The idea for this post began with the first and third posts, found recently.  To put a context, we needed to hear the women’s parts as well — as they are remarkably absent in the other ones.

The “But First, Four Women” post — well I just felt I needed to put their voices out in public before continuing with this one.

Because time is short now, I will post links and wish a happy new year, for those on this calendar, and don’t do anything foolish if you are on the “outs” with the family at this time of year.

Another inspiration for this post was watching a travelog by PBS’s Rick Steves, on the customs of Christmas (in Europe and elsewhere) combined with a trip to Iran, and watching the men walking around western style, and the women, with their hairs covered, plus his response to them.

We need to be more sensitive to other cultures and histories (MOST people have some “other” to relate to, even people with two or three or more backgrounds in their immediate parentage, I would bet (I wasn’t blessed with that…).  Because we live somewhere.  I have noted with distress that when too many cultures feel themselves “other” it’s easy enough to demonize women in their own, as we saw in the last post when a former Muslim tried to speak about human rights at some liberal — in fact, Ivy League– universities and a college.  I think “Now they call me Infidel” should be required reading:  a religious culture in reaction to perceived secularism and corruption (as if there were none within its ranks) is going to become more adamant, more stringent, and often more dangerous.  this is why we had checks and balances, and separation of powers.

With technology, these are easy to erase, and have been.  We need to address this.  Technology delivers ideas, and rhetoric.  The technical divide between rich and poor absolutely still exists, and affects the overall climate we live in.

Understand that I’m not too familiar with these sites myself, but believe they are worth posting.

OK:

Why Shariah?

Author:	Noah Feldman

March 17, 2008
New York Times Magazine

Last month, Rowan Williams, the archbishop of Canterbury, gave a nuanced, scholarly lecture in London about whether the British legal system should allow non-Christian courts to decide certain matters of family law. Britain has no constitutional separation of church and state. The archbishop noted that “the law of the Church of England is the law of the land” there; indeed, ecclesiastical courts that once handled marriage and divorce are still integrated into the British legal system, deciding matters of church property and doctrine. His tentative suggestion was that, subject to the agreement of all parties and the strict requirement of protecting equal rights for women,** it might be a good idea to consider allowing Islamic and Orthodox Jewish courts to handle marriage and divorce.

Then all hell broke loose. From politicians across the spectrum to senior church figures and the ubiquitous British tabloids came calls for the leader of the world’s second largest Christian denomination to issue a retraction or even resign. Williams has spent the last couple of years trying to hold together the global Anglican Communion in the face of continuing controversies about ordaining gay priests and recognizing same-sex marriages. Yet little in that contentious battle subjected him to the kind of outcry that his reference to religious courts unleashed. Needless to say, the outrage was not occasioned by Williams’s mention of Orthodox Jewish law. For the purposes of public discussion, it was the word “Shariah” that was radioactive.

View full text of article.

ANOTHER ONE, same site, a “BACKGROUNDER article.” Recommended reading:

Islam: Governing Under Sharia
(aka shariah, shari’a)

Authors:	Toni Johnson, Senior Staff Writer Lauren Vriens

Updated: November 10, 2010

• Introduction
• What is Sharia?
• Controversy: Punishment and Equality under Sharia
• Sharia vs. Secularism
• Modern Economies and Sharia

---

Introduction

Sharia, or Islamic law, influences the legal code in most Muslim countries. A movement to allow sharia to govern personal status law, a set of regulations that pertain to marriage, divorce, inheritance, and custody, is even expanding into the West. “There are so many varying interpretations of what sharia actually means that in some places it can be incorporated into political systems relatively easily,” says Steven A. Cook, CFR senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies. Sharia’s influence on both personal status law and criminal law is highly controversial, though. Some interpretations are used to justify cruel punishments such as amputation and stoning as well as unequal treatment of women in inheritance, dress, and independence. The debate is growing as to whether sharia can coexist with secularism, democracy, or even modernity.

