A Somali radio station run by the al Qaeda-linked al-Shabab militia is allegedly awarding rifles, bombs and religious books to three children in a Quran recital contest. Andalus radio station announced Monday that the first prize winner in the contest received a rifle and $700, the second prize winner was awarded a rifle and $500, and the third prize winner received two bombs. All three children also reportedly received religious books. Ynet News adds: Al-Shabab is battling Somalia’s weak, UN-backed government. The militants have recently been weakened by famine in territory they control. Somalia has been plagued by violence and religious extremism, with a leader of the country’s Islamist insurgency threatening late last year to attack the United States. “We tell the American President Barack Obama to embrace Islam before we come to his country,” said Fuad Mohamed “Shongole” Qalaf. And if Somali children are rewarded for their study of the Quran with weaponry and even more religious texts, this type of extremism could be perpetuated for years to come.
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Somali Kids Win Weapons, Religious Books in Koran Recital Contest
It is difficult to imagine defending pedophilia at all, let alone issuing a religious decree officially condoning it through the act of marriage. Yet that is one one Saudi cleric has reportedly done by issuing a fatwa defending Muslim “child marriage” or, pedophilia. Dr. Salih bin Fawzan , a cleric in Saudi Arabia’s highest religious council, has reportedly issued a fatwa asserting that there is no minimum age for marriage and that girls can be married “even if they are in the cradle.” According to FrontPage : Appearing in Saudi papers on July 13, the fatwa complains that “Uninformed interference with Sharia rulings by the press and journalists is on the increase, posing dire consequences to society, including their interference with the question of marriage to small girls who have not reached maturity, and their demand that a minimum age be set for girls to marry.” Fawzan insists that nowhere does Sharia set an age limit for marrying girls: like countless Muslim scholars before him, he relies on Koran 65:4, which discusses marriage to females who have not yet begun menstruating (i.e., are prepubescent) and the fact that Muhammad, Islam’s role model, married Aisha when she was 6-years-old, “consummating” the marriage—or, in modern parlance, raping her—when she was 9. FP reports that the point of the fatwa is not so much that girls as young as 9 can follow Muhammad’s example and have sexual intercourse, but that there is in fact no age limit at all for the children to be taken as wives. FP asserts the only question posed by the cleric is whether the child is literally physically capable of “bearing the weight” of her new husband, or, molester. Fawzan reportedly illustrates this point by quoting Ibn Batal’s authoritative religious text Sahih Bukhari : The ulema [Islam’s interpreters] have agreed that it is permissible for fathers to marry off their small daughters, even if they are in the cradle. But it is not permissible for their husbands to have sex with them unless they are capable of being placed beneath and bearing the weight of the men. And their capability in this regard varies based on their nature and capacity. Aisha was 6 when she married the prophet, but he had sex with her when she was 9 [i.e., when she was deemed capable]. Fawzan then reportedly concludes his fatwa with the warning: “It behooves those who call for setting a minimum age for marriage to fear Allah and not contradict his Sharia, or try to legislate things Allah did not permit. For laws are Allah’s province; and legislation is his excusive right, to be shared by none other. And among these are the rules governing marriage.” FP reminds us that Fawzan is not the first Islamic leader to legitimize pedophilia in Islam and that the former grand mufti of Saudi Arabia himself also supported “child-marriage,” citing the Quran and Sunna as proof. Needless to say many young girls are falling victim such rulings. FP relates the circumstances surrounding the horrific death of a 13 year old girl who was reportedly raped and killed by her husband: Recall, for instance, the 13-year-old girl who died while her much older husband was copulating with her (it was later revealed that, due to her reluctance, he was tying her up and “raping” her—as if there is another way to describe sex with children); or the 12-year-old who died giving birth to a stillborn ; or the 10-year-old who made headlines by hiding out from her 80-year-old “husband.” But there are likely numerous other instances that go unreported as the victims’ fear bringing any attention that might result in further abuse, or even their murder. Where are the human rights abuse investigations at times like these?
