Lafif Lakhdar

A Call to Defend Women and Minorities in the Middle East

2007-01-06T13:26:00.000-08:00

By Lafif Lakhdar (*)

This is a solemn call to the international civil society and international media, whose influence nowadays on the ruling elites could never be overemphasized. It is also a call to the Islamic world in need of openness to the modern values of Human Rights and modernity, which are indivisible, indeed, particularly as regards to the protection of woman and of national, ethnic, confessional, linguistic, and religious minorities.

Unfortunately, the latter groups are still subject to the fourteen-century old theology of "Dhimmitude" (the status of "the People of the Book" under Islamic Law), despite the abolition of the "Jezya" (Poll Tax) in Egypt in 1855.

As regards to the violations of Human Rights, I would just give two examples. The first relates to the interdiction made to a Muslim woman to marry a non-Muslim or even a Muslim of another confession. Last year, a Saudi judge ordered a Sunni woman to divorce her husband who happened to be Ismaelite (a Shiaa minority), as reported in Al-Quds Al-Arabi newspaper (of 27/04/2006). Moreover, Sharia (Islamic Law) treats a non-Muslim wife to a Muslim man in an atrocious manner: She will have no rights of custody over her young children, in case of divorce; nor to inherit her husband.

Firstly, this is a call to respect religious freedom of minorities in the land of Islam to conduct cults, including their freedom to construct sites of worship, and to respect the rights of all citizens to change religion, or not to have one at all.

The European Commission recently has requested from the Islamist government in Turkey to respect such a basic Human Right. And it had previously requested from the same government to abolish the death sentence and the punishment for adultery. This is a clear proof, indeed, of the potential success of foreign pressure to defend universally recognised Human Rights.

Secondly, this is a call for equal treatment of all religious minorities, including the protection of non-Muslims' rights to preach in Islamic countries, the same way Muslims are free to preach in the West, and it is a call to abolish laws dating back to the Middle Ages that call for punishing Christians found "guilty" of preaching outside their churches with decapitation.

Recently, the Algerian government promulgated a law condemning Christians indicted for trying to convert Muslims to Christianity. This looks like replacing the above-mentioned decapitation sentence by a prison term. Indeed what a progress!

One should notice, however, that for civil, religious, national and cultural rights of all minorities in the Middle East to be respected, there is a need to end political exclusion and marginalization to which these minorities are currently subjected, and for their full integration in the political life of their countries. A failure to urgently address these issues would only undermine stability in the region and ignite further hatred and conflict.

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(*) Tunisian writer living in France. This article is an adaptation of a speech in French presented at a conference on ‘Copts: A Combat for Human Rights’ held in Paris in May 2006.

