, the toll the war took on Iraq was the beginning of changed circumstances for Iraqi women. In the last years of the war, women were fired from these jobs as their places were needed for returning soldiers. Women were encouraged to focus on becoming mothers who should produce at least five children as the nation needed a population boost to take on the much more populous Iran.
Yet the Iran-Iraq War was only the start of Iraq’s problems. In 1991, Saddam Hussein recklessly invaded Kuwait, only retreating after he was defeated by an international coalition. Following the war, the United Nations imposed trade sanctions against Iraq, leading to an economic crisis in the country. Women were among the primary victims.
For example, indigent families kept girls at home rather than send them to school. As unemployment rose further, women were the first to lose their jobs. In 1998, the government fired all female secretaries in governmental agencies.
During this time, too, there was an increased religious atmosphere in Iraq. “When you have a problem, you need to go nearer to God,” said Imam Majid, director of women’s medicine at Baghdad Teaching Hospital, who began wearing a hijab in 1999. “Many of us have had many problems now, and many of us have lost someone to death. We have changed over these wars.”[8]
These economic hard times also set off another wave of veiling for another reason. “When gray hair comes out, many women cannot afford to dye it. I know so many women who cover for that reason,” said Wassan al-Souz, a longtime women’s activist.[9]
Nevertheless, as with everything else in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, major changes always occurred primarily because of the man at the top. By then, greatly unpopular because of the national crisis, Hussein (once the great secularist) began supporting Islamic and tribal traditions. He passed a series of laws aimed at pleasing Muslim clerics, such as a 1993 decree that allowed Iraqi men to marry a second and third wife without the consent of the first wife. Another law forbade Iraqi women from marrying foreigners. In 2000, women were no longer allowed to travel abroad unless accompanied by a male relative.
In 1990, a presidential decree reduced prison sentences from eight years to a maximum six months for men who pleaded family honor as a reason for killing their female relatives. Not surprisingly, honor killings greatly increased in Iraq, claiming the lives of 4,000 women between 1991 and 2001.[10]
Even more pernicious, however, was the authorities’ deliberate targeting of women. Rape of a suspected man’s wife or sister was used as a way to obtain information by the police. Some Iraqi security officials openly carried professional cards that listed “violation of women’s honor” as one of their duties.
Many crimes against women were committed by Hussein’s oldest son, Udayy, who was notorious for his enormous sexual appetite and ruthlessness. There were many stories of Udayy raping and physically assaulting Iraqi women, even young teenagers and brides during their own weddings. Naturally, he was immune to punishment.
Udayy also headed a paramilitary group charged with dealing with prostitution–which Saddam had banned and made punishable by death. Women anywhere could be accused and found guilty of that crime, although their real misdeed was often being themselves or a relative to someone considered to be an enemy of the regime or refusing to have sexual relations with a Ba’th official.
In front of their family and neighbors, these women would be taken away from their home, stretched out on an iron bench in the center of their village, and decapitated. Their heads would then be displayed publicly outside their family home for several hours. After the execution, the killers would fire shots of celebration. From June 2000 to April 2001, at least 130 women, some as young as age 12, were accused of being prostitutes and beheaded; human rights experts believe the number is much higher.
Those women who were put in jail were subject to great brutality such as being raped or hung by their feet while they were menstruating so that they were “poisoned by the infection generated by their own blood,” recalls Affra al-Barak, who said she was put in jail after she spoke with a man authorities considered to be suspicious.[11]
Some Iraqi women were able to fight back. Women participated in the 1991 Kurdish uprising. When from 1991 to 2003 an Iraqi Kurdish area functioned as an autonomous area under international protection, women became members of the Kurdistan Regional Government and were also able to form women’s organizations.
On the other hand, there were Iraqi women who participated in the system. In the last years of Saddam Hussein’s rule, Huda Salih Mahdi Ammash was the highest-ranking woman in the government and the only woman in the 18-member Iraq Command that ran the Ba’th Party. Her rise in power was due to her expertise. Ammash was dubbed “Mrs. Anthrax” for having been instrumental in rebuilding Iraq’s biological weapons program in the mid-1990s after the Gulf War. She took on this role even after her own father—-a member of the Ba’th Party leadership and former vice president and defense minister–was killed in 1983, reportedly under Hussein’s orders.
Born in 1953, Ammash studied microbiology in Texas and then obtained a doctorate in the subject from the University of Missouri-Columbia. She returned to Iraq to train with Nasir al-Hindawi, who had started Iraq’s biological weapons program. She became a dean at the University of Baghdad and head of Iraq’s Microbiology Society, where research was being done on biological weapons. However, she may also have paid a major personal price for her work, as she is believed to have contracted breast cancer as a result of working with depleted uranium.
After the United States invaded Iraq in March 2003, Ammash had the dubious distinction of being the sole woman on the U.S. list of the 55 most wanted Iraqi leaders. She appeared, clad in a military jacket, in the last footage released of the most prominent members of the Iraqi government and was arrested by U.S. forces in May 2003.
The U.S. authorities also abolished the General Federation of Iraqi Women because of its close association with the Ba’th Party. The Iraq Women’s League, which Saddam Hussein had closed, was reopened. Many other organizations dealing with women’s issues were created.
“Women pushed to be active. They didn’t get anyone’s permission, they just did it,” said Eleana Gordon, senior vice president of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, which has supported women’s activists in Iraq.[12]
Nonetheless, women soon complained that their organizations did not receive local government funding and were only receiving money from abroad. Women also felt that they were being excluded from the political scene.
At the first leadership meeting in Nasiriyyah after the ouster of Saddam Hussein, there were only four women among the 123 people in attendance. At a second gathering of 250 future Iraqi leaders held in Baghdad on April 2003, there were only six women. During the 2003 local elections in Baghdad, leaflets warned women not to participate, according to Salwa Ali, an adviser on human rights issues for the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority. When she went to the polling station, the men there told her to go home; they would make sure to take care of women’s concerns.
However, three women were included in the 12-member Iraqi Governing Council, chosen in July 2003 by the U.S. administration in Iraq. One of them, Raja Khuzay, an obstetrician and hospital director, described how the male members looked away when the female members spoke and held important votes only after the women had left the room. When Khuzay submitted a report to the Council about the problems of poorly paid doctors, she could not persuade most of the male members to read what she wrote.
“It is very frustrating,” she later told a group of U.S. legislators. “We’re pretty much ignored.”[13]
Yet the 50-something mother of seven was used to managing under extreme circumstances. In 1991, during the first Persian Gulf War, she was made the first female hospital director in Iraq, in charge of a maternity hospital in Diwaniyyah. After the U.S.-led Coalition liberated Kuwait, there was a rebellion against Hussein’s regime in Diwaniyyah that was quickly put down by the Republican Guard.
When the city was bombarded, Khuzay was the only doctor left at the hospital. She had to work alone, with no electricity, to help women give birth. She performed 22 Cesarean sections by candlelight.
“At that time, I was alone in the [operating] theater,” she recalled. “Now, we are many.”[14]
Two months after the Governing Council was formed, one of the three female appointees became a victim of the terrorism that was becoming rampant in Iraq. Aqila al-Hashimi, who had served as a diplomat under the Hussein regime, was murdered. Khuzay and her colleague, Songul Chapuk, an engineer and ethnic Turkmen from Kirkuk, were incensed when Hashimi’s replacement was named while they were away at a World Bank conference on women’s issues. Their male colleagues had voted to appoint a conservative Shi’a woman, Salama al-Khafaji, in what a former U.S. ambassador and women’s activist Swanee Hunt termed “clearly a railroading.”[15]
RESOLUTION 137
Indeed, al-Khafaji was far from the mold of a women’s activist. She proved this when she supported Resolution 137, which called for canceling Iraq’s existing family laws and instituting Shari’a law in its place. Shi’a clerics on the governing council used a closed-door meeting to push through the resolution that called for religious courts to determine inheritance, marriage, and divorce. Women’s activists said that under the law, women would not be allowed to leave their houses without asking permission from their husbands, custody of children would be given to men after divorce, and men would be free to take multiple wives.
“This new law will send Iraqi families back to the Middle Ages,” said Zakiyya Hakki, the first Iraqi woman appointed a judge who had become an advisor to the Minister of Justice.[16]
Zainab al-Suwaij, an Iraqi-American women’s activist, added, “We would have been in a worse situation than the women of Afghanistan before the American occupation.”[17]
Women’s activists worked hard to organize opposition to the agreement, to which they objected both on its merits and due to the way that it had been pushed through in secrecy. The fervent opposition to Resolution 137 made the proposed legislation a “blessing in disguise,” said Nasreen Berwari, who later became minister of municipalities and public works.
