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Posts Tagged ‘islam’

Family matters

Posted by Richard on February 16, 2007

Also from Solomonia: Stanley Kurtz has some terribly important information about an essential cultural difference that helps explain Islamic terrorism. It’s a theory that Kurtz began exploring in his review — and rejection — of Dinesh D’Souza’s The Enemy at Home. In fact, you should probably read that review first

You’ll also want to read Root Causes, Kurtz’s review of Bernard Lewis’ book, What Went Wrong? After all that prefatory material, you’re ready for Kurz’s initial essay about Islamic cousin marriage and its consequences:

In this first in a series of essays on Muslim cousin-marriage, I want to begin to make the case that Muslim kinship structure is an unexamined key to the war on terror. While the character of Islam itself is unquestionably one of the critical forces driving our global conflict, the nature of Islamic kinship and social structure is at least as important a factor — although this latter cluster of issues has received relatively little attention in public debate. Understanding the role of Middle Eastern kinship and social structure in driving the war not only throws light on the weaknesses of arguments like D’Souza’s, it may also help us devise a new long-term strategy for victory in the war on terror.

Read the whole thing. Please. As Sol said, it’s tough to excerpt, but it’s incredibly important information. It just blew me away.
 

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Islam and female genital mutilation

Posted by Richard on February 6, 2007

In early November, I posted quite a rant regarding a news story about an Ethiopian immigrant convicted of female genital mutilation. A regular reader gently informed me offline that it’s an African thing, not Islamic. It’s a valid point — the custom is practiced by non-Islamic Africans and probably predates Islam.

But I wasn’t ready to believe that the practice had nothing to do with Islam. I vaguely remembered some evidence to the contrary (including references in hadith). And then there’s the distinctive attitude toward women that’s a hallmark of Muslim culture, which suggests that this barbaric practice would be readily embraced in Islamic societies. Back in November, I sarcastically put it this way:

Khalid Adem could be a Southern Baptist, a Unitarian, a Jew, a Buddhist, a Hindu, or maybe a Wiccan… After all, it’s not as if there’s some particular faith or culture in which men are taught that women are inherently dirty and inferior, that they must be completely subjugated and treated like farm animals, and that they offend God if they express themselves, exercise free will, or experience pleasure.

It seems my suspicions were justified. A heavily-footnoted article in The Middle East Quarterly entitled "Is Female Genital Mutilation an Islamic Problem?" persuasively argued that FGM is quite widespread in Middle Eastern societies and is believed by many — including many Muslim clerics and scholars — to be either required by the Qur’an, or at least condoned or approved:

Religion is not only theology but also practice. And the practice is widespread throughout the Middle East. Many diplomats, international organization workers, and Arabists argue that the problem is localized to North Africa or sub-Saharan Africa,[4] but they are wrong. The problem is pervasive throughout the Levant, the Fertile Crescent, and the Arabian Peninsula, and among many immigrants to the West from these countries. Silence on the issue is less reflective of the absence of the problem than insufficient freedom for feminists and independent civil society to raise the issue.

The authors present evidence from a study in the Garmian region of Iraqi Kurdistan that found a mutilation rate of nearly 60%. They argue that rates in other countries of the region are likely as high or higher, but the societies are too closed and repressive for the evidence to come to light (emphasis added):

…  That diplomats and international aid workers do not detect FGM in other societies also should not suggest that the problem does not exist. After all, FGM was prevalent in Iraqi Kurdistan for years but went undetected by the World Health Organization, UNICEF, and many other international NGOs in the region. Perhaps the most important factor enabling an NGO to uncover FGM in Iraqi Kurdistan was the existence of civil society structures and popular demand for individual rights. Such conditions simply do not exist in Syria, Saudi Arabia, or even the West Bank and Gaza where local authorities fight to constrain individual freedoms rather than promote them.

But the problem is not only that autocratic regimes tend to suppress the truth. There also must be someone in place to conduct surveys. Prior to Iraq’s liberation, it was impossible to undertake independent surveys on issues such as malnutrition and infant mortality. Saddam Hussein’s regime preferred to supply data to the U.N. rather than to enable others to collect their own data which might not support the conclusions the Baathist regime desired to show. The oft-cited 1999 UNICEF study claiming that U.N. sanctions had led to the deaths of 500,000 children was based on figures supplied by Saddam’s regime, not an independent survey.[31] The U.N. undertook its first reliable statistical research on the living conditions in Iraq only after liberation.[32] Syrian, Saudi, and Iranian authorities simply do not let NGOs operate without restriction, especially when they deal with sensitive social issues.