What is Sharia?

Also meaning “path” in Arabic, sharia guides all aspects of Muslim life including daily routines, familial and religious obligations, and financial dealings. It is derived primarily from the Quran and the Sunna–the sayings, practices, and teachings of the Prophet Mohammed. Precedents and analogy applied by Muslim scholars are used to address new issues. The consensus of the Muslim community also plays a role in defining this theological manual.

Sharia developed several hundred years after the Prophet Mohammed’s death in 632 CE as the Islamic empire expanded to the edge of North Africa in the West and to China in the East. Since the Prophet Mohammed was considered the most pious of all believers, his life and ways became a model for all other Muslims and were collected by scholars into what is known as the hadith. As each locality tried to reconcile local customs and Islam, hadith literature grew and developed into distinct schools of Islamic thought: the Sunni schools, Hanbali, Maliki, Shafi’i, Hanafi; and the Shiite school, Ja’fari. Named after the scholars that inspired them, they differ in the weight each applies to the sources from which sharia is derived, the Quran, hadith, Islamic scholars, and consensus of the community. The Hanbali school, known for following the most Orthodox form of Islam, is embraced in Saudi Arabia and by the Taliban. The Hanafi school, known for being the most liberal and the most focused on reason and analogy, is dominant among Sunnis in Central Asia, Egypt, Pakistan, India, China, Turkey, the Balkans, and the Caucasus. The Maliki school is dominant in North Africa and the Shafi’i school in Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei Darussalam, and Yemen. Shia Muslims follow the Ja’fari school, most notably in Shia-dominant Iran. The distinctions have more impact on the legal systems in each country, however, than on individual Muslims, as many do not adhere to one school in their personal lives.

Controversy: Punishment and Equality under Sharia

Marriage and divorce are the most significant aspects of sharia, but criminal law is the most controversial. In sharia, there are categories of offenses: those that are prescribed a specific punishment in the Quran, known as hadd punishments, those that fall under a judge’s discretion, and those resolved through a tit-for-tat measure (ie., blood money paid to the family of a murder victim). There are five hadd crimes: unlawful sexual intercourse (sex outside of marriage and adultery), false accusation of unlawful sexual intercourse, wine drinking (sometimes extended to include all alcohol drinking), theft, and highway robbery. Punishments for hadd offenses–flogging, stoning, amputation, exile, or execution–get a significant amount of media attention when they occur. These sentences are not often prescribed, however. “In reality, most Muslim countries do not use traditional classical Islamic punishments,” says Ali Mazrui of the Institute of Global Cultural Studies in a Voice of America interview. These punishments remain on the books in some countries but lesser penalties are often considered sufficient.

Despite official reluctance to use hadd punishments, vigilante justice still takes place. Honor killings, murders committed in retaliation for bringing dishonor on one’s family, are a worldwide problem. While precise statistics are scarce, the UN estimates thousands of women are killed annually in the name of family honor (National Geographic). Other practices that are woven into the sharia debate, such as female genital mutilation, adolescent marriages, polygamy, and gender-biased inheritance rules, elicit as much controversy. There is significant debate over what the Quran sanctions and what practices were pulled from local customs and predate Islam. Those that seek to eliminate or at least modify these controversial practices cite the religious tenet of tajdid. The concept is one of renewal, where Islamic society must be reformed constantly to keep it in its purest form. “With the passage of time and changing circumstances since traditional classical jurisprudence was founded, people’s problems have changed and conversely, there must be new thought to address these changes and events,” says Dr. Abdul Fatah Idris, head of the comparative jurisprudence department at Al-Azhar University in Cairo. Though many scholars share this line of thought, there are those who consider the purest form of Islam to be the one practiced in the seventh century.

Sharia vs. Secularism. . . .