Its passage motivated Iraqi women to organize and demonstrate, and successfully represent themselves…. The retraction brought Iraqi women together for a common cause. Cooperation and organization crossed religious and ethnic lines–Shia, Sunni, Christian, Arab, Kurd, Assyrian, Turkoman.[18]
The women succeeded. U.S. authorities stepped in to ensure the measure was scrapped, a move which women’s activists hope could be repeated in the future should similar measures be passed.
However, in July 2003 the United States felt it could not side with women’s activists when there was a dispute about the appointment of a female judge in Najaf, a holy Shi’a city. Although there are five female judges in Baghdad, some in Najaf were appalled by the appointment by U.S. authorities of Nidal Nasir Husayn, the city’s first female lawyer as its first female judge. When Lt. Col. Christopher C. Conlin, the senior military official in charge of Najaf, showed up for Husayn’s swearing-in ceremony, he was met with a small party complete with a decorated cake and a group of protestors, including some female lawyers, shouting, “No, No Women!”[19]
The cake might have been cut and the appointment completed if Conlin had not been presented with three fatwas (religious edicts) against female judges, one signed by the influential Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani and the other by the militia leader Muqtada al-Sadr, whose late father and namesake was a revered Shi’a cleric. An argument ensued with opponents saying that the appointment went against Islamic law since women, because they were easily swayed by emotions, were not mentally fit to be judges.
“I have an angry crowd, and there are indications that some of the senior clerics have some serious issues,” Conlin told Nidal Nasir Husayn. “It is my goal to make you a judge, but I need to do better research.”[20] Pleaded Nidal Nasir Husayn: “There were demonstrations against the first elementary schools for women, too, but everything needs a beginning. Don’t just talk to the people who are shouting, talk to sensible people.”[21]Yet Conlin indefinitely postponed the appointment.
In September 2003, only one woman–Berwari–was appointed to the 25-member provisional cabinet appointed by the Governing Council. Berwari was named minister of municipalities and public works. In June 2004, she was among six women named to the 30-member transitional cabinet (the others had the posts of agriculture, environment, displacement and migration, labor and social affairs, and women’s affairs) and in April 2005 was named permanently to that post. As the top Iraqi official in charge of water treatment, waste management, environmental sanitation, and municipal facilities, al-Berwari was one of the most important figures in the Iraqi civil administration. She herself is a fascinating contradiction.
Born in Baghdad in 1967 to a Kurdish family, by age 14 Berwari was already a political prisoner as she sought autonomy for her people. She obtained a Bachelor of Science in architectural engineering at the University of Baghdad in 1991 just before the failed Kurdish uprising caused her to leave the country. Yet she returned after a safe haven was created in Northern Iraq to work for the United Nations, eventually becoming head of its Center for Human Settlements field office in 1997. She obtained a Master’s degree in public administration at Harvard University after which the Kurdistan Regional Government appointed her minister of reconstruction and development, one of two women among 20 ministers.
Yet in 2004 Berwari shocked many women’s rights activists when she married Ghazi al-Yawar, an assembly member and former interim president. The marriage made headlines, not only because al-Yawar was a Sunni but also because he had two other wives.
“This marriage has degraded Kurdish ladies, showing one of our most educated and leading figures being opportunistic. By accepting a fat Arab sheikh for position and fame at the cost of her values and the values of other females in Iraq,” wrote one Kurdish newspaper commentator.[22]
Responding to the charges of hypocrisy, Berwari points out that Iraqi women comprise more than 55 percent of the population due to the deaths of many men in wars, making multiple marriages more of a necessity.[23]
ISLAMIST WOMEN
What was acceptable to most Iraqi women was revealed in a poll taken on January 30, 2005, in which slightly more women (37 percent) than men (31 percent) said they favored a more openly Islamic government in Iraq.
These results were borne out after the first parliamentary election to the provisional assembly in January 2005. Eighty-nine women, 31 percent of the total, were elected to parliament, thanks to a rule that every third position on electoral lists must have a woman’s name. However, more than half of those elected were from the conservative Shi’a United Iraqi Alliance, which won the election with just over half the seats. Some women’s activists suggested that the imposition of quotas for female candidates may have worked against them because the Shi’a parties stacked the list with women who would blindly support the party’s agenda.
The woman who emerged as the new leading female politician in Iraq, Salama al-Khafaji, did not seem like a woman who would blindly follow anything. She is the daughter of a carpenter, although her parents greatly valued learning and encouraged their daughter to become a doctor. They, however, were not religious, and it was al-Khafaji who decided at age 15 to wear a hijab and later the abaya. She became a dentist and spent her spare time pursuing her interest in Islam. That led her to study with a prominent Shi’a cleric, Shaykh Fatih Kashif Ghita, who was teaching at the main Shi’a religious school in Najaf. Ghita taught a women’s-only class on the same subjects he taught men, but with one difference: He taught his classes from behind a screen and never saw his students’ faces. It was not only a question of modesty. Ghita was also protecting his students so that if he were arrested he would not divulge their names. In fact, in 1998, the Shi’a cleric was arrested. His mother took over his women’s classes and during prison visits received scraps of paper from her son with recommended readings.
Al-Khafaji’s first political involvement was as a member of the executive committee of the Dentists Union. Yet as a Shi’a woman with some political experience, al-Khafaji was tapped by the Islamic Da’wa party to replace a slain Shi’a woman on the Iraqi Governing Council.
“I did not plan on entering politics, but after the American invasion, I realized that the voice of the majority of Iraqi women–who are religious and not returning exiles–was not being heard,” said al-Khafaji. “I wanted that voice to be heard.”[24]
Her supporters say that because she was the only council member chosen by her fellow politicians and not appointed by U.S. officials she had more credibility than the other members. Before taking the appointment, the pious al-Khafaji requested and received permission from a senior group of Shi’a clerics.
Al-Khafaji’s credibility with her supporters was strengthened after she denounced the U.S. siege of the Sunni city of Fallujah and a crackdown on the supporters of Shi’a cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. In April and May of 2005, with the aid of Ghita and other Shi’a clerics, she helped pressure Sadr into accepting a ceasefire.
Still, in Iraq’s new terrorist atmosphere she had her enemies. On May 27, 2005, the car in which she was driving was attacked, and although al-Khafaji was unharmed, her son and a bodyguard were killed.
“I remember the day of the attack, I thought of Sayyidah Zainab, the heroine of Karbala,” she says. “After she saw many deaths, she kept taking care of the children. She was a very great inspiration for me. She did not cry in front of the others. She only cried when she was alone.”[25]
The attack only increased her popularity. In a poll conducted a month later by the International Republican Institute, she was ranked as the most popular female leader in the country and the eleventh most popular among both male and female politicians. The phrase “technocrat in a headscarf” was used to describe her.
During the elections, al-Khafaji dropped the idea of starting her own list and became number 30 on the list of the United Iraqi Alliance. Soon after that decision, there were two more terrorist attacks against al-Khafaji, one of which resulted in her husband being wounded. His wife’s insistence on continuing her campaign was too much for her husband, who had long been displeased with his wife’s busy career. After presenting her an ultimatum to choose between the marriage and her career, she chose the latter.
“Destroying a family is very hard,” she said. “If you are divorced, you will be criticized. It’s something seen very negatively in our society.”[26] At the same time, she believed she had a duty to remain in public office:
I have Islamic ideas on justice, but I am moderate. I have optimism. I can speak with people who are liberal and with those who are from the Islamic party…. If I leave, other women may not come and take so burdensome a job… so leaving the job to stay at home, cleaning the shoes, cleaning the clothes, mopping the floor, that was not something I wanted, or felt I could do.
She contends that Islamic law protects her better as a divorced woman than secular law and that polygamy is necessary in a society filled with fatherless households. “We speak about what is really happening in our community,” she says, “not for bringing in extremist, liberal ideas.”[27]
Still, other Iraqi female parliament members disagree. “We should think about fixing these gaps, not going backward,” said Azhar Ramadan Rahim, a Kurdish assembly member from Baghdad. “I am a Muslim too, and Shiite, but rules written 1,400 years ago cannot be applied now.”[28]
In the drafting of the permanent constitution, these two views of women’s rights clashed. Although there were no women on the committee to draft the interim constitution, the new committee had eight women, five from the Shi’a United Iraqi Alliance, two Kurds, and one independent–Raja Khuzay.
The schism between the female members of parliament was perfectly illustrated in an incident described by a New York Times reporter. In April 2005, around 40 female parliamentarians clad in Western-style business suits met with newly designated Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Ja’fari and presented a list of demands. They wanted the constitution to guarantee that women would be placed in at least ten of Iraq’s 30 government ministries and would make up 40 percent of the members of Iraq’s parliament, and they wanted a statement indicating that respect for women’s rights would be guaranteed.[29]
Not long after the group had left, Ja’fari greeted a second group of female parliamentarians. These women were clad in black abayasand wanted to make sure that Shari’a law became part of Iraq’s legal code, which would give men the right to take multiple wives and would see that women received half the inheritance of men.