As if our own selfish interest in weakening the enemies of Western Civilization weren’t enough, here is yet another good reason for us to promote freedom, human rights, and open societies in the Middle East.
 

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Sinister ceremony

Posted by Richard on January 8, 2007

One of the new representatives sworn in last Thursday was Keith Ellison of Minnesota. He got a lot of press for being the first Muslim ever elected to Congress. He took the oath of office on the Koran (not just any Koran, but one that had belonged to Thomas Jefferson). That bothered some people, but not me.

If this picture of the swearing-in was widely disseminated in the Muslim world, however, I bet it bothered the heck out of a bunch of people, and not just because of Pelosi’s precious pose. What kind of Muslim takes an oath of office with his left hand on the Koran?

Traditional Muslims — for instance, Mahmoud Abbas on the left and an Iraqi local official on the right — take an oath by putting their right hand on the Koran:

Mahmoud Abbas taking oath of office Local officials in Al-Anbar province take oath of office

Muslims consider the left hand unclean:

"The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) used his right hand for getting water for ablution and taking food, and his left hand for his evacuation and for anything repugnant." (Sunan Abu Dawud)

Maybe Louis Farrakhan’s "Islam for Dummies" doesn’t place as much emphasis as it should on cleanliness and purity. Cleanliness and purity are pretty important to traditional Muslims, and the list of things that are impure is rather long.

One can argue that an oath on the Koran differs in meaning from one on the Torah or Christian bible: Implicit in an oath on one of the latter is the statement, "God (or the tradition I embrace) requires me not to bear false witness." Implicit in an oath on the former is the statement, "Allah requires me to be honest with other believers most of the time, but says I should lie to infidels if it helps Islam."

Of course, no book possesses magical powers of enforcing honesty, so I’m not sure what making Rep. Ellison put his hand on the Christian bible is supposed to accomplish — certainly, there’s been no shortage of liars taking oaths on it. It’s the same silly obsession with symbols that causes some Bircher types to argue that we can restore our liberties by removing the gold fringe from the American flag in courtrooms.

A better case can be made that someone with certain values and beliefs — such as: the only legitimate law is Allah’s, the only legitimate nation is Islam, and all non-believers must be forced to submit — can’t possibly uphold the U.S. Constitution, so we know in advance that he’ll betray his oath of office. But I’m afraid that argument should have been made to the citizens of Minnesota’s 5th district.
 

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Veiled threat, part 2

Posted by Richard on January 3, 2007

Remember a couple of weeks ago when we learned that the burqa is the preferred dress for wanted murderers who’d like to sail through British airport security? Well, now it turns out that the burqa is also popular with jewel thieves in India. And, of course, the jewelry store owners had to apologize for being so insensitive as to suggest that they didn’t want people completely concealed in burqas snatching up jewelry and running off:

Jewelers in western India have apologized to Muslims for proposing to ban women wearing burqas from their shops following a series of thefts by burqa-clad customers.

British radio (BBC) reports that the jewelers association in the city of Pune withdrew its request Friday for a ban on serving women who wear face veils or burqas. The association says it decided not to pursue the ban for fear of offending religious sentiments.

Jewelers asked police for the ban after surveillance cameras showed veiled thieves stealing. Shopkeepers and police say they cannot identify them because their faces are covered.

The jewelers say the request was a security measure and was not targeted at minority Muslims in Pune.

The request sparked tensions among local Muslim leaders who said the ban discriminated against Muslim women.

I’ve got a couple of questions. First, why are women who aren’t supposed to show any portion of their body in public or experience any pleasure so interested in jewelry anyway? Second, when will someone have the stones to tell outraged Muslims, "We’ll tolerate your burqas and niqabs in our jewelry stores and airports as soon as you tolerate our bikinis and beer in Riyadh."
 

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Veiled threat

Posted by Richard on December 20, 2006

A couple of months ago, many Muslims were outraged when British MP Jack Straw politely suggested that Muslim women uncover at least their noses and mouths when meeting with him:

Jack Straw, the ex-foreign secretary, has angered Muslim groups by suggesting women who wear veils over their face can make community relations harder.