FREETHOUGHT SOLIDARITY BULLETIN #6

2007-01-06T13:18:00.000-08:00

November 14, 2006 This bulletin, edited and produced by Fred Whitehead, Kansas City, Kansas, U.S.A., for the International Committee to Protect Freethinkers (ICPF) is FREE. If you do not wish to receive this, see instructions at the end of this message. Items: #1: Kobra Rahmanpour, Iran #2: Salah Choudhury, Bangladesh #3: Freedom of speech and conscience, Romania #4: Muazzez Ilmiye Cig, Turkey #5: Abdel Karim Nabil Suleiman, Egypt #6: Lafif Lakhdar, Tunisia/France #7: Raja Ben Slama, Tunisia #8: The Enemy of My Enemy Is Not My Friend, by Marieme Helie-Lucas #9: News Briefs #10: Resources #1: KOBRA RAHMANPOUR, Iran Supporters of this young woman, sentenced to death for killing her mother-in-law in self defense, report that her execution has been delayed for another month, after Shahroodi, the chairman of the Judiciary of Iran, “declared he has heard the voice of protest from the people, and will do his best to prevent Kobra’s execution.” Her campaign is also appealing to the world for financial help. Current information is available at www.save-kobra.blogfa,com. #2: SALA CHOUDHURY, Bangladesh On November 13, Choudhury appeared in court in Dhaka, to answer to the charge that “he tried to damage the image and relations of Bangladesh with the outside world” because he attempted to travel to Israel (as reported by him in the Israeli Insider on Nov. 14). Pleading Not Guilty, he states “by advocating inter-faith dialogue, supporting relations between Bangladesh and Israel, I have not done anything wrong.” His trial has been set for January 22, 2007. As the government of Bangladesh is currently in flux, we will report on avenues for solidarity in the near future, as contact details are confirmed. For background and updates, see an excellent website by Dr. Richard Benkin: www.freechoudhury.com. #3: FREEDOM OF CONSCIENCE AND SPEECH, ROMANIA A new law has been proposed by a committee of the Chamber of Deputies, as follows: “Any form, means, act or action of religious defamation and enmity, as well as any public offense against religious symbols, shall be prohibited.” A campaign by the country’s humanists has been launched, stating that under this provision, “books, works of art, movies, plays, concerts and rock groups could easily be banned.” The open letter to the government is here: http://www.humanism.ro/articles.php?page=62&article=173 Messages of solidarity can be sent to: freedomofconscience@gmail.com. #4: MUAZZEZ ILMIYE CIG, TURKEY On November 1, a court acquitted Cig, a 92-year old archaeologist, on the charge of insulting religious feelings. A convinced secular academic, Cig is an expert on ancient Sumerian civilization, and had published in her recent political work My Reactions as a Citizen, a statement that in antiquity, veils were worn by priestesses who engaged in sex to separate themselves from other priestesses. Upon her acquittal, there was a spontaneous demonstration by her supporters (reported in the New York Times, Nov. 2). The Times subsequently reported on Nov. 5 that Prime Minister Erdogan indicated that he “was prepared to amend” the law, a welcome development indeed. Messages of appreciation may be sent to President Ahmet Necdet Sezer, a confirmed secularist, at the following e-mail address: cumhurbaskanligi@tccb.gov.tr. #5: ABDEL KARIM NABIL SULEIMAN, EGYPT The Middle East Times reprinted a report from the AFP, Nov. 8, concerning the arrest of Suleiman, a former student at Al Azhar University. He had protested his expulsion from the University on his blog: “I went to study at Al Azhar at the request of my parents, despite my outright rejection of Al Azhar and its religious ideas, and despite all that I have written which harshly criticizes the rise of religion in daily life and its effect on people’s behavior.” He added: “I was expelled . . . for my writing on the Net, a free space not under their jurisdiction.” Reporters Without Borders has now added Egypt to their list of “enemies of the Internet.” Protests may be sent to the Egyptian Embassy in Washington, DC: embassy@egyptemdc.org. #6: LAFIF LAKHDAR, TUNISIA/FRANCE We have previously reported on the situation of this noted intellectual. We now learn that his apartment building in France was hit by an arson attack, endangering not only him, but his library of some 4,000 books. His supporters are calling on the international community to assist him in moving to a more secure location. For the latest information on how to do this contact Fred Whitehead at: fredwh@swbell.net. A long but most informative article about Lafkhar is available from the Haaretz website: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=695137&contrassID=2&subContrassID=14&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y #7: RAJA BEN SLAMA, TUNISIA Information on this case is from Abu Khawla: Raja Ben Slama, Literature Professor in the University of Tunisia, rose to pre-eminence thanks to her original writings on issues of religious intolerance, Muslim woman status, and broader political issues of social modernization and progress. This owes much to her original thinking and writing skills, and also to the advent of the Internet, which means freedom in the Arab world, as the so-called independent media remains completely founded and dominated by Islamist petrodollars. The fact that her focus was on defending women’s rights and freedom of conscience, and her role as a leading light in the "League of Arab Rationalists" made her, from the beginning, a target of radical Islamist groups, starting with Tunisian Nahdha, whose leader Rached Ghannouchi called for her "public hanging", along with Tunisia's prominent free thinker, Lafif Lakhdar. Following this murderous call, Ghannouchi went to action in a pornographic campaign, subjecting the writer to bestialities that would stop only after public calls were made to the British police for inquiry by prominent Arab intellectuals campaigning in support of Lafif Lakhdar, after he was falsely accused on Ghannouchi's Nahdha.net Web site, on 6 May 2005, of writing a blasphemous book about Prophet Muhammad. Last August, Raja Ben Slama published a critical article of Hezbollah, whose miscalculated adventure brought destruction and bloodshed to Lebanon. The reaction came from remnants of Tunisia's