It could be said that the view of both sides prevailed during the drafting of the constitution in late 2005. The equality of men and women is enshrined in the new constitution, and there is a quota for women in parliament, although it is 25 percent, not the 40 percent women’s activists had hoped for. However, the constitution allows Iraqis to choose whether they will follow secular law or Shari’a law in family matters such as marriage, divorce, and inheritance. Unclear is how the law will address differences between a husband and a wife or a father and a daughter over which law to follow.
Women’s activists were also disappointed by an article that did not make it into the final draft in which the mother would be permitted to pass citizenship on to her children rather than only giving the father that right, which is dictated by Islamic law. Its passage would have made Iraq one of the few countries in the region (along with Tunisia, Morocco, and Egypt) to have such a measure.
In the December 2005 parliamentary elections, the number of women elected fell short of the goal of 25 percent because there were many small parties that won less than three seats. Yet the fact that women comprise about 19 percent of the seats is still impressive, certainly in the Middle East and even compared to many Western countries.
Ironically, it was the conservative Shi’a-led United Iraqi Alliance that gave the greatest percentage of its seats to women–23 percent–while the more liberal Kurdish Alliance only gave 17 percent of its seats to women; and one Sunni Arab list, the Iraqi Front for National Dialogue, had no women among its 11 parliamentarians.
In May 2006, Iraq’s new government was formed, and four women were among the 39 cabinet ministers given the portfolios of housing and construction, the environment, human rights, and women’s affairs–not one of them a major post. Also, there were two fewer women than had been in the previous cabinet.
Among the new female ministers, two were Kurds, one was a Sunni representing the Accord Party, and the third was from a secular party, Iraqiyyah. One of the two Kurds was Environmental Minister Narmin Othman, whose uncle and brother-in-law were executed under the Hussein regime and whose husband was also imprisoned and tortured. She had seen democracy first-hand while living in exile in Sweden from 1984 to 1992. She and her family returned to the newly formed independent Iraqi Kurdistan Region, and as a former high school teacher, she became minister of education. She had been minister of women’s affairs in the interim government.
VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN
Othman, like many other prominent Iraqi women, escaped several assassination attempts. Other women were not so lucky. These included Amal Mamalchi, who worked at the Iraqi Ministry of Public Works and was a prominent member of the Iraqi Women’s Network, an umbrella organization for 80 Iraqi groups; another victim was parliamentarian Lamia Abed Khadouri al-Sagri, a member of the Iraqi List party.
Other women were targeted because they were not considered sufficiently Islamic. Zina al-Qushtayni was a divorced mother who owned a pharmacy and was known as “Lady Zeena” because of her preference for flamboyant Western clothes and friendships with female activists and members of the U.S. forces. After being abducted, her dead body was found dressed in a full-length black abaya and headscarf soaked in blood. A film was later released of her murder at the hands of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, al-Qa’ida’s leader in Iraq.
In March 2006, it was estimated that 2,000 Iraqi women had been kidnapped since the collapse of the Hussein regime. Human Rights Watch reported that at least 400 women and girls, some as young as eight years old, had been raped during this period, although they believe the figure is likely higher.
In one account, Dalal S., a 23-year-old woman, said she was walking with her mother and relatives to a social event when about six armed men abducted her from a crowded Baghdad street and drove off with her in their car. She was taken to a farm outside the city. One of the terrorists told her that he was a former prisoner who had been sentenced to 80 years’ imprisonment but had been given amnesty by Saddam Hussein in October 2002. She recalled
When they took me, at first they said it was because someone wanted to marry me but my parents hadn’t consented, then another said I looked like his sister-in-law, who had caused him big problems…. The third one said that it was because I was wearing trousers. He said, “Why are you wearing trousers, the American soldiers are looking at you.” But really, they just wanted to deceive me, to take what they wanted…. They wanted to kidnap anyone, they had [it in] their mind to take four girls waiting for a taxi, I think they wanted to rape them, but they couldn’t take them so they took me instead.It is highly likely that she was raped.[30] Many women were harassed for not adhering to what was considered a proper Islamic dress code. Acts of violence against Iraqi women who do not wear headscarves more than tripled in the three years since the U.S. invasion, according to the Women’s Rights Association in Iraq. Some government ministries set a religious dress code for female employees. Other Iraqi women said they were warned by individuals in their neighborhoods to dress properly.
One of the results of the violence was that school attendance plummeted, with only 50 percent of children–especially fewer girls–going to school, as fearful parents cited the very real threats of kidnapping or rape. Other women stopped working for the same reason. Of no assistance with such cases was the Iraqi police force, which had received no training on sexual abuse of women or was at best indifferent and sometimes hostile to victims. Even the few new Iraqi female security forces could not escape sexual harassment. One woman training for the Iraqi police filed a complaint against a male superior for punching her in the face but was ignored. Major Huda Angham said she was fired for complaining about the condition of women in the force.
“A woman in my team was kidnapped and we have heard nothing more about her,” said Angham. “Another was shot and our leaders have not done anything for us, even though we have paid the same price as our male colleagues through attacks by insurgents.”[31]
The violence against women was not only perpetrated by strangers. From 2003 to 2006, there were 80 attacks and four “honor killings” by family members, compared to 22 attacks and one death in the previous four years.[32]
There was also an increase in cases of female genital mutilation. Sixty percent of some 1,554 Iraqi women and girls over ten years old interviewed by a German charitable local medical team said they had had the operation. Girls under the age of 15, even as young as 12 years old, were forced into marriage.
Iraqi women who are Shi’a are also victims of so-called “temporary” marriages, known as Mut’a, a custom among Shi’a Muslims, which had been banned under the Hussein regime. Some 300 such marriages occur daily in Kerbala, Najaf, and Basra. Under such unions, an unmarried Shi’a woman temporarily marries a man–he can be married or unmarried–for a period ranging from a few hours to an entire lifetime in return for a payment, usually about $1,000. Men may also have several Mut’a arrangements simultaneously. Some women have turned to such marriages as a way out of poverty. The marriage, however, has risks. After the temporary marriage dissolves, the woman can end up pregnant with no right to seek support and is often branded as a prostitute.
One woman who experienced intimately all the threats of violence was Yanar Muhammad, an Iraqi who returned from exile in Canada to found the Organization of Women’s Freedom. After going on television to speak out against the proposed change in the personal status law she received a blunt email: “Stop speaking out for women’s rights, or we will kill you.”[33]
“They said, because of my psychologically disturbed ideas, they would have to kill me and crucify me,” Muhammad recalled. “It sounded to me like a serious warning.”[34]
Muhammad began wearing a bulletproof vest and canceling all appearances; then she stopped. “After the war, groups from Iran and Saudi Arabia have funding to come in and teach these ideas that women’s rights are less than men, that they can be harassed on the street,” she said. “I’m living with fear every day, but I cannot wear a bullet-proof vest any more.”[35]
It is largely because of such violence that many members of NGOs dealing with women’s rights concluded that they were better off under the regime of Saddam Hussein, according to a survey put out by Muhammad’s organization. “The results show that women are less respected now than they were under the previous regime, while their freedom has been curtailed,” said Mohammed.[36]
Not surprisingly, however, given how divided Iraq is on women’s issues, other women’s activists vehemently disagree with the reports’ findings. They say such findings were published by “radical, feminist anti-war groups,”[37] as A.Yasmine Rassam, who runs international policy at the Independent Women’s Forum, puts it.
“Much of the anti-war propagandists’ defense of Saddam as a champion of women’s rights rests on his willingness to allow women to vote (for him), drive cars, own property, get an education and work,” writes Rassam. “What they choose to ignore, however, is the systematic rapes, torture, beheadings, honor killings, forced fertility programs, and declining literacy rates that also characterized Saddam’s regime….. A brutal dictator who tortures his own people cannot be a champion of women’s rights.”[38]
*Judith Colp Rubin is author of the forthcoming Women in the Middle East (Sharpe). She is co-author of Yassir Arafat: A Political Biography and Hating America.
NOTES[1] Sadok Masliyah, “Zahawi: A Muslim Pioneer of Women’s Liberation,” Middle Eastern Studies, July 1, 1996.
[2] Doreen Ingrams, The Awakened: Women in Iraq (Beirut: Third World Center for Research and Publishing, 1995), p. 91.
[3] Sami Zubaida, “The Next Iraqi State: Secular or Religious?,” OpenDemocracy, February 12, 2004, http://www.mafhoum.com/press6/182S29.htm.
[4] Lauren Sandler, “Veiled Interests,” Boston Globe, August 31, 2003, http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2003/08/31/veiled_interests?mode=PF.
[5] Andrea Laurenz, “Iraqi Women Preserve Gains Despite Wartime Problems,” Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, July 1989, p. 4.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Ibid.
[9] Ibid.
[10] Nicholas Birch, “Efforts pay off to protect Kurdish Women,” Christian Science Monitor, March 3, 2004, http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0303/p07s01-woiq.htm.