Another article states how this just might work out in practice.  (Again, a google find).  Its dealing also with the intense anti-homosexuality laws reminds me of the Ugandan situation as sponsored by some right-wing evangelical organizations based in the US, which it seems I did blog on earlier (N.A.M.E., Rick Warren, WAIT, others), or perhaps I just read, and didn’t post.  these are the megachurch reform the country and get the grants-guys that have been practicing on populations overseas, and inappropriately so, it seems.  But (more on topic), whoever this man is, here is the anecdotal narrative of these theories in practice:

Islam’s Double Standard: the evil of Shari’a law

August 21, 2010arthurideLeave a commentGo to comments

Islam has never believed in nor sanctioned equality, human rights, or civil rights from its inception in the seventh century to this day.

This is the case of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, a woman sentenced to death by stoning for adultery, while her lover received twenty lashes.  Initially her sentence was commuted to hanging after international protests.  She awaited her fate, sharing cell number four with 25 other women–all awaiting execution.

Court records claim that her crime was adultery and merited the death penalty, but her testimony gives another reason. She claimed that she was attempting to find some happiness in a loveless marriage.

Initially, Sakineh was given 99 lashes for her so-called crime. The unmarried man, known as Nasser, was not treated as harshly, and the man who accompanied Sakineh was treated relatively lightly.    Nasser received 40 lashes. The second man, who had accompanied Sakineh for safety sake, received 20.    The Iranian theocracy was not satisfied.  They demanded blood.

When Sakineh’s husband was found dead, . . .

investigators responded to a complaint filed by his children. After haphazardly reviewing the evidence *** they concluded that Sakineh’s lover, Nasser, killed the father. Concluding that there was an illicit alliance between Sakineh and Nasser, the investigators attention was quickly redirected to the children’s mother.

It swiftly was the consensus of the investigators that Sakineh had aided and abetted her lover.  She supposedly had given her husband a sedative so that Nasser could inject him with poison.

When the children realized the gravity of the situation, they chose to protect their mother. Sajjad and Farideh forgave their mother for acting as an accessory to the murder, and forgave Nassar for murdering their father. Their forgiveness, according to Islamic law, reduced the crime’s sentence.

Nassar’s penalty was reduced from hanging to ten years imprisonment.  Although Sakineh was originally convicted only of being an accessory to murder, her sentence was also reduced to ten years–as if she had participated in the murder.

The reduced sentences enraged Iran’s clerical elite.  Zealous fundamentalist Shari’a judges presiding Iran pushed for a reevaluation of the extramarital relationship. Succeeding in obtaining a rehearing of the case, the theocrats accused Sakineh of “zena” — extramarital sex.

Extramarital sex carries the death penalty–by stoning–a verdict that they were determined to render when they passed judgment. All evidence points to the fact that the judges had already determined that the mother was guilty of the murder in order to have a lover (http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,711975,00.html#ref=nlint).

Still a problem lingered. World opinion. The most troublesome point in this situation is that the accused was coerced into testifying against herself.   Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, told British reporters from the Guardian after the trial that she had been tortured for no less than two days and threatened repeatedly if she did not tell the court what it demanded it be told (http://iranhr.net/spip.php?article1807).

Since the fall of the shah and with it the end of democracy in Persia came a transmogrification of justice and law. With the return of the exiled Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1978 and the establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1979, by referendum on April 1, 1979, and approved a new theocratic constitution whereby Khomeini became Supreme Leader of the country in December 1979. From that day on, the Iranian government intensified its campaign of torture, arbitrary arrests, and detentions against political critics since 2004 (Human Rights Watch (2004), Like the Dead in Their Coffins: Torture, Detention, and the Crushing of Dissent in Iran (73 page booklet); cf. http://www.iranfocus.com/en/?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=5), increasing the number of  public executions (especially the hanging of teenage homosexuals; http://www.iranfocus.com/en/?option=com_content&task=view&id=4403) to a near-daily routine, and enshrining torture as a commandment of their god in much the same way as the Roman Catholic church used the Spanish Inquisition to extract confessions and ultimate exterminate those opposed to its rule and officials.