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Saudi Cleric Issues Fatwa Defending Pedophilia as ‘Marriage’
Blazing Cat Fur had his YouTube account suspended for posting this video of Adam Gadahn: ABC News has the background, ” New Al Qaeda Video: American Muslims Should Buy Guns, Start Shooting People .” (Ilyas Kashmiri, mentioned as a remaining top al Qaeda leader, has now been killed in a U.s. drone attack.) And Amy Alkon covered this: Gotta love those silly “COEXIST” bumper stickers, which include Islam in among the other religions, despite the fact that Islam’s mission (per the Quran and Hadith) is not “coexistence” but the conversion or death of all who do not believe as they do. More at Quoth the Raven: ” GOOGLE/YOUTUBE SUSPENDS BLAZINGCATFUR WHILE SUPPORTING JIHAD .”
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U.S.-Born al Qaeda Spokesman Adam Gadahn Calls for Attacks on Americans
VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (AP) — The killing of Osama bin Laden, a man who was America’s face of evil for nearly a decade, left Christians, Jews and Muslims relieved, proud or even jubilant. For their religious leaders, it was sometimes hard to know just what to say about that. There is at least some dissonance between the values they preach and the triumphant response on the streets of New York and Washington to the death of a human being — even one responsible for thousands of killings in those areas and around the world. The Rev. Bill Kelly, priest at Saint Mary of the Assumption in Dedham, Mass., near Boston, said he was taken aback by the celebrations because he detected bloodlust. Christians should rejoice that justice was done, but not that another human being was destroyed, he said. At the same time, Kelly said, the emotional reaction is understandable. “This is 10 years of pent-up anger, hurt, frustration, especially here in the Boston area because the crimes were initiated here,” he said, referring to the two planes that took off from Boston before crashing into the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. “We all know people who lost people.” Kelly said the problem comes when the reaction to the terrorist leader’s death is “tinged with hatred and revenge.” Some religious leaders weren’t planning to say much about bin Laden’s killing at services. The Rev. David Howard, on the other hand, shouted his approval — in a sense — from outside his Virginia Beach church’s doors. “OSAMA BIN LADEN, SATAN AND THE FINAL VICTORY OF JESUS,” read the marquee outside Brook Baptist Church, publicizing the sermon Howard started writing hours after he heard that a team of Navy SEALs based in Virginia Beach killed the al-Qaida leader. There is no equivocating in his message: Howard has no doubt that bin Laden was an instrument of Satan who was brought to justice with the aid of God, who answered the prayers of millions. “We should pray for bad people, evil people, that when we pray to God he will change their lives. But if he won’t change their lives, especially those who have a lot of power to hurt a lot of people, you pray for their end because they’re causing so much pain,” he said. “You pray somehow God will take them out. The Bible is very clear that God is in control and every person in power is because God put them there. He can put them there, he can keep them there or he can take them out. That’s his prerogative.” The leader of one of the nation’s largest mosques was equally direct during prayers Friday. “There is no doubt that this man was a thug, he was a murderer,” Imam Hassan al-Qazwini told worshippers at the Islamic Center of America in the Detroit suburb of Dearborn. “His hands were stained by the blood of thousands of innocent people — Muslims and non-Muslims alike.” Qazwini, who delivered his sermon in a large, circular hall filled to capacity, said the Quran is clear that someone who kills one innocent person “is doomed to hell forever.” And the imam was particularly incensed that bin Laden “committed atrocities against innocent people … while he was calling ‘Allahu akbar,’” or “God is great.” “He’s responsible for tarnishing the image of Islam in this country. He’s responsible for tarnishing the image of Muslims,” he said. “We’re happy to see the man who caused so much pain for Muslims in this country is gone … finally.” Before the sermon, he told The Associated Press that Muslims are discouraged from showing jubilation over death, but cheering the news of bin Laden’s demise marks an occasion where “justice was served.” The Vatican said Christians could never rejoice about the death of any human being, though it acknowledged the reasons the U.S. pursued bin Laden for nearly a decade. Spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi said bin Laden was responsible for having caused the deaths of countless innocents and for having used religion to spread “division and hatred among people.” The Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leader and Nobel