[11] Elizabeth Nickson, “Selling Out Our Veiled Sisters,” National Post, July 10, 2004, http://www.iwf.org/media/media_detail.asp?ArticleID=637.
[12] “Discussion: Women in the Middle East: Progress or Regress?,” Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal, Vol. 10, No. 2 (June 2006), http://meria.idc.ac.il/journal/2006/issue2/jv10no2a2.html.
[13] Maria Caballero, “Raising Their Voices,” Newsweek, December 10, 2003, http://www.keepmedia.com/pubs/Newsweek/2003/12/10/383124.
[14] M.E. Sprengelmeyer, “Women Struggle for Rights in Iraq of the Future,” Scripps Howard News Service, December 26, 2003.
[15] Ibid.
[16] Pamela Constable, “Women in Iraq Decry Decision to Curb Rights,” Washington Post, January 16, 2004, p. A12.
[17] Maria Caballero, “Leaders Say Vote Decides Equality for Iraqi Women,” Women’s ENEws, January 30, 2005, http://www.womensenews.org/article.cfm/dyn/aid/2166/context/cover.
[18] U.S. Department of State, “Iraqi Women Raise Their Political Voices, Says Minister Berwari,” http://usinfo.state.gov/mena/Archive/2004/Mar/11-255542.html.
[19] Neil MacFarquhar, “In Najaf, Justice Can be Blind But Not Female,” New York Times, July 30, 2003, http://middleastinfo.org/article3118.html.
[20] Ibid.
[21] Ibid.
[22] Shafiq Shemzin, “What an Irony: Ms. Nasreen (Berwari) Al-Yawer Mission,” KudishMedia.com, November 8, 2005, http://www.kurdmedia.com/articles.asp?id=10541.
[23] Robert F. Worth, “In Jeans or Veils, Iraqi Women Are Split on New Political Power,” New York Times, April 13, 2005, http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/13/international/middleeast/13women.html.
[24] Mohamad Bazzi, “Female Iraqi Poised to Take Power,” Newsday, January 24, 2005, http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/world/ny-wokhaf0124,0,4962580.story?coll=ny-nationworld-world-utility.
[25] Alissa Rubin, “A Painful Road to Leadership,” Newsday, November 2, 2005, http://www.newsday.com/mynews/la-fg-salama2nov02,0,1432499.story?page=3.
[26] Ibid.
[27] Larry Kaplow, “Womens’ Rights in Spotlight for Iraq Election,” Salt Lake Tribune, January 16, 2005, http://www.sltrib.com/portlet/article/html/fragments/print_article.jsp?article=2527061.
[28] Worth, “In Jeans or Veils.”
[29] Ibid.
[30] Human Rights Watch, “Climate of Fear: Sexual Violence and Abduction of Women and Girls in Baghdad,” July 2003, Vol. 15, No. 7, http://hrw.org/reports/2003/iraq0703/.
[31] Hala Jaber, “Rebels Kill Iraqi Women as ‘Betrayers’ of Islam,” The Sunday Times, March 20, 2005, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-1533563,00.html.
[32] Feminist Daily News Wire, March 13, 2006, http://www.feminist.org/news/newsbyte/uswirestory.asp?id=9559.
[33] “Women’s Groups Under Threat in the New Iraq,” Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN), March 24, 2004, http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=40230&SelectRegion=Iraq_Crisis&SelectCountry=IRAQ.
[34] Ibid.
[35] Ibid.
[36] “Women Were More Respected Under Saddam,” IRIN, April 13, 2006, http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/RWB.NSF/db900SID/KHII-6NU57N?OpenDocument.
[37] A. Yassime Rassam, “Saddam Wasn’t a Feminist,” Wall Street Journal, May 3, 2006.
[38] Ibid.
MERIA Journal Staff
Publisher and Editor: Prof. Barry Rubin
Assistant Editors: Yeru Aharoni, Anna Melman.
Webmaster: Tsadok Moshe Blok
MERIA is a project of the Global Research in International Affairs
GLORIA) Center, Interdisciplinary University.
Site: http://www.gloriacenter.org – Email: info@gloriacenter.org
The Islamic Divide
From KHouse.Org Archives June 2007
THE ISLAMIC DIVIDE
The terms Shiite (Shia) and Sunni are heard often in stories about the Muslim world, but few people really know what they mean. Religion permeates every aspect of life in the Muslim world and understanding the differences between Shiites and Sunnis is important in understanding the complex geopolitics of the Middle East.The division between Shiites and Sunnis began in the years immediately following the death of the Prophet Muhammad, the founder of the Islamic faith. When Muhammad died in 632 AD there was a disagreement over who should succeed him as the political and religious leader of the Muslim world. One group of Muslims elected Abu Bakr, a close companion of Muhammad to be the caliph, or leader. However a smaller group believed that Muhammad’s cousin and son-in-law, Ali ibn Abu Talib, was the rightful leader. The Muslims who believed that Abu Bakr should be Muhammad’s successor have come to be known as Sunni. Whereas the Muslims who felt Ali should have been the successor are now known as Shiite.
Abu Bakr was the first caliph, although Shiites considered him to be a usurper. He was succeeded by Umar ibn al-Khattab and Uthman ibn Affan, the second and third caliphs. In the year 656 AD, 24 years after the death of Muhammad, Uthman was murdered. After Uthman’s death Ali, whom Shiites had always considered the rightful leader, was finally elected to rule. Ali was opposed by Muhammad’s wife Aisha, the daughter of Abu Bakr. Aisha challenged his authority and criticized Ali for his lack of interest in bringing Uthman’s killers to justice. Aisha raised an army against Ali, which lead to the first Fitna, or Islamic civil war. Ali defeated Aisha at the Battle of Bassorah, also known as the Battle of the Camel. Ali’s reign was turbulent and he was assassinated in 661 AD.
Under the leadership of the first four caliphs (Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman, and Ali), the political, social, and religious institutions of Islam were solidified. Islam spread far beyond the borders of the Arabian peninsula, east into the Persian empire, north into Byzantine territory, and west across northern Africa. After Ali’s death, however, Islamic unity splintered. Sunni Islam continued through the Umayyads and other dynasties that led to the powerful Ottoman and Mughal empires of the 15th to 20th Centuries. For Shiites, leadership was passed down through the Imams, who were believed to be divinely appointed from Muhammad’s family. The 12th and final Shiite Imam died in the late 9th Century. After several centuries a council was appointed to elect an Ayatollah, the supreme Shiite spiritual leader.
The divide between Shiite and Sunni Muslims began as a political one, but this ultimately led to some religious and theological differences. The divide between the two sects has grown over time. Shiites and Sunnis disagree on the identity of the Mahdi, the coming Islamic messiah. They also disagree on the interpretation of various key passages of the Quran and the hadith. The Quran (or Koran) is the Islamic holy scriptures – the word of Allah. While the hadith are teachings and traditions passed down from Muhammad – not divinely inspired nevertheless very significant. Yet while there are differences in beliefs, both Shiites and Sunnis share the main articles of faith – the five pillars of Islam – which are the testimony of faith, prayer, giving to charity, fasting, and the pilgrimage to Mecca.
Shiites and Sunnis are the two largest Islamic sub-groups. However there are other sects, as well as divisions within the two groups. Sunni Muslims make up the majority, approximately eighty-five percent, of Muslims all over the world – they are spread from North Africa to Asia. However large populations of Shiite Muslims live in Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Afghanistan and India.
Islam is the world’s fastest growing religion, and is second in size only to Christianity, but the god of Islam and the God of the Bible are not one and the same. Allah is presented as unknowable and capricious, and is derived from the ancient pagan moon god. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob delights in making and keeping His promises. Jesus summarized the entire Law of Moses in two commandments: Love God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind; and love your neighbor as yourself. Nowhere does the Koran make such a commandment. Although there are many peace-loving Muslims, study of the Islamic religion will reveal that true Islam is anything but a peaceful religion. Islam demands the utter destruction of all Jews, Christians, and anyone who refuses to convert to the Islamic faith. It is a warrior code that demands Muslims live and die by the sword.
The truth about Islam is exactly the opposite of what you will hear on the news. Many Americans believe that Islam is a religion of peace and that Christians and Muslims worship the same God. In public schools we teach our children a doctrine of tolerance, and in some schools students are even required to memorize passages of the Koran. While in comparison, Islamic children are taught that America is the Infidel. We are the enemy. When the towers came crashing down on September 11, 2001 and thousands of innocent people were killed, Muslims all over the world danced in the streets and praised the hijackers. Islamic terrorists are referred to in the West as radicals and extremists, while in the mid-east they are heralded by fundamentalists as martyrs and heroes, and the families of suicide bombers are rewarded monetary pensions. The disparity between the two perspectives is staggering, still Americans are not willing to face the truth about Islam.