leftist movement. This included articles published in the national labor association's newspaper "Al-Shaab". More serious however was an article published on the 13th of last August on Al-Wasat newspaper ( www.tunisalwasat.com ), signed by "Abu Al-Walid, accusing Raja Ben Slama and the League of Arab Rationalists of apostasy, an offense punishable by death, in Islamic jurisprudence. Nahdha mobilized also four former students of Professor Ben Slama to "testify" against her in writings published in their electronic newspaper Tunisnews.net. So far, the reaction of Arab free thinkers remains timid. Prominent writer Shaker Nabulsi wrote an article to publicize her case, which was widely disseminated in Arab liberal sites. My own article on her fate was posted on the leading liberal site Elaph.com (more than 300 thousand readers per day) and re-produced in many others. The orchestrated campaign against the prominent feminist free thinker is but the latest example of a huge propaganda machine that uses petrodollars, mosques and a web of charities and religious schools. However, this new campaign could easily backfire as was the case of many previous attempts, as long as like-minded people are ready to defend the truth, by exposing the ugly side of the Islamist agenda of hate mongering and deceit. While the primary responsibility, in this respect, falls on Arab/Muslim intellectuals, Western support is crucial to help organize what remains a disparate movement, lacking the basic means of communication. (This article is based on the original version published in Arabic on Elaph.com, on October 21, 2006.) #8: THE ENEMY OF MY ENEMY IS NOT MY FRIEND Fundamentalist Non State Actors, Democracy and Human Rights Marieme HELIE-LUCAS 6 septembre 2006 Contribution presented at the sixth Asia Europe People's Forum, Helsinki September 3-6, 2006, (plenary of cluster 3 : Democracy and Human Rights). The world has changed since the first international human rights organizations developed as we know them today : most conflicts do not any more occur between two armies of two nation states, hence most armed conflicts involve one or more non state actors and many human rights violations are committed by non state actors. Among these non state actors are political movements, ranging from very conservative to extreme right, aiming at political power but working under the cover of religion, that are known as 'fundamentalists'. These movements exist on all continents and use all religions to disguise their political agenda, and they have been steadily growing since the end of World War II. Just to give a few examples at random : - the Christian Right in the US, which assassinated, for instance, the pro abortion doctors and assaulted the clinics are the same people that also back and inspire Bush's program against social welfare, reproductive rights, gays, etc. . . , and promote war, teaching of 'creationism' in schools, etc... - The Hindu Right, which assassinated Gandhi in 1948, perpetrated mass massacres of Muslims ( the latest in Gujarat in 2002), as well as assassinations of Christians and burning of churches and convents, also inspires and manages the RSS that serves the electoral ambitions of BJP. - the Orthodox Church has led a successful offensive in Central Europe in the past few years, putting an end to secularism in Croatia three years ago and in Serbia this year, by gaining a specific political representation, while, for instance they forced the teaching of religion into schools in Russia, eliminated sex education from the curriculum in Lithuania and secured in Slovenia and in Poland, the right for medical professionals to refuse assistance for services deemed immoral. - Buddhists groups, rarely talked about, who were behind the assassination of the Prime Minister by a monk in 1959 to oppose an agreement with the Tamil dissidents that was leading to more autonomy, managed to obtain recognition for Buddhism as the first religion of Sri Lanka in the 1972 constitution and now push for communal war in Sri Lanka. - Better known are the Orthodox Jewish forces that support the aggressive military occupation policy of Israel in the Middle East - and Muslim fundamentalists, - pointed at the world over in all international media for their bloody bombings in Europe and North America- who, in Muslim countries, not only decimated left opponents, intellectuals, artists and the Muslim masses that they call 'unbelievers' (kofr) when they do not abide by their political program, as they did in Afghanistan, Sudan, Iran, Algeria, etc..., but also put an end to democracy and imposed (or attempted to impose) theocracies. It is important to note that, although i am deeply convinced that fundamentalism is now a shared disgrace all over the world which operates through various religions, most of the examples I use involve Muslim fundamentalists : the only reason for it is that, as an Algerian citizen now living in Europe, it is the one form of fundamentalism I know best, from many years of living experience as well as as a researcher and as an activist. In all cases, what we see at work is by no means religious movements, but political extreme right forces that manipulate religions to further their political agenda and to gain political power. Ambiguities and cowardice in the Left, Far Left and progressive forces at large - whether in the West or in the Third World -, in condemning fundamentalist forces, stem from this confusion they entertain between religion and politics. Human rights concepts and instruments designed for other times often prove inefficient when applied to present day rise of fundamentalism. If the responsibility of fundamentalists as perpetrators of human rights violations may be addressed, their identity as extreme right political forces is not unveiled, while the unholy alliances they knit across religions and across nations should be a first indicator of their political nature. We saw these unholy alliances at work, for instance, during the UN World Conference on Population in Cairo (1993), when the Vatican and Al Azhar publicly allied against reproductive rights ; and again during the UN World Conference on Women held in Beijing in 1996. But even more telling is the verbal support that Le Pen, leader of the extreme right national Front Party in France, and Haider, leader