Peace laureate, said Tuesday in Los Angeles that although bin Laden may have deserved compassion and even forgiveness as a human being, it is sometimes necessary to take counter-measures. “Forgiveness doesn’t mean forget what happened,” he told students at the University of Southern California. Among Amish and Mennonites, bin Laden’s killing clashes with their ethic of valuing every person as a son or daughter of God, though they also believe God allows a government to do what is necessary to protect its people, said Paul Miller, the director of the Amish and Mennonite Heritage Center in Berlin, Ohio. Though some shun technology, they still follow the news closely, and Miller said he wouldn’t be surprised of some members of those churches have also celebrated bin Laden’s death. “That seems to me to be contrary to what God calls us to do and for our nation, as an enlightened country. One would think (we) might have some higher goals and some higher ethics than just to be following a retribution of an eye for eye, tooth for tooth,” Miller said. Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, said the Bible marks a distinction between individual Christians, who should pray for and forgive their enemies, and the state, which has a different responsibility. “God says they are to punish the evildoers,” he said. “I take no personal pleasure in Osama bin Laden’s death, but the moral symmetry of the universe demands that a person who has perpetrated the terrible crimes against humanity that he’s perpetrated deserves to be executed,” Land said. “And I look upon what happened to him not as a killing, not as an assassination, but an execution for crimes he freely admitted to and bragged about.” Mark Nieting, senior pastor at Hope Lutheran Church in Virginia Beach, said that although bin Laden’s death has come up in small group discussions, it’s not something he felt compelled to spend a lot of time on at Sunday services. His congregation, in a city where war planes regularly fly overhead, is filled with active duty and retired military personnel. “Because this is a military community, I think people understand the difference between murder as laid out in Scripture and the commandments and killing as it happens in war,” he said. “Do I celebrate that the guy’s dead? No. Do I feel safer? No. I don’t celebrate his death. It’s tragic that anyone dies in war, that anyone has to die in a conflict. But we live in a sinful world.” __ Brock Vergakis can be reached at www.twitter.com/BrockVergakis ___ Associated Press writers Jay Lindsay in Boston, Jeff Karoub in Dearborn, Mich., and Marc Levy in Harrisburg, Pa., contributed to this report.
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‘Evil Must Be Stopped’: Bin Laden’s Death Is a Tricky Topic for Sunday Sermons
This story got going yesterday with Senator Graham’s comments on Face the Nation. I’ve never been a Graham-hater, but I’m definitely not a fan at this point. The dude fails the most basic lesson of the First Amendment: The antidote to offensive speech is more speech. I hate flag burning, but the Supreme Court’s 1989 ruling in Texas v. Johnson is central to preserving the marketplace of ideas. By allowing someone to burn the flag we uphold the values for which the flag stands. It’s extremely offensive. But as symbolic speech it affirms our freedoms. So I cringe at this interview with Senator Graham at National Review . I denounced Koran-burning last year during all the controversy surrounding the Ground Zero mosque. Pastor Terry Jones is an idiot, and while I support his right to burn Islam’s holy book, the same rule applies: Burning the flag is extremely offensive, and so is Koran burning. I don’t endorse either form of expression, but I wouldn’t attack either as un-American. That’s not to say burning the Koran is the right thing to do, especially with how freighted the act is in this environment. But one lone wacko is not responsible for rampaging murderous Muslims 6 thousand miles away. What’s evil is the reversal of responsibility game that everyone’s playing, from the White House on down. And the headline sets the debate at New York Times, ” Afghans Avenge Florida Koran Burning, Killing 12 .” And also, ” Afghans Protest Koran Burning for Third Day .” Well, at least the editors at the Baltimore Sun get it. ” The U.S. has condemned Quran burning; will Afghans condemn the violence? “: There’s no doubt that the publicity-seeking Florida minister who burned a Quran to demonstrate his hatred of Muslims committed a pointlessly provocative and reprehensible act. But the reaction of Afghan rioters who killed at least innocent 20 people in retaliation for what they saw as an intolerable insult to Islam is even more indefensible. And while there are plenty of Americans willing to speak out against anti-Muslim intolerance, where are the Afghan leaders willing to condemn the violence committed by their fellow Muslims? And check this out: To their credit, the national