[Editor's note: This is a highly condensed overview of early Islamic history as it pertains to the division between Shiites and Sunnis. It is important to note that Islamic sects tend to disagree on many aspects of key historical events (one man's hero is another's villain). See the links below for more detailed information. Also, check out our briefing pack The Sword of Allah to learn more about the origins of the Islamic faith.]
Related Links:
• Islam – CARM
• What’s the Difference Between Shi’ah and Sunni? – Christianity Today
• The Sword of Allah – MP3 Download – Special Offer!
• A Legacy of Hate – MP3 Download – Koinonia House
• Strategic Trends: The Rise of Islam – Koinonia House
- From Koinonia House News Letter.
Millions of Virgins; Millions of Martyrs. These Guys Have Followers and They Really Mean It
From Rubin Reports.Blogspot.Com
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Millions of Virgins; Millions of Martyrs. These Guys Have Followers and They Really Mean It
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By Barry Rubin
Yes, it’s true; a fringe minister with just fifty followers in America wanted to burn a Koran. But he didn’t. Meanwhile another nut wants to kill all Jews, wipe Israel off the map, destroy the United States, eliminate all Christians, indoctrinate children into being suicide bombers, and carry out a revolutionary war of terrorism for decades no matter how many die and how much destruction occurs.
Oh, and by the way, he and his colleagues have several hundred thousand followers and are ruling what amounts to an independent state bordering on the Mediterranean.
When you study the Middle East seriously you get used to this kind of rhetoric, yet somehow the seriousness and importance of such talk doesn’t seem to register with many Western government officials, journalists, and academics who explain away these movements and regimes as somehow rational and moderate.
Maybe that’s because when you look at the situation honestly it’s really rather scary. Another word for finding something scary is to have a “phobia” toward it.
So it wasn’t some silly, obscure guy who said this but…well, please wait just one more paragraph to find out.
In the speech, this fellow said that it was really great to be a martyr for Islamic revolution because there are 2.5 million black-eyed virgins waiting at the gates of a palace–just one, so presumably there are more–in the Garden of Eden just waiting for them. You do the math: 500 gates, 5,000 virgins per gate.
Who said this? Ahmad Bahr, a Hamas leader and speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council. In other words, he’s the Palestinian equivalent of Nancy Pelosi.
Bahr and his colleagues aren’t just joking; they aren’t just telling tall tales to titillate the yokels. Nor are they making this stuff up, since Bahr is quoting one of Muhammad’s chief lieutenants and a caliph in his own right. This speech was broadcast on al-Aqsa television on September 5, 2010. It was intended to mobilize the masses to go out and die for Hamas and the Islamic revolution. So presumably a good number of Palestinians take this seriously, too.
Now how is this plan going to be implemented? Basically, Bahr said that every Muslim should have a lot of sons and train them to be terrorists and hence martyrs. He concluded:
“If this is the culture of the nation today, who will be able to stop it?…As long as we continue on this path, nobody on Earth will be able to confront the resistance, or to confront the mujahideen, those who worship Allah and seek martyrdom.”
So it doesn’t matter how hopeless the odds seem, how many will die, how much suffering will take place. Peace is not more attractive than war; having a nice future for your children is not the top priority. Goals are not set by a cost/benefit analysis but on the basis that the creator of the universe is calling the shots, insists on this path, and will ensure its victory.
OK, you say, but maybe Bahr just hates Israel and would be satisfied if it is wiped out and then the struggle would end? Nope. Maybe he just wants an independent Palestinian state and then will leave everyone else alone? Again, nope.
Here’s what he said in 2007 in a speech broadcast on Sudan television:
“‘You will be victorious’ on the face of this planet. You are the masters of the world on the face of this planet. Yes, [the Koran says that] ‘you will be victorious,’ but only ‘if you are believers.’ Allah willing, ‘you will be victorious,’ while America and Israel will be annihilated, Allah willing. I guarantee you that the power of belief and faith is greater than the power of America and Israel. They are cowards, as is said in the Book of Allah: ‘You shall find them the people most eager to protect their lives.’ They are cowards, who are eager for life, while we are eager for death for the sake of Allah. That is why America’s nose was rubbed in the mud in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Somalia, and everywhere….
“America will be annihilated, while Islam will remain. The Muslims ‘will be victorious, if you are believers.’ Oh Muslims, I guarantee you that the power of Allah is greater than America, by whom many are blinded today. Some people are blinded by the power of America. We say to them that with the might of Allah, with the might of His Messenger, and with the power of Allah, we are stronger than America and Israel.”
Again, this is one of Hamas’s top leaders, and others in the leadership–not to mention their Iranian, Hizballah, and Syrian allies–have said similar things. This is not a joke. Middle East: This is your life!
Do you mind if I’m perfectly frank with you? I suspect that deep down most Westerners think people like Bahr are as corrupt and hypocritical as an Upper-West-Side-of-Manhattan progressive thinks is true for a Southern televangelist. They probably expect Bahr steps out of the pulpit then goes to a bar for a scotch and a ham sandwich.
If they would only apply to Bahr–whose extremism they tend to ignore, feel overrated, or can easily be turned into moderation–the same standards as they do to Christian Pentecostals–who they despise without tolerance–that would be one step in the right direction. Then keep going, adding on that, unlike Christian “fundamentalists” in America, revolutionary Islamists have murdered tens of thousands of people and want to kill many more; unlike those Christians they command thousands of armed soldiers; unlike those Christians they will kill anyone who changes to another religion or who doesn’t behave as they want; and, too, their program is to seize state power, establish totalitarian states, and attack other countries.
No, Bahr isn’t just speaking for effect. He’s dead serious, and that expression isn’t chosen by accident, betting his life on his cause. And what Bahr says and believes is word-for-word also applies to Hizballah; the Egyptian and Jordanian Muslim Brothers; Iran’s regime; the Taliban; Islamists in areas of Russia; Islamists in Indonesia and Pakistan; clerics in Syria and many other countries; and is heard in certain meetings and mosques throughout Europe and North America.
By no means all Muslims, or even most, but a heck of a lot do talk like Bahr. Not a very small minority of believers; a very big minority of believers. And if they are not stopped they will be the majority of believers and the rulers of multiple countries.
Given the number of martyrs that have been and are going to be generated, there’s going to be a need for all 2.5 million of those virgins Bahr mentions. Actually, that won’t be enough because at 99 per (male) martyr that’s only enough for about 25,000.
Very few Muslims are publicly making fun of such statements or battling against them, though many are fighting the Islamists on political grounds.
Doesn’t all of this matter a bit? Shouldn’t this be something people in the West know about, the mass media cover fully? Mightn’t this kind of talk and thinking convey something of why nobody should try to bring Hamas or similar groups into the diplomatic process, give it aid, or help it in any way? Isn’t this a bigger threat than some marginal haters of everything Muslim who just aren’t going to become martyrs? In the face of this threat should people be demonized and intimidated if they dare talk about it?
I can’t imagine why there should be any doubt about the answers to these questions.
Note: the 2007 quote is translated from MEMRI but available only by subscription.
Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). The website of the GLORIA Center is at http://www.gloria-center.org and of his blog, Rubin Reports, http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com.
2 Articles; Trying to Bring Reality Into the Debate On Islam and Islamism; And Now The News
Rubin Reports.Blogspot.Com
Trying to Bring Reality Into the Debate On Islam and Islamism
Posted: 12 Sep 2010 08:09 AM PDT
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By Barry Rubin
People are fascinated by the discussion over Islam and seem hungry for some honest and accurate analysis on it. So let me continue to try to bring reality into this debate.
Consider this, a group of non-Muslim Americans who in the name of countering ignorance and bigotry plans to read the entire Koran on the grounds of the Capitol building. The assumption is that if people only knew what the Koran actually said they would understand there wer eno problems whatsoever except in the fevered imaginations of hate mongers. Unfortunately, though, the hate-mongers aren’t all people who have not read the Koran. Many of them are among those who have read it many times and even memorized it.
Whether or not there is such a reading, then, I imagine the scene when the well-intentioned come to passages about slaying unbelievers, waging Jihad, and massacring Muhammad’s critics. For instance in Sura 9:5 they will read: “Slay the unbelievers wherever you find them.” Or that Allah hates the Jews because they didn’t become Muslims (2:87-90) and the Christian belief that Jesus is divine is anti-Allah.(5:72).
There are those Muslims, of course, who say that such things should be reinterpreted. Unfortunately, they are outnumbered in the Muslim-majority world by more than 100 to 1 by the more literal-minded. Fortunately, there is a third, even larger, group of Muslims that neither accepts that passage as a guide to action but also don’t try to rewrite it, see below.)
Presumably the well-meaning, albeit naive readers will say that there are parallel passages in the original Bible. Of course, nobody is trying to implement those things–which were mostly one-time instructions for specific events millennia ago, not perpetual commands–in the contemporary world. As for the Koran, some people did, for example, a few years ago on September 11. Afghanistan was ruled by such people; Iran and the Gaza Strip, among other places, still are; mass movements are dedicated to fulfilling them; while other such jurisdictions may be added in the near future.