The Blackburn MP says the veil is a "visible statement of separation and of difference" and he asks women visiting his surgery to consider removing it.

The remarks attracted an angry response from some organisations representing Muslims.

It was "astonishing" that Mr Straw chose to "selectively discriminate on the basis of religion", said Massoud Shadjareh, chairman of the Islamic Human Rights Commission.

Rajnaara Akhtar, who chairs the organisation Protect-Hijab, suggested the "appalling" comments showed "a deep lack of understanding".

Mr Straw was putting women "into a very awkward position by compromising the faith they believe in and that is ill-placed", Council of Lancashire Mosques chairman Hamid Kureshi told BBC Radio Five Live.

Well, now we know at least one reason why radical Muslims stridently defend the wearing of the burqa and niqab: it makes it so much easier for terrorists wanted for murder to travel freely in and out of countries that value political correctness and multi-culturalism above security, common sense, and equality before the law:

Only here in the UK could this happen, Mustaf Jama wanted over the murder of PC Sharon Beshenivsky, assumed his sister’s identity — wearing the niqab and using her passport — to evade supposedly stringent checks at Heathrow, according to police sources.

The use of the niqab, which leaves only a narrow slit for the eyes, highlights flaws in British airport security. At the time, Jama was Britain’s most wanted man, while Heathrow was on a heightened state of alert after the 7/7 terrorist atrocities in London five months previously. Not so much a secure state as an episode of the Keystone Cops.

Detectives believe that Jama, 26, was allowed to board an international flight from Heathrow because no attempt was made to uncover his face.

A good libertarian argument can be made against requiring airline passengers to identify themselves. But this is simply absurd: They require IDs — and demand that the name on the ID exactly match the name on the ticket. They check those IDs against a terrorist watch list. But if you say, "I’m a Muslim woman and I don’t believe in showing my face," (actually, you don’t have to say anything, so your voice won’t give you away), they just wave you right through.

It’s reverse profiling — taking the least precaution with the highest-risk passengers. Welcome to Bizarro World.
 

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Western aid funds enforcement of sharia

Posted by Richard on December 18, 2006

Remember all the money we contributed for disaster relief after the tsunami hit Southeast Asia? According to The Times of London, Indonesian Islamic extremists have spent the past two years diverting relief funds toward strengthening and enforcing sharia law:

WHEN people around the world sent millions of pounds to help the stricken Indonesian province of Aceh after the Boxing Day tsunami of 2004, few could have imagined that their money would end up subsidising the lashing of women in public.

But militant Islamists have since imposed sharia law in Aceh and have cornered Indonesian government funds to organise a moral vigilante force that harasses women and stages frequent displays of humiliation and state-sanctioned violence.

International aid workers and Indonesian women’s organisations are now expressing dismay that the flow of foreign cash for reconstruction has allowed the government to spend scarce money on a new bureaucracy and religious police to enforce puritan laws, such as the compulsory wearing of headscarves.

Some say there are more “sharia police” than regular police on the local government payroll and that many of them are aggressive young men.

“Who are these sharia police?” demanded Nurjannah Ismail, a lecturer at Aceh’s Ar-Raniri University. “They are men who, most of the time, are trying to send the message that their position is higher than women.”

According to Western Resistance, the Islamists moved in quickly after the disaster:

The Front Pembela Islam is one of the main forces which is trying to turn Indonesia’s "moderate" version of Islam into a hardline sharia-controlled variety. They had 5,000 individuals in the tsunami disaster area within a month of the calamity. Other groups who came to Banda Aceh were the Islamic extremists of Hizb ut-Tahrir and Laskar Mujahideen. …

A religious police force, called the Wilayatul Hisbah was able to control the population, exploiting religious beliefs to enact strict discipline upon the stricken survivors. Marluddin Jalil, a sharia judge, told people in the region last December that "The tsunami was because of the sins of the people of Aceh". He also said that it had brought about because women had been sinful. …

Sharia law had officially been introduced in 2002 to Aceh – the first of Indonesia’s 33 provinces to enact Islamic law. Before the tsunami, enforcement of Islamic law generally applied only to issues of family law, but with the promotion of the myth that the tsunami had come because of the region’s sins, its enforcers became more draconian.