news media withheld the lavish coverage it had previously provided the minister’s obvious play for attention. As a result, Mr. Jones’ reckless provocation initially went largely unnoticed in the Muslim world. But then for some reason known only to himself, Afghan President Hamid Karzai chose to resurrect the issue in a speech on Thursday, in which he sharply criticized U.S. forces for accidentally killing innocent civilians and called for Mr. Jones’ arrest for the “crime” of insulting Islam. Having lived in the U.S., Mr. Karzai knows perfectly well that U.S. law doesn’t permit police to arrest people simply for exercising their right of free speech — however repugnant such speech may be. He also had to know that publicizing Mr. Jones’ lunacy during a televised address might very well stoke extremist elements in his own country to commit acts of violence and cause the loss of innocent lives. But whatever twisted political calculation led him take such a risk, Mr. Karzai’s criticism of his American partners and his calls for Mr. Jones’ arrest have only grown more strident since the rioting began on Friday. One almost gets the impression the Afghan leader is deliberately fomenting unrest among his people, perhaps in a desperate attempt to deflect criticism from the corruption and incompetence of the government he leads. He has always been a shaky ally whose integrity was doubtful at best. But Mr. Karzai’s is not the only voice in Afghanistan. Where are the other leaders of that country who have the moral authority to condemn the violence and the courage to speak out against bigotry and intolerance? Mr. Jones acted recklessly and without regard to the danger others might find themselves in as a result of his shameless self-promotion and puffery. He is a vain, selfish man, the exact opposite of what a true spiritual leader should be. Perhaps that is why he has never been able to attract a flock of followers and relies instead on the anonymous audiences provided by the television news cameras to get his twisted message across. Yet for all his failings, Mr. Jones did not commit a single act of violence or cause any person physical harm. It was the mullahs in Afghanistan, who whipped their congregations into a frenzy, and the rioters themselves who are to blame for the 20 deaths so far around the country, including seven at a United Nations compound, and injuries to dozens more. Nope. Not a single act of violence, but Graham’s ready to criminalize political opinion in America. (And President Obama’s “condemning” the “hate speech.”) Boy, wouldn’t want to offend those murderous mobs across Afghanistan. See also Mark Steyn, who calls Graham a “wretched buffoon”: ” Re: Lindsey Graham and the First Amendment .”
AP – President Barack Obama is extending his deepest condolences to the families and loved ones of those killed in the northern Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif by protesters enraged by the burning of a Quran in Florida.
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Obama criticizes Quran burning, Afghan attacks
(AP)
AP – President Barack Obama is condemning the attack on a United Nations office in northern Afghanistan Friday.
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Obama condemns killings at Afghan UN office
(AP)
CAIRO (AP) — Year after year, the 42-year-old Saudi surgeon remains single, against her will. Her father keeps turning down marriage proposals, and her hefty salary keeps going directly to his bank account. The surgeon in the holy city of Medina knows her father, also her male guardian, is violating Islamic law by forcibly keeping her single, a practice known as “adhl.” So she has sued him in court, with questionable success. Adhl cases reflect the many challenges facing single women in Saudi Arabia. But what has changed is that more women are now coming forward with their cases to the media and the law. Dozens of women have challenged their guardians in court over adhl, and one has even set up a Facebook group for victims of the practice. The backlash comes as Saudi Arabia has just secured a seat on the governing board of the new United Nations Women’s Rights Council — a move many activists have decried because of the desert kingdom’s poor record on treatment of women. Saudi feminist Wajeha al-Hawaidar describes male guardianship as “a form of slavery.” “A Saudi woman can’t even buy a phone without the guardian’s permission,” said al-Hawaidar, who has been banned from writing or appearing on Saudi television networks because of her vocal support of women’s rights. “This law deals with women as juveniles who can’t be in charge of themselves at the same time it gives all powers to men.” In a recent report by the pan-Arab Al-Hayat newspaper, the National Society for Human Rights received 30 cases of adhl this year — almost certainly an undercount. A Facebook group called “enough adhl,” set up by a university professor and adhl victim, estimates the number at closer to 