Now I know too many Muslims and how they act in practice to accept some mechanistic model that they respond like robots to the presence of radical concepts in Islam’s texts. But I also know that millions of people do take those passages as a blueprint for political action. And I also know too much about Muslim-majority societies today and in the modern historical era to ignore these forces, pretend Islam as it is often practiced doesn’t often holds back social and economic development; or sympathize with the real oppressors and ignore their actual victims.
That’s why I make an all-important distinction between the fact that there are relatively few “moderate Muslims”–who actively want to reform Islam–and millions of Muslims who are relative moderates–people who avoid or oppose extremist ideas because Islam doesn’t really define their world view (that third group I mentioned earlier).
What does shape their political views? A national, tribal, ethnic, professional, or regional identity, for example, or some kind of pragmatic response to daily life very much influenced by Western thought. In such cases, these Muslims simply ignore or reinterpret certain concepts or just have no intention of putting them into practice.
Of course, it is the goal of Islamists–and of non-Islamist dictatorships using Islamic demagoguery in propaganda–to mobilize them for extremist causes, terrorism, war on the West, etc. And if the Islamists win, take over countries, and indoctrinate young people, then that will happen.
But ask yourself this question: If the Islamist regime in Iran were to be overthrown, even after three decades of indoctrination, wouldn’t millions of Iranians say publicly (as many now say privately):
Thank God, that’s over! [The joke is a deliberate one.] We have no desire to let a bunch of mullahs run our lives according to their interpretation of Islam. Let’s live in an overwhelmingly secular way, no matter how pious we might be in the religious sphere.
Or consider this point: Every leader of every Arabic-speaking state (except president of Lebanon) in the last sixty years, moderate or not, has been a Muslim whose politics did not come primarily from a religious interpretation of the world. Possibly the most traditionally pious individual Arab leaders during this period, at least outside Saudi Arabia, were President Anwar al-Sadat of Egypt and King Hussein of Jordan, perhaps the most moderate of them.
For sixty years, and without a single successful revolution from below, Arabic-speaking countries have been governed by regimes that are actually secular and made their decisions on a worldly (though that doesn’t mean moderate!) basis. And while Saudi Arabia is the most obvious exception, even it is closer to that model than many think.
People who attribute everything in the Middle East to Islam are making the same mistake as people who see the entire region solely in terms of the Arab-Israeli conflict or some understandable reaction to the misdeeds of the evil West. It’s just not that simple.
Of course, if the Islamists take over states they will–as has already happened in Islamist Iran, Taliban Afghanistan, Hamas in the Gaza Strip–live up to the worst expectation about imposing a radical, West-, Christian-, and Jewish-hating regime bent on Jihad. The Turkish Islamists have their own style but have now joined the radical team, a fact which does not appeal to about 70 percent of Turks (also Muslims), while another 10 percent support the regime because they don’t believe it is Islamist.
How does one account, then, for the fact that Muslims who are not Islamists still have a different set of views from people in the West? Simple. It is a different society (I’m not sure whether or not to use the word “civilization”) with a distinctive history, set of experiences, and political culture.
Does the dominant interpretation of Islam have to change before these countries enjoy moderate, stable, democratic, tolerant societies? It would be easy to answer yes and in the long run that’s probably true. But a good start would be to get back to the conventional Islam of pre-Islamist times, when Jihad was just mostly a five-letter word and imams portrayed suicide bombers as heretics, not martyrs.
The Politically Correct, multicultural, diversity-obsessed, more-fearful-of-being-called-”Islamophobic” than-being-blind-to-reality Western approach is more dangerous than the Islam-is-the-problem approach. For one thing, the former runs Western countries and intellectual life. Despite scare talk, the latter approach isn’t going to take over and launch anti-Muslim pogroms.
Let’s face it. Western governments, media, and academics often act as if the greatest danger facing the world isn’t revolutionary Islamist movements, terrorism, war in the Middle East, but the threat of rampant Islamophobia. Consequently, the mass media, for example, doesnt report fully on the Americaphobia, Westophobia, Christianophobia, and Judaeophobia in the Muslim majority world out of fear this will promote Islamophobia.
Instead, we get a huge dose of feel-good talk about tolerance and Islam as a “religion of peace” facing a small minority of extremists. This isn’t bad as an element in the picture but it shouldn’t be most of the picture. And that “small minority” of extremists should be reported as a very big minority of extremists.
From its position of power the currently dominant worldview doesn’t face the reality of a massive revolutionary Islamist movement, that draws on normative Islam, which is the greatest threat to peace and freedom in the world today. It also sees a mirage of moderation where there is often just radicals who talk nice.
As a result, the mainstream Western view today often helps reactionary, repressive forces that want to murder people (many of them Muslims), commit genocide on Jews, and force everyone in the Middle East and beyond into decades of bloody war and suffering. That same view–that anyone who says anything critical about anything connected with Islam should be demonized–also pushes aside the real moderates (who have their own criticisms of contemporary mainstream political Islam).
Don’t those sound like rather serious, even suicidal mistakes?
The “good” news is that young Muslims have to be taught to interpret the Koran. In other words, in principle there is hope. But the bad news is that they are increasingly being taught by radical Islamist interpretations. An incredible amount of poison has been let loose and it will take many decades to undo the harm.
In short, those who say that Islam is innately evil or extremist they are wrong. But those who say there is no problem at all and that Islam as interpreted today by most Muslims as just a “religion of peace” are also wrong. The key is how Islam is interpreted, how many people hold the different interpretations, and what they intend to do about it.
In other words, this is a political and not a theological issue. Of course, one can say that Islamist radicals are more influential because they make arguments rooted in the Islamic texts. But then one also has to explain why they weren’t so powerful when those same texts existed in precisely the same wording, for example, in 1975.
Being afraid of someone who just wants to live his own life and practice his religion peacefully is a phobia. Being afraid of someone who wants to destroy your interests and to kill you and your friends is wise.
Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). The website of the GLORIA Center is at http://www.gloria-center.org and of his blog, Rubin Reports, http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com.
And Now The News
Posted: 11 Sep 2010 09:48 AM PDT
By Barry Rubin
Good news: Florida pastor cancels burning of Koran.
Probable news: NY mosque will be built near Ground Zero with New York City and State government backing.
Definite news: Revolutionary Islamist terrorists still won’t cancel hundreds of terror attacks waged from Indonesia through Morocco to kill other Muslims, Christians, Hindus, Jews, and Buddhists. They will still build revolutionary movement intending to seize state power in a score of Muslim-majority states, destroy Israel, and trash Western interests.
Muslim cleric calls for beheading of Dutch politician
From News Yahoo.Com
A well-known Australian Muslim cleric has called for the beheading of Dutch anti-Islamic politician Geert Wilders, a newspaper said on Friday.
Wilders’ Freedom Party scored the biggest gains in June 9 polls and is currently negotiating to form a new minority government with the Liberals and Christian Democrats. Polls show Wilders would win a new election if one were called now.
Wilders demanded to know why he had learnt about the threat from the newspaper and not from Dutch authorities who are guarding him after a film and remarks he made angered Muslims around the world.
De Telegraaf, the Netherlands’ largest newspaper, led its front page on Friday with a story on the speech by Feiz Muhammad.
The Sydney-born Muhammad has gained notoriety for, among other things, calling on young children to be radicalized and blaming rape victims for their own attacks.
The paper posted an English-language audio clip in which he refers to Wilders as “this Satan, this devil, this politician in Holland” and explains that anyone who talks about Islam like Wilders does should be executed by beheading.
De Telegraaf did not say when the speech was given but said it and the Dutch secret service both had copies. According to his website, Muhammad is based in Malaysia.
Wilders told Reuters it was “really terrible news” and that he was taking it seriously.
“I will ask for clarification from the Dutch minister of interior/justice why the secret service and anti-terrorism unit NCTb have not informed me before and what the consequences will be for me,” he said in an email.
A spokesman for the Dutch secret service referred inquiries on the threat to the NCTb. A spokeswoman for the NCTb was not available to comment.
Wilders is currently on trial in the Netherlands for inciting hatred and discrimination against Muslims.
The Freedom Party leader made a film in 2008 which accused the Koran of inciting violence and mixed images of terrorist attacks with quotations from the Islamic holy book.
Wilders was also charged because of outspoken remarks in the media, such as an opinion piece in a Dutch daily in which he compared Islam to fascism and the Koran to Adolf Hitler’s book “Mein Kampf.”
Of late he has been in the news for plans to speak out against a planned mosque in New York City on September 11, the ninth anniversary of the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people.
But his views have also made him extremely popular with a segment of the country uneasy about the Netherlands’ commitment to multiculturalism.