One of the most unusual innovations installed by the theocracy of Iran, quite different from the more sane days of the Kingdom of Iran (Pahlavi dynasty) under Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi) came with the redefinition of social culture, customs, and tolerance.  Before the imams and ayatollahs took control, two members of the same gender commonly held hands or kissed as they had for centuries–it was seen as a greeting, not as a sexual exchange, but like Pope Pius IX, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini was fixated on homosexuality, most likely to hide his own latent tendencies–for he forged out of redactions verses against homosexuality (citing Qur’an 4:16 and 27:55, which is contradicted by 52:24, 56:17, 76:19) and adultery (17:2-3, 32, and 25:63-71) but stoning is only found in the hadith. Both actions became capital offences and dealt with severely by the theocrats–without any justification for their decrees in the Qur’an, in the same barbaric manner as Pius IX attempted to justify his own phobias.

Today, in Iran, homosexuality is illegal, and those charged with making love (having homosexual sex) love-making

are given a choice of four death-styles: being hanged, stoned, halved by a sword, or dropped from the highest perch.

Here, the same author talks (pretty straightforward) — sorry to switch topics suddenly — about the history of Christmas.  Worth a little look:

Generally, I’ve gone with the flow, and adjusted, and with others — while realizing that Santa Claus isn’t real (nor, FYI, did we inflict that on our kids, although the presents sure showed up at the season, along with abuse right before or right after…).  But after four seasons of no chance of seeing my own kids — while I as a mother with full physical custody willingly shared even the alternating holidays we were given — I guess that meant nothing because of my gender? — the past oners, not a peep.  Financially devastated time and again, I can’t exactly go do the gifts, plus with contact already (and promptly) cut off, it was quite clear that this was a time of one-upmanship (we have your daughters — and you don’t!) related to some ritual hazing of a The Mom Who Said No! .  …

And I’m certainly not alone in that pain of not seeing my children in any major holiday.  U.S. Courts are creating this phemonenon.

Moreover, other times, families, or parts of them are wiped out by someone who was on the outs.

It’s our civic duty, however, to help jumpstart the ailing economy by shopping (what about ourselves, eh?).

No, thank, you I think that’s enough “Christmas” for my lifetime…  At least that’s how I feel for now…  SO I throw in that little link.  For anyone from these traditions we are discussing (I didn’t discuss Judaism, but you can see that it wouldn’t include this holiday), what we celebrate is basically described in the Old Testament as other gods.    No one likes to bring this out in the open too much, but maybe it’s time…..  It’s not exactly the liberalized separation of church and state (supposedly) time when atheism is celebrated; work schedules and the market revolve around this collated holiday that dates probably back to a Roman Emperor, Constantine.  So why not consider a bit?

hristmas: Origin and Development

December 25, 2010arthurideLeave a commentGo to comments

Four thousand years ago or so, ancient Egyptians celebrated the rebirth of the sun in the twelfth month of each year. Devoted to the holiest of numbers, twelve, the Egyptians (like other people) reckoned most “happenings” in groups of twelve. To this send, the Egyptians set the length of the festival at 12 days, to reflect the 12 divisions in their sun calendar. To celebrate the rebirth of the sun, they used every possible existence of rebirth, and decorated with greenery that was common among them: using palms with 12 shoots as a symbol of the completed year, since a palm was thought to put forth a shoot each month. Sun-worshipping Egyptians had the idea, and having their sun-god ride a “beast” beneath waving palm branches, bearing on his head a laurel crown and even sleeping on a tree and resting and praying in a garden with a young boy to indicate the perpetual youthfulness of their savior sun-god.