800,000 cases. The group, with 421 members, aims at rallying support for harsher penalties against men who misuse their guardianship. An estimated 4 million women over the age of 20 are unmarried in the country of 24.6 million. After 20, women are rapidly seen in Saudi society as getting too old to marry, said Sohila Zein el-Abdydeen, a prominent female member of the governmental National Society for Human Rights. Fathers cite adhl for a variety of reasons — sometimes because a suitor doesn’t belong to the same tribe, or a prominent enough tribe. In other cases, the father wants to keep the allowance that the government gives to single women in poorer families, or cannot afford a dowry. Islam’s holy book, the Quran, warns Muslim men not to prevent their daughters, sisters or female relatives from getting married, or else they will encourage sexual relations outside marriage. But under Saudi judges’ interpretation of Islamic Shariah law, the crime can be punished by lifting the male guardianship, nothing more. Hard-line judges refuse to go even that far. The founder of the Facebook group, who introduced herself only as Amal Saleh in an interview with Saudi daily Al-Watan, said she set up the group after courts let down adhl victims. She said her family threatened her with “death and torture” when she pressed for her right to get married while she was under 30. She is now 37 and still single. Some judges even punish the women themselves for rebelling against their fathers. In one high-profile adhl case, a young single mother, Samar Badawi, sued her father and demanded he be stripped of his guardianship. She fled her house in March 2008 and spent around two years in a women’s protection house in Jeddah, waiting for the court ruling. In April, she got it — she was sentenced to six months in prison for disobedience. She was released in late October, under heavy pressure from local rights activists. The judge transferred guardianship to her uncle, and it is not yet clear if her uncle will let her get married. Badawi has refused to speak to the media after her release, but her lawyer, Waleed Abu Khair, said hard-line judges hate the protection shelters because they say the shelters corrupt women. In Saudi Arabia, no woman can travel, gain admittance to a public hospital or live independently without a “mahram,” or guardian. Men can beat women who don’t obey, with special instructions not to pop the eye, break an arm or leave a mark on their bodies. In the Saudi public school curriculum, boys are taught how to use their guardianship rights. “Be jealous, beat her hands, protect her and achieve superiority over her,” reads page 212 of the Prophet Sayings textbook for 11th grade. The concept of guardianship is interpreted in conservative Islam as meaning that men are superior to women. Moderate Islamic schools of thought, however, see the practice as an order for men to protect women, financially, emotionally and physically. Radwa Youssef, an activist, said the answer is not to abolish guardianship but to redefine it. Since 2009, she has collected 5,400 signatures for a campaign called “Our Guardians Know Best.” She said many women who go against their male guardians’ will marry the wrong men and bring shame on their families. “I see guardians as bodyguards who are serving women and protecting them; it is a responsibility, not a source of power,” Youssef said. “If there is a male misusing his powers, he should be introduced to rehabilitation sessions to advise and guide him.” The Medina Surgeon, as the Saudi media tagged her, has been waiting for justice since 2006. The surgeon, who has Canadian, British and Saudi certification, filed a lawsuit to drop her father’s mandate. But despite a paper trail carrying testimonies from suitors turned away by her father, bank documents that show her father taking over her salary, medical reports showing physical abuse, and the fact that her four other single sisters over 30 face the same destiny, no ruling has yet been issued. The only answer she gets from the judge is to go back to her father and seek reconciliation. “He wants me to go to death,” she told The Associated Press over the phone from Medina, speaking on condition of anonymity because she feared family retaliation. “Until when I am going to wait? … The Prophet Muhammad himself wouldn’t have allowed adhl to take place.” The surgeon lives in a “protection house,” one of dozens scattered around the kingdom for victims of adhl and domestic violence. Under a fake name, she gets escorted to courts accompanied by guards, fearing retaliation from her father. She recalled her last encounter with her father inside the court: “I kissed his feet. I begged him to set me free, for the sake of God.” She turns 43 next month.
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Saudi Women Sue Male Guardians Who Stop Marriage
Farooque Ahmed
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How Was Alleged DC Metro Bomb Plotter Radicalized?