Sharia law used to be applied only to Muslims, but now it’s being extended to non-Muslims as well. Canings — for such offenses as drinking beer or being a woman who’s not properly covered — have become public spectacles. Some have even been televised. A bill was recently introduced to authorize hand amputations as punishment for theft.

I’m sure these developments are just another completely understandable manifestation of Muslim outrage over the American occupation of Iraq and the Jooooos’ insistence on continuing to exist. Just ask that great humanitarian and impartial commentor on Middle East issues, Jimmy Carter.
 

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The next Rushdie?

Posted by Richard on December 15, 2006

Abbas Sadeghian is a clinical neuropsychologist and Assistant Professor of Psychology at Northeastern Ohio University College of Medicine. A few years ago, while studying seizure disorders, he encountered a 19th-century book on the subject that suggested Muhammad may have had a seizure disorder. Sadeghian eventually researched the matter in depth and presented a paper on the subject. Encouraged by colleagues, he’s now expanded that work into a book that seems destined to cause trouble:

Religious prophet Muhammad suffered from epileptic seizures, according to a book recently released by a Tehran- native and Muslim-raised neuropsychologist. Abbas Sadeghian delivers these findings in the book Sword & Seizure, which is based on historical text, including the Koran.

Sadeghian was inspired by a comparable paper he presented in 2001 at New York University’s Fielding Institute. He says Muhammad had suffered from "complex partial seizures," which are displayed through "excessive sweating and light trembling, olfactory, auditory and visual hallucinations, epigastric sensations (bad taste), excessive perspiration and hyper-religiosity." He says evidence of these is recounted throughout the Koran.

Epilepsy-induced hallucinations might explain some of the events Muhammad described that we non-believers dismiss as fantasy, such as his flight on a winged horse from Mecca to Jerusalem. That story, by the way, is the sole basis for Islam’s claim that Jerusalem is a holy site to Muslims. According to Muhammad, one night a winged horse flew him to Jerusalem. He climbed atop the Temple Mount, and from there, ascended into heaven for a visit with Allah and the earlier prophets. Based on that story, the Jews must be driven out of the city that King David made the capital of Israel over 3000 years ago, and it must become solely Muslim.

Sadeghian’s book is available from Amazon, and there’s an excerpt (apparently from the preface or introduction) at OpEdNews.com. I did some cursory searching and haven’t turned up any fatwahs, death threats, or demonstrations of Muslim outrage against him. But the cartoon riots didn’t occur until six months after the publication of the Muhammad cartoons, and Khomeini waited five months after the publication of Satanic Verses to issue a fatwah calling for the killing of Salman Rushdie.

I suspect Dr. Sadeghian’s book will eventually draw the wrath of the more excitable elements of Islam, much as Rushdie’s did. I hope he’s beginning to take security precautions now.
 

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Free Kareem!

Posted by Richard on November 10, 2006

In Egypt, they imprison people for blogging about women's rights, freedom of expression, and "secular thoughts":

Egyptian security forces have arrested a student blogger whose writing was critical of Islam and the government, security sources and rights activists said on Tuesday.

Arabic blogger Abdel Kareem Nabil Suleiman, a 22-year-old aspiring human rights lawyer, was arrested in the coastal city of Alexandria on Monday.

His detention was the latest crackdown on political opposition by Egyptian authorities following arrests and beatings at street protests earlier this year, despite calls from Egypt's U.S. ally for political reform.

"The accusations directed against him are that he published opinions aimed at disturbing public order, insulted the head of state and defamed Islam," said Sally Sami, programme officer at the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information (HRInfo), which is representing him.

Suleiman was the latest of several bloggers to be arrested in Egypt, where news of his detention came shortly after rights group Reporters Without Borders added Egypt to a list of worst suppressors of freedom of expression on the Internet.

His arrest was unusual in that he was arrested solely because of comments made on the Internet, activists said. Other bloggers were mostly picked up during anti-government protests earlier in the year.Several have spent weeks or months in jail.

According to Tom Palmer, Kareem is part of Cato's "Arabic liberal project" — I'm sure that "liberal" in this context means "classical liberal."

Kareem had been previously tossed out of al-Azhar University — described by Reuters as "Egypt's most prestigious seat of Islamic learning" (oxymoron alert!) — for expressing "secular thoughts," and they apparently urged prosecutors to go after him. Jason Kuznicki expressed well how outrageous this is:

A student dismissed from a university for “secular thoughts:” The very act makes the institution unfit to be called a university in the modern era. That it would then inform on the student and cooperate in a government inquiry only makes the situation the more deplorable.