Saturn and Ops at Saturnalia 

The Saturnalia, of course, celebrated Saturn—the fire god (represented, as expected, by fire—an element sacred to all gods and thus the source of heat and cooking—a source that the god Prometheus would steal to take to mortal kind), while his son would become in time represented by the sun when he took his place to the right hand of the Father (and ultimately replace him). Saturn’s primary duties, for which he was worshipped universally, was being the god of sowing (planting) because heat from the sun was required to allow for planting and growth of crops. He was also worshipped in this dead-of-winter festival so that he would come back (he was the “sun”) and warm the earth again so that spring planting could occur. The planet Saturn was later named after him because, among all of the planets, with its rings and bright red color, it best represented the god of fire.

….

These were all simply the various names for Nimrod. Nimrod was considered the father of all the Babylonian gods (who, by legend, dined on the flesh of newborn babies–but records suggest that it was a baptism similar to that experienced by Achilles). This horrible practice was associated with the worship of all fire gods, including Saturn, Kronos, Molech and Baal) and is the subject of the still-valid The Two Babylons by Alexander Hislop, page 231:

(I heard this author later retracted a lot of what he wrote…)

This legend has a further and deeper meaning; but, as applied to Nimrod, or ‘The Horned One,’ (which found its ultimate fruition in the bad translation of the Bible in the sixteenth century

Moses with Horns by Michelangelo (yeah, I wondered about those marble horns, too…) 

as seen in Michelangelo’s portrayal of the mythological Moses with horns) it just refers to the fact, that, as the representative of Moloch or Baal, infants were the most acceptable offerings at his altar. We have ample and melancholy evidence on this subject from the records of antiquity. ‘ThePhoenicians,’ says Eusebius, ‘every year sacrificed their beloved and only-begotten children to Kronos or Saturn.’

We find this same reference in both the Torah and the Christian Bible. For example, in Genesis 10:9 we read of Nimrod, “He was a mighty hunter before [in place of] the Lord.” He actually tried to replace God. The Jewish historian, Josephus, records in Josephus Antiquities important evidence of Nimrod’s role in the post-flood world: “He also gradually changed the government into tyranny…He [Nimrod] also said he would be revenged on God, if He should have a mind to drown the world again; for that he would build a tower too high for the waters to be able to reach…Now the multitude were very ready to follow the determination of Nimrod, and to esteem it a piece of cowardice to submit to God” (Bk. I, Ch. IV, sec. 2, 3).

Under many names, mankind’s earliest and perhaps greatest rebel has been worshipped throughout what rival theologies would libel as a “false religion.”

Yeah, it’s that tyranny thing that always gets us.  What religion, I wonder, does NOT dispense that?

Well, to keep my promise, here’s that MICHIGAN FAMILY FORUM site.  I post this because not one single hyperlink in it’s four main ones can say any word that could be identified with a woman!  The word “Family” doesn’t.  The word “Children” doesn’t.  The word “Parents” doesn’t.  The word “elders” doesn’t.  But there is a link for FATHERHOOD.  I suppose women make a guest appearance for the purpose of reproducing.  Elderly women (and we know women often live longer than men) are likely to be welcome if they are not too uppity or crotchedty, and particularly if they are widows (not “divorcees”).  I’m just speculating as to much of this paragraph, but take a look at the

• the Language,
• the Links,
• and the photos.

In 1989, a board formed and recruited a probate Judge, who caught the vision.  And they were off and running — thank god, before that nasty VAWA legislation was passed….

(I’ve actually done more research than on the post about some of these liaisons in this Midwestern State.  They are concerned about “family.”  I as a woman who has no place (and no photo, to date, of anyone my age on the site) am concerned about them.).  Remember my post about Oregon Family Institute, and how well-networked they were.  You ain’t seen nothing yet when the network is majority conservative evangelical Christian.  I wish I could talk to both Ayaan Hirsi and Nonie Darwish about this, and I have already mentioned it to Phyllis Chesler.

Remember their stories…

Happy New Year, and may the next one not be “business as usual” for you!