- Prophecy News Watch
Pet Dogs, Sharia and Blessing our Enemies
From KHouse.Org
PET DOGS, SHARIA AND BLESSING OUR ENEMIES
If we did not have enough reasons for dreading Sharia law, Iran has given us another one; dog ownership is out. Iran banned all advertisements for pets on Friday, including ads for pet food, pet shops, and other pet products. Why? Because Iranian dog owners care entirely too much about Fido, and that infatuation could lead to “evil outcomes” of some mysterious nature, besides the fact that dogs are unclean animals in Islam.
“Many people in the West love their dogs more than their wives and children,” the Grand Ayatollah declared.
The situation, of course, is more serious than the banning of canine companions (although that’s pretty rough). Sharia law isn’t just threatening to keep Persians from their pooches. In Afghanistan in early August, the Taliban lashed 35-year-old Bibi Sanubar 200 times before shooting her to death for adultery – adultery that allegedly took place after her husband had passed away. Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, the Iranian women who was given 99 lashes and has thus far avoided execution by stoning, was told this weekend that she would be hanged on Sunday – but the execution did not take place. Ashtiani was tortured until she “confessed” to the murder of her husband – an act she claims was devised and carried out by his cousin. While she awaits her fate, the Iranian government continues to play tormenting head games – such as mock execution days.
The promotion of Sharia is not confined to the Middle East. Its rigid regulations and devaluing of women have followed large populations of Muslims into European nations and beyond.
The spread of Islam through the North Caucasus, between the Black and Caspian Seas in European Russia, has brought with it the Sharia mentality. The region of Chechnya has been particularly troubled and the Russian constitution has been violated by those who are more interested in upholding Islamic law than the local Russian law. Women are harassed and shot with paintball guns for not wearing head coverings. Eateries are ordered to close for the month of Ramadan – and they do it. In May, Kremlin-backed Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov told the French newspaper Le Figaro in an interview that Russian law is not as important as Sharia law in the region. This past December, Vakha Khashkhanov, the head of Chechnya’s Centre for Spiritual-Moral Education, informed Reuters that Chechnya permits polygamy.
This is in Russia, not Iran.
Sharia is considered by Muslims to be God’s law, although there is disagreement about what exactly Sharia entails. Its interpretation can vary from nation to nation and culture to culture. Islamic scholars have their various opinions.
Yet, as Muslim communities grow in the West, Islam’s influence has enlarged as well. Since 2007, the Muslim Arbitration Tribunal (MAT) has existed in Britain, according to its website, “to provide a viable alternative for the Muslim community seeking to resolve disputes in accordance with Islamic Sacred Law and without having to resort to costly and time consuming litigation.” British law still trumps Sharia law, and hopefully men who rape and beat their wives are not let free to continue the subjugation and abuse, but MAT has the blessing of the British government to take care of minor disputes according to Islamic law.
And in America? According to a new Newsweek poll, 51 percent of Republicans believe that President Obama “sympathizes with the goals of Islamic fundamentalists who want to impose Islamic law around the world.” That’s not all – 59 percent of Republicans and 28 percent of political independents think “Obama favors the interests of Muslim Americans over other groups of Americans.” Those views maybe strengthened by President Obama’s recent support of the “right” of Muslims to build a major mosque two blocks from Ground Zero.
Does Obama really have a secret desire to expand the power of Sharia law around the world? That would be a contradiction, certainly, for a man who supports comprehensive sex education, abortion, and gay rights. The poll does demonstrate that the fear of Sharia law has grown in America, and as the ninth anniversary of September 11, 2001 approaches, the painful memories are once again making their rounds.
Bless And Not Curse:
However, fear is not the answer, especially not for Christians. Christians need to remember that Muslims are human beings for whom Jesus died, and they hold in themselves the desperate desire for God’s love and forgiveness that any other human carries. The decision to build a mosque down the street from the spot where Islamic jihadists tore us open was insensitive at the least, but it was not the decision of every Muslim.
It is also important to remember that many Muslims come to America because they want freedom. They long for hope and stability and a place to raise their families without fear. Americans who convert to Islam may be much harder to talk to than those from Islamic countries who love their new home in the land of the free.
Many Muslims have no clue that God loves them and wants them to know Him personally. A large number are intimidated by their religious leaders and feel no freedom to search for God outside of the heavy hand of Islam. While those committing murder in the name of Islam must be stopped, individual Muslims still need to know the love and forgiveness that can be found in Christ alone. We in the Christian community need to embrace Muslims with Christ’s love and show them who God is through the power of His Spirit working in us. If members of the Muslim community count us their enemies, Christians must pray for them.
“But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.” -Matthew 5:44
The concern about the spread of Sharia law is not an empty one; it threatens to follow devoted Muslim communities wherever they go. However, we hope to show them a better way.
See the 9th and 10th links below for further study on Islam and how to minister to Muslims. May God show you His heart in every situation!
“For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.” – Galatians 5:14
Related Links:
• TIMELINE-Encroachment Of Sharia Law In Russia’s Caucasus – Reuters
• Iran Bans Pet Ads, Brands Dogs ‘Unclean’ – News.com.au
• Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani Subjected To Mock Execution – The Guardian
• Muslim Arbitration Tribunal – web site
• What Can Sharia Courts Do In Britain? – Telegraph.co.uk
• ‘Ground Zero Mosque’ Developer: I Don’t Hold Islam Accountable for 9/11 Attacks – CBS News
• Taliban Execute Pregnant Woman In Afghanistan – AFP
• Poll: Majority Of GOP Said Obama Wants Sharia Law – CBS News
• The Christian Witness to the Muslim – Answering Islam
• Understanding Islam – Links – Ministering To Muslims
What is the Threat: Islam, Islamism, or Western Sins?
From Rubin Reports.Blogspot.Com
What is the Threat: Islam, Islamism, or Western Sins?
Posted: 17 Aug 2010 12:49 PM PDT
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By Barry Rubin
The current debate over the roots of Islamist revolution, clashes in the Middle East, and conflicts between forces in that region and the West involves two critical issues of interpretation:
First, is there a threat to the West from groups whose members are Muslims or does the fault arise from Western policies and shortcomings which, if altered, would make any conflict disappear?
Second, if there is a threat does it stem from Islam as religion or Islamism as political philosophy?
It is important to understand that revolutionary Islamists do draw on mainstream, accepted, and sacred Muslim texts. Their argument has the potential to be just as “legitimate” in believers’ eyes as does the contrary view. At the same time, though, Islam as a religion is not the threat, even though it is the threat’s source and rationale.
The best image to use in order to understand this situation is neither to see the car’s driver (Islam) as inherently bad (as does the “Islam is the threat” camp) or inherently good but facing a would-be hijacker (the “Islam is a religion of peace” camp). A more accurate view is of a battle over the steering wheel by contenders who both have a claim to ownership. Both may be reckless drivers but the main danger is the Islamists, those who want to run us over and then drive the car and all its passengers over a cliff.
Islamism definitely draws on normative Islam and thus has wide appeal among Muslims. But, likewise, Islamism has many Muslim opponents who don’t accept it as their version of Islam.
There are many who do not want to accept the “Islam is the problem” argument because to do so is depressing (billions of people are against us!) or because it conflicts with their ideological assumptions (one cannot criticize any religion, or at least one that is not your own), or because it can be ridiculously labeled as “racist” (one cannot criticize anyone who isn’t wealthy or Western or “white.”)
These are fallacious arguments. But they don’t prove the “Islam is the problem” approach is correct, any more than do other fallacious arguments–that Islam is “really” a “religion of peace,” or that there is no threat, or that the conflict’s cause is Western sins—prove that revolutionary Islamism isn’t a danger.
Those who deny the nature of the threat often argue that when “properly interpreted” Muslim texts are not “really” radical, violent, and seeking political hegemony. However, one must quickly add that those “proper interpretations” are distinctly minority ones today, even if they predominated forty years ago.
The fact that Muslim texts do give backing to revolutionary Islamists does not mean that all or even most Muslims think that way. What it does reveal, though, is that unless they are going to hear counter-arguments, receive strong leadership by fellow Muslims, or enjoy Western support for fighting revolutionary Islamism they are more likely to think that way over time.
Most Muslims, even today, are not revolutionary Islamists. But in recent decades the current has flowed in that direction. I remember distinctly when a text like the Muhammad Abd al-Salaam Faraj’s book, The Neglected Obligation, calling for a revival of jihad, came out at the end of the 1970s, seemed so marginal. But the revolution in Iran took place in 1979. Then a small group of Egyptian jihadists assassinated President Anwar al-Sadat and launched a guerrilla war. Shortly thereafter, Faraj was captured and executed. Since then, Islamists have steadily gathered steam, despite an apparent decline in the late 1990s, and extended their power and support base.
The task of true moderate Muslims is to change the situation and make the moderate interpretations mainstream. They have a lot of work ahead of them and they are getting all too little support from the West.