HAMSA (Hands Across the Mideast Support Alliance) is gathering signatures on a statement demanding that Kareem be freed — please take just a moment to add your name. For other actions you can take, check the Palmer and Kuznicki links above. For complete background information and the latest news about Kareem's case, visit Free Kareem!

If you call or write the Egyptian embassy or other Egyptian officials, heed Kuznicki's warning:

Please be respectful and well-reasoned in all your contacts with the Egyptian government. Remember that our case is the stronger one, and that only the weaker party must resort to name-calling or abuse. As the ancient playwright put it, the very fact that Zeus must reach for his thunderbolts is proof enough that he has no argument.

Remember also that a man’s freedom is at stake here, not just in the abstract, but in the real world, and what you say might make the difference.

It's enormously tempting to heap contempt upon a country that imprisons people for blogging while urging mercy for Saddam Hussein, a country that takes billions every year in U.S. aid and claims to be an ally, but does everything it can to undermine the spread of democracy and freedom. But Kuznicki and Palmer are right — be respectful and polite. You can curse them under your breath later.

Free Kareem! www,FreeKareem.org

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Could be a Baptist

Posted by Richard on November 3, 2006

For the first time in the U.S., a man was convicted for genital mutilation the other day:

LAWRENCEVILLE, Ga. – An Ethiopian immigrant was convicted Wednesday of the genital mutilation of his 2-year-old daughter and was sentenced to 10 years in prison in what was believed to be the first such criminal case in the United States.

Khalid Adem, 30, was found guilty of aggravated battery and cruelty to children. Prosecutors said he used scissors to remove his daughter’s clitoris in his family’s Atlanta-area apartment in 2001. The child’s mother, Fortunate Adem, said she did not discover it until more than a year later.

AP reporter Errin Haines went on to warn us against being culturally insensitive and jumping to conclusions about Khalid Adem (emphasis added):

The practice crosses ethnic and cultural lines and is not tied to a particular religion. Activists say it is intended to deny women sexual pleasure. In its most extreme form, the clitoris and parts of the labia are removed and the labia that remain are stitched together.

Khalid Adem could be a Southern Baptist, a Unitarian, a Jew, a Buddhist, a Hindu, or maybe a Wiccan… After all, it’s not as if there’s some particular faith or culture in which men are taught that women are inherently dirty and inferior, that they must be completely subjugated and treated like farm animals, and that they offend God if they express themselves, exercise free will, or experience pleasure.

It’s not as if there’s some particular faith or culture in which women are stoned to death for committing adultery. Or rape victims are whipped for being alone with a man to whom they aren’t married. Or gang-rape victims are compared to "uncovered meat" and accused of "sexually provoking" men by not being "modestly dressed" and by venturing out of the house unaccompanied by a male family member.

No, women are oppressed in all sorts of faiths and cultures. In some, women average only 78% of the pay of men and they can’t become priests. In others, they have the same moral and legal status as goats. It’s all the same, right?

We mustn’t think that some cultures are better than others, or finger-point and criticize those whose values just happen to be a little bit different from ours — why, that would be judgmental and intolerant.
 

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Jihad Against the West conference

Posted by Richard on October 17, 2006

If you’re in the Boston area this weekend (10/20-10/22), you might want to check out the Ayn Rand Institute’s three-day conference, The Jihad Against the West: The Real Threat and the Right Response.

Speakers include Daniel Pipes and Robert Spencer, so this promises to be a really tremendous conference. The descriptions of the events certainly make me wish I could attend.

If you’re a student, the deal is irresistible: all the lectures and panel discussions are free, and the Saturday evening reception is just $15. See the registration page for details of on-site registration and proof of student status.

Non-students are presumed to be greedy, rich capitalists who can easily afford $30-55 for each event.

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Religion of peace?

Posted by Richard on September 19, 2006

One thing’s become quite clear in the last few days: large portions of the worldwide Muslim community simply have no sense of irony.

The Pope quoted a 14th-century Byzantine emperor regarding Mohammed’s "command to spread by the sword the faith he preached," suggesting that Islam is not a very peaceful religion. Muslims the world over reacted by rioting, murdering a nun, calling for the Pope to be killed, burning churches, and demanding in outraged tones, "How dare you claim Islam is violent! For that, you must die!"