Can they hope for success? Certainly. Christianity was an extremist religion in practice a thousand years ago and in some ways until a long time afterward. Of course, one can argue that its accepted texts are peace-oriented and that this religion’s founder—in contrast to Muhammad—opposed violence and a theocratic government. In making such an “obvious” (and factually accurate) argument, however, one must keep in mind that centuries ago such things were not considered obvious at all.
One can expect in the future—probably far in the future—Islam would still have the same founding texts yet will have developed to the point where moderate Islam dominates. That process could take in the Muslim majority world anywhere between 50 to 400 years or so. It is not likely to happen in our lifetimes and it is dangerous to expect otherwise.
Yet that doesn’t mean Islamism will triumph in the mean time. There are counter-identities and ideas among Muslims that block Islamism’s victory. They include the following factors:
–Individuality. People have different priorities and psychologies. They often tend (though less often than people in the West think) to want a stable life having the highest possible living standard and most benefits for their children. We see this does not always work (parents cheering their children becoming suicide bombers) but often does.
One must be careful, though, about basing government policy on this assumption, thinking, for example, more prosperity in the Gaza Strip will make Hamas more moderate or lead to its overthrow. Even aside from the appeals of ideology or religious doctrine, a minority of militants can often persuade or intimidate a much larger body of people to follow them.
–Ethnic-communal identity. Many Muslims belong to a sub-community which usually attracts their main loyalty. For example, there are Muslims who are Kurds, Berbers, or members of other groups including tribes. Sunni and Shia identities can be important also, accommodating Islamism (Hizballah) or communal nationalism (Amal) even among the same group of Lebanese Shias. Druze, Alevis (Turkey), and Alawites (Syria) are members of groups differing from normative Islam (I’d call them non-Muslims) and have their own communal loyalties.
–Nationalism. This has been the most important competitor of Islam in the Middle East. Aside from communal nationalism (previous paragraph) there are two other types: to a transnational nation, namely Arab nationalism or patriotism to a nation-state. These can co-exist with a strong Muslim identity but one less likely to be Islamist.
The existence of Arab nationalism, plus the power of the regimes that wield it, is the main force blocking Islamist victory among most Middle Eastern Muslims. That is why the preservation of the current relatively moderate Arab regimes—despite all of their faults—is extremely important for Western interests.
–Alternative forms of Muslim identity. This includes Sufism, following more moderate clerical interpretations, or even the radical Islamic Wahabi creed within Saudi Arabia which is nonetheless supports the existing highly pious but not revolutionary Islamist state. Wahabism abroad is often indistinguishable from revolutionary Islamism while within Saudi Arabia it generally fights against the al-Qaida revolutionary forces.
–Conservative, traditional Islam, that is, Islam as practiced prior to the modern rise of Islamism and among Muslims who don’t support revolutionary Islamism. This version of Islam has a quarrel with modernity. It sometimes supports terrorism, too.
But the important thing is that conservative, traditional Islam neither seeks thoroughgoing political revolution to impose its version of Islam on every aspect of the society nor advocates war on the West. For example, non-Islamist Islam may seek a society in which Islamic law is “a key source of legislation” along with Western-derived “secular” law, in contrast to the Islamist who wants Islamic law to be the “only source of legislation.”
Conservative, traditional Islam is often state-sponsored in order to ensure its support for the regime and status quo. Sometimes these clerics—the Palestinian Authority, Egyptian clerics on Iraq—take positions on “foreign policy” close to that of the Islamists. For example, they endorse terrorism against foreign non-Muslims but not at home. Nevertheless, they are less threatening to the domestic status quo and region overall.
While those Islamists who actively use violence are the most dangerous, those with revolutionary goals are equally Islamist and a threat even if they are not using violence in the present. This, of course, refers to the Egyptian and Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood especially. It is important to understand that the fact that they aren’t actively involved in violent revolution because of moderation but because they fear government repression. Their exact counterparts are Hamas and Hizballah, which are so radical and violent in their practice because they aren’t afraid of their weak rivals, the Lebanese government and the Palestinian Authority respectively.
–Modernism. The basic acceptance of modern forms of belief and behavior often associated with the West. As Arab nationalism and nation-state patriotism is the main barrier to revolutionary Islamism in the Middle East, modernism plays that role among Muslims living in the West. The failure of Western societies to seek energetically an acculturation or assimilation along these lines is thus very dangerous and tends to put radical Islamists in control of the communities.
It is an interesting question to what extent “natural” factors, that is the day-to-day experience of living in a modern society with its good (freedom of thought, equality of women) and bad (drugs, alcohol, potential sex) features is going to transform Muslim communities there. Again, one has to get the balance right. One thing that is clear, however, is that European state practices are inhibiting this process rather than helping it.
Focusing on Islamism as the threat teaches the central importance of allying with genuinely moderate Muslims whose lives and lifestyles are threatened by the radicals. This does not just mean the small number actively trying to “reform” Islam but also the much larger number who just want to be left alone, enjoy freedom, and participate in the benefits of modernity.
This analysis, then, demonstrates why it is important to show how Islamism is rooted in genuine mainstream Islam and is not merely some hijacking of a “religion of peace.”
Equally, though, it is vital not to assume that because something can be found in authoritative Muslim texts this tells us that Islam is “inherently” radical. Only by comprehending this can we understand how radicalism may be fought effectively.
Both of these points are extraordinarily relevant. If one doesn’t understand the first, disaster will come from passivity, wishful thinking, and actually strengthening revolutionary forces by mistaking them as moderate ones.
Yet if one doesn’t understand the second—all the factors subverting radical Islamism despite its claim to be normative Islam—one won’t know how to proceed strategically and tactically. An additional problem is that one will be written off as extremist by the dominant Western society. It is all right to be brave despite name-calling and delegitimization efforts if one is right, but doesn’t make sense when the analysis itself is not so accurate or helpful.
In understanding this distinction, let’s briefly consider the Netherlands as a useful example. There are five parties in the Netherlands somewhere between mildly left of center and conservative. In the last election they received 55 percent of the seats in parliament. Geert Wilders’ party received 24 seats, about 30 percent of the center-right vote and about 16 percent of the overall vote. He has tended to focus on Islam as the problem.
The other four parties received about 40 percent of the total vote. All these parties have a serious critique of radical Islamism. The most liberal of them, Christian Union, put it in these words:
“Every Dutchman has the right to assembly, to religion and to express his opinion. But financial support of Dutch political, cultural and religious institutes from demonstrably non-free countries (such as Saudi-Arabia and Iran) is not permitted. It’s allowed to protect a free society from the importation of bondage.” It supported banning the burqa from public buildings, public transport, and schools.
Wilders is internationally famous, or notorious, but who has heard of Mark Rutte, leader of the People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy, the country’s largest party? Yet if anyone is going to change the country’s direction on immigration, Islamism, multi-culturalism, and a pro-Western, pro-Israel foreign policy it is going to be Rutte, not Wilders, since Wilders is considered, rightly or wrongly, too extreme to be in a government coalition.
One might take Wilders and Rutte as examples of the two sides of the debate analyzed above. Wilders is more consistent but lacks effectiveness in setting national policy. It can be argued that he widens the debate, making it possible for other parties to take a stronger stand and critiquing them when they go “soft.” But he also offers a good target for demonizing the anti-Islamists and splitting the vote of those who want change.
The anti-Islam argument can mobilize a small number of courageous defectors from Islam and critics among Muslims, the anti-Islamism argument, however, can ally with millions of Muslims and governments in Muslim-majority countries.
If the Western establishment view would be that Islamism is a big threat and problem, this debate would be less relevant. In recent years, however, the official view of Western governments has moved toward saying that only al-Qaida is the threat and that Islamists can be won over. This is an extremely dangerous position that brands both the “Islam is the threat” and “Islamism is the threat” analyses as “Islamophobic” and dismisses them without serious consideration.
This approach is highly dangerous for Western interests, democracy, and even for the future of millions of Muslims who face death or tyranny at the hands of revolutionary Islamism.
There are real “Islamophobes” in the sense of people who are bigoted. But the number is far tinier than Politically Correct forces claim. “Islamophobia” is a stick used to intimidate anti-Islamism. At any rate, those who are motivated by an irrational hatred of Islam are not the main threat to Western civilization and interests today. That role is played by far more powerful forces that ignore real problems and unintentionally assist revolutionary Islamists at home or abroad.
The “anti-Islam” argument is neither accurate nor strategically useful. The “Islam is a religion of peace and you can’t criticize even radical Islamists” argument is neither accurate nor furthers the survival of Western interests and democracy. What is needed is an “anti-Islamism” approach that also works with moderate Islam, the best alternative in principle yet regrettably weak, and a conservative, traditional non-Islamist Islam, the most practical alternative at this point in history.
Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). The website of the GLORIA Center is at http://www.gloria-center.org and of his blog, Rubin Reports, at http://www.rubinreports.blogspot.com.