Events like these clearly call for a careful blend of thoughtful analysis and humor. Fortunately, Dean Barnett provided just the right mix in a post entitled FAQ – Islam Edition! Here are the first three of the twenty questions Barnett tackled:

1) Is Islam a Religion of Peace?

Well, um…No, not really.

2) So all Muslims are violent and bent on war. That’s a hateful and bigoted thing to say. You sicken me. And you’ll never carry Michigan.

That’s not what I said. You asked about Islam – I answered. You then erroneously inferred that I was speaking about all Muslims. I wasn’t. You misunderstood.

3) I don’t understand.

I know you don’t, and it’s not your fault. You’ve been poisoned by the forces of political correctness. You’re the product of a school system that valued sensitivity and self-esteem more than it valued truth and rational inquiry. As a consequence, truths which may be hurtful and disquieting will often flummox you. But you, and the legions of those like you, have to grow up.

Go read the rest. It’s a nice blend of truth and humor — not backslapping, yuck-it-up humor, mind you … it’s more grim than that. But it’s humor nonetheless, amidst some thoughtful observations.
 
UPDATE: Anne Applebaum at WaPo simply nails it:

Clearly, a handful of apologies and some random public debate — should the pope have said X, should the Danish prime minister have done Y — are ineffective and irrelevant: None of the radical clerics accepts Western apologies, and none of their radical followers reads the Western press. Instead, Western politicians, writers, thinkers and speakers should stop apologizing — and start uniting.

By this, I don’t mean that we all need to rush to defend or to analyze this particular sermon; I leave that to experts on Byzantine theology. But we can all unite in our support for freedom of speech — surely the pope is allowed to quote from medieval texts — and of the press. And we can also unite, loudly, in our condemnation of violent, unprovoked attacks on churches, embassies and elderly nuns. By "we" I mean here the White House, the Vatican, the German Greens, the French Foreign Ministry, NATO, Greenpeace, Le Monde and Fox News — Western institutions of the left, the right and everything in between. True, these principles sound pretty elementary — "we’re pro-free speech and anti-gratuitous violence" — but in the days since the pope’s sermon, I don’t feel that I’ve heard them defended in anything like a unanimous chorus. A lot more time has been spent analyzing what the pontiff meant to say, or should have said, or might have said if he had been given better advice.

All of which is simply beside the point, since nothing the pope has ever said comes even close to matching the vitriol, extremism and hatred that pour out of the mouths of radical imams and fanatical clerics every day, all across Europe and the Muslim world, almost none of which ever provokes any Western response at all. And maybe it’s time that it should: When Saudi Arabia publishes textbooks commanding good Wahhabi Muslims to "hate" Christians, Jews and non-Wahhabi Muslims, for example, why shouldn’t the Vatican, the Southern Baptists, Britain’s chief rabbi and the Council on American-Islamic Relations all condemn them — simultaneously?

Indeed, why shouldn’t they? Why haven’t they? Bravo, Anne! Thank you!
 

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Saudi slaveholder sentenced

Posted by Richard on September 1, 2006

Hooray! Colorado’s notorious Saudi slaveholder, whose arrest and conviction I blogged about, was sentenced Thursday:

CENTENNIAL (AP) – A man convicted of sexually assaulting an Indonesian housekeeper and keeping her as a virtual slave was sentenced Thursday to 28 years to life in prison.

Homaidan Al-Turki, 37, denied the charges and blamed anti-Muslim prejudice for the case against him. He said prosecutors persuaded the housekeeper to accuse him after they failed to build a case that he was a terrorist.

Prosecutors and FBI agents said Al-Turki and his wife, Sarah Khonaizan, brought the woman to Colorado to care for their five children and to cook and clean for the family. An affidavit said she spent four years with the family in the suburban Aurora home, sleeping on a mattress on the basement floor and getting paid less than $2 a day.

Here’s the money quote from the story, though (emphasis added):

Al-Turki said he treated the woman the same way any observant Muslim family would treat a daughter.

"Your honor, I am not here to apologize, for I cannot apologize for things I did not do and for crimes I did not commit," he told the judge.

"The state has criminalized these basic Muslim behaviors. Attacking traditional Muslim behaviors was the focal point of the prosecution," he said.

That was a rare moment of openess, revealing the ugly, barbaric truth behind the civilized facade of the Saudi brand of Islam. Women are chattel, and men treat them — use them — like cows or goats.

I’m going to repeat yet again what I said last year and this past July because it can’t be said often enough:

Saudi Arabia, the Sudan, and radical Islam in general should be all the evidence anyone needs to demonstrate the moral bankruptcy of the leftist multicultural BS about no culture being better than any other. These people still defend and practice slavery, and we’re supposed to worry that making a jihadist uncomfortable might bring us down to their level??

Yes, we had slavery in this country. And our society is still paying the price today. But look at the historical context: Slavery existed and was accepted as normal in every human society throughout history — until the 18th century, when voices in the United States and Great Britain were raised against it. Those voices spoke of liberty and natural rights and free will, and they proclaimed slavery to be a moral outrage.

In a hundred years, those ideas and moral values had swept through the Western world and made people ashamed of a practice they’d accepted for thousands of years. Those ideas and values are part of — are fundamental to — Western culture. And, by damn, it IS morally superior to the barbaric 8th-century culture that still enslaves people, that declares women property, that flays people’s flesh for dancing, that imprisons Christians for praying in their homes, that saws people’s heads off with a dull knife for being Jewish.

No, it doesn’t bother me that interrogators at Gitmo may have failed to show sufficient respect for the beliefs of their jihadist captives. It bothers me that they haven’t expressed contempt for those barbarous beliefs.
 

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Banned in India

Posted by Richard on July 20, 2006

The Jawa Report is one of 17 named blogs that, along with a number of domains, have been banned in India — apparently because they offend India’s Islamist Muslims, and the Indian government is afraid of those Muslims. In response, Dr. Rusty Shackleford wrote about why it matters:

Why did India ban this website? And what is the larger meaning of this action?

The short answer to the first question is that we offended Islamists and India is afraid of its own Muslim citizens. The short answer to the second question is that, sadly, it is increasingly becoming evident that liberty may not be able to exist wherever there is a large population of Muslims.

India has been taken hostage by its sizeable Muslim population. It is afraid of its own citizens. It fears that if they are exposed to that which is religiously offensive, that violence might erupt. That if the government doesn’t do something, then they might just have to do something about the government.

India’s banning of this and other websites, then, is completely rational. It is based on the real fear of real people who do real violence. Thus, it is completely understandable.

While we might understand India’s reason for banning our website, we certainly don’t condone it.

Giving in to violent threats is not, in my book, a winning strategy for defeating the very people who are threatening you. Appeasement only works if your goal is appeasement. If your goal is to drag Muslims who have a 7th century mentality about how the world ought to be ordered into the 21st century, then this is no way to do it.

Read, as they say, the whole thing. And maybe leave Dr. Rusty a note of support.

UPDATE: Welcome, Wall Street Journal readers! Please have a look around. You may see something that interests you in the left sidebar. Or visit my home page for the last week or so of postings, which are mainly about the war against Islamofascism, focusing on the Israeli front.
 

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Saudi slaveholder convicted

Posted by Richard on July 2, 2006

The Saudi slaveholder I wrote about just over a year ago was convicted in state court Friday:

ARAPAHOE COUNTY – Screams and sobs filled a packed courtroom Friday when a jury found a Saudi man guilty of keeping an Indonesian woman captive in his Aurora home and sexually abusing her.

"What did he do?" one of Homaidan Al-Turki’s daughters cried repeatedly as she was carried out of the courtroom over the shoulder of a male supporter of the defendant.

Al-Turki, 37, was convicted of 12 felony counts of unlawful sexual contact with use of force, one felony count of criminal extortion and one felony count of theft. He also was found guilty of two misdemeanors: false imprisonment and conspiracy to commit false imprisonment.

The original charges included rape and kidnapping, so the jury persuaded itself to reduce those for some reason. No matter. He faces from 96 years to multiple life sentences for these convictions. In October, he’ll face federal charges of forced labor, document servitude, and harboring an illegal immigrant that should net him another life sentence or two.

Al-Turki is a grad student at the University of Colorado and either works for (according to the news reports) or owns (according to Gates of Vienna and Militant Islam Monitor) a book publishing and translation company that specializes in books about Islam with an extremist Wahhabi perspective. According to Militant Islam Monitor, he also has ties to terrorist organizations and may be related to the Saudi royal family.

The fact that Al-Turki is a believer in the only faith I know of that still defends slavery apparently came up in the trial:

The defense also argued that prosecutors were engaged in "Islamaphobia" during the trial, putting emphasis on Al-Turki’s Muslim faith rather than on facts.

Friday, the courtroom was packed with Al-Turki’s supporters, many of them with the Colorado Muslim Society.

Ah, yes, the Colorado Muslim Society — it claims to represent "moderate Islam," and the local media buy into that claim, despite overwhelming evidence that it’s a Saudi-controlled, Wahhabi Sunni organization. I’m not surprised that its members were eager to demonstrate their support for their slave-owning friend. I wonder how many others in the organization keep an Indonesian "maid" imprisoned in the basement.

Coincidentally, an Egyptian couple just pled guilty to slavery charges in California.  In my post last year, I quoted Daniel Pipes’ contention that slaveholding among Saudis in the U.S. is probably fairly common, is aggressively supported by the Saudi government, and is largely ignored by our own government. Let’s hope that these two cases signal a less craven U.S. government attitude and are just the beginning of serious efforts to put a stop to these bastards.

I’m going to repeat what I said last year because it can’t be said often enough:

Saudi Arabia, the Sudan, and radical Islam in general should be all the evidence anyone needs to demonstrate the moral bankruptcy of the leftist multicultural BS about no culture being better than any other. These people still defend and practice slavery, and we’re supposed to worry that making a jihadist uncomfortable might bring us down to their level??

Yes, we had slavery in this country. And our society is still paying the price today. But look at the historical context: Slavery existed and was accepted as normal in every human society throughout history — until the 18th century, when voices in the United States and Great Britain were raised against it. Those voices spoke of liberty and natural rights and free will, and they proclaimed slavery to be a moral outrage.

In a hundred years, those ideas and moral values had swept through the Western world and made people ashamed of a practice they’d accepted for thousands of years. Those ideas and values are part of — are fundamental to — Western culture. And, by damn, it IS morally superior to the barbaric 8th-century culture that still enslaves people, that declares women property, that flays people’s flesh for dancing, that imprisons Christians for praying in their homes, that saws people’s heads off with a dull knife for being Jewish.

No, it doesn’t bother me that interrogators at Gitmo may have failed to show sufficient respect for the beliefs of their jihadist captives. It bothers me that they haven’t expressed contempt for those barbarous beliefs.

See also: Unspeakable evil

UPDATE: Al-Turki was sentenced on August 31.
 

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The case for Islamocapitalism

Posted by Richard on June 21, 2006

Turkish writer Mustafa Akyol has an interesting essay about Islam and capitalism at TCS. Akyol observed that whether Islam is compatible with modernity is a hot question. He noted that the discussion of this question has tended to focus on political matters — pluralism, democracy, etc. — but that Islam’s relationship to what he called economic liberalism — the free market — also needed to be discussed.

Akyol argued that Islam is — or should be — friendly to capitalism, and he cited a number of reasons, including the example of Muhammad himself:

Indeed, when Prophet Muhammad was asked to fix the prices in the market because some merchants were selling goods too dearly, he refused and said, "only Allah governs the market." It wouldn’t be far-fetched to see a parallel here with Adam Smith’s "invisible hand." The Prophet also has many sayings cherishing trade, profit-making, and beauties of life. "Muhammad," as Maxime Rodinson put it simply, "was not a socialist."

Lots of interesting historical, religious, and philosophical information. I was especially interested in what he said about the roots of radical Islam (hint: they’re in Europe), the problem of usury and "Islamic banking," and the recent rise of "Islamic Calvinism" in Turkey. Read the whole thing.

My take? Religious belief is based on faith, not logic or empirical data. So it doesn’t matter whether Muhammad was in fact more of a capitalist or more of a socialist, and it doesn’t matter whether the Koran actually forbids all interest or only "excessive" interest. What matters is what most Muslims believe.

If such Muslims as Akyol, Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan, and Imad-ad-Dean Ahmad of the Minaret of Freedom Institute succeed in persuading enough of their co-religionists that Islam and capitalism are allies, then they will be allies. "Islamocapitalism" has kind of a nice ring to it.
 

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