of the extreme right Freedom Party in Austria, lent to the fundamentalist FIS (Islamic Salvation Front) of Algeria in 1995, i.e. at the peak of the massacres they perpetrated against the civilian population during that decade. This reminds us of the inspiration and support given by the German Nazi Party to the emerging Hindu Right. The failure to recognize the political nature of fundamentalisms, regardless of their political agenda, ultimately benefits fundamentalists : they often enjoy the protection of human rights organizations, in the name of religious rights, minority rights, cultural rights, etc... It is even more so in situations where fundamentalists claim to represent an oppressed minority, when they face repression by their own governments, or when they are under threat of imperialist powers. This is now in full bloom, due to the U.S. attacks on the Middle East and the war on terrorism : it has devastating consequences on democratic anti fundamentalist forces in Muslim countries and communities as well as on the citizens of migrant descent in Europe. Let us look at some of these consequences on human rights and on democracy. - The exclusive focus of human rights organizations on state responsibility and accountability, frees non state actors of any responsibility and accountability for the crimes and violations they commit. Fundamentalists end up being seen exclusively as victims - which they may be in some cases, while they are, also and primarily, violators. If and when they are persecuted by states, they definitely should enjoy protection of their basic human rights ( such as : no arbitrary detention, protection against torture, fair trial, etc...) ; but as perpetrators of many crimes and violations, they should not enjoy some of the provisions designed for victims only ( such as asylum), and they should not be given a political platform from which to propagate their views. Their double identity, as victims and as perpetrators, is overlooked by most human rights organizations, who fail to face the consequences of such a situation. - Moreover, seeing fundamentalists exclusively as victims induces a hierarchy among victims. As an example, Algerian fundamentalists benefited from political asylum in many European countries, on the ground that they would be persecuted by the state in their own country ; meanwhile, their victims were denied asylum and were slaughtered in Algeria by the Islamic Armed Groups ( GIA), on the ground that they were not persecuted by states but by non state actors. Moreover, as victims of state repression, fundamentalists were repeatedly invited by human rights organizations, and their views on violence in Algeria were the only ones represented at their gatherings. - The plight of democratic forces struggling for survival under both undemocratic states and neo fascist fundamentalist forces is ignored by the very progressive forces that should be their allies, and their struggles and resistance are made totally invisible. As if some victims ( for instance, of imperialism) were more legitimate victims than others (for instance, of extreme right fundamentalist forces). - Fundamentalists launch an attack on democracy, in the literal sense of the word : they want to impose on all citizens what they claim is The Law of God ( as interpreted by them), by definition a-historical and unchangeable, i.e. a theocracy ; and to eradicate the laws of the people, by definition changeable according to the will and vote of the people, i.e. the essence of democracy. - Further, they want to impose a religious identity on all citizens, by virtue of their birth place rather than by choice, thus denying freedom of thought, freedom of religion, freedom of consciousness. This is an insult to both believers, whose personal faith is reduced to fate, and to unbelievers whose rights as free thinkers is totally denied. As an example, Muslim fundamentalists have successfully induced Europe to label " Muslims" all immigrants and even the second and third generations of migrant descent from Muslim countries, regardless of their individual religious beliefs. A faith is slowly being turned into a "race" - the only historical precedent being the Jews during World War II. - In Europe as well as in our countries of origin, we witness the erosion of secular space, under the huge pressure of fundamentalists to introduce religious laws for minorities. Muslim fundamentalists make similar demands in different countries in Europe : all of them revolve around gender apartheid ( separate schools with different curriculum for boys and girls, in particular no teaching of biology, art, music, sports, and teaching of creationism ; separate wards and women-only personnel in public hospitals for men and women (a real joke in France for instance, where public hospitals cannot afford enough medical personnel, let alone female ones) ; separate swimming pools for men and women ; the introduction of Muslim Personal Law ( or Family Code) for presumed "Muslims", i.e. laws that affect primarily women insofar as they regulate marriage, divorce, polygamy, repudiation, custody of children, inheritance, etc...to the benefit of men. After the hierarchy of victims, we are now confronted with a hierarchy of rights in which women's rights come last, after minority rights, after religious rights. - Governments are generally prepared to trade women's rights for social rest, - this is no surprise ; but human rights organizations and the Left at large also trade with fundamentalists, in the name of tolerance and cultural relativism. They do so despite the outcry by migrant women, many of whom have fled from such an oppressive situation in their own countries, or women of migrant descent who are accustomed to more freedom and equality. They do so despite the outcry of all secularists from migrant descent, believers and unbelievers alike. They do so for fear of being accused of 'Islamophobia', a concept coined by fundamentalists in order to silence dissent. As if fundamentalist neo fascists were the only legitimate true representatives of 'Islam', and of all citizens whose parents once migrated from Muslim countries. - This situation leads to the erosion of citizenship to the benefit of 'communities'. It raises a number of questions : who speaks for the so-called community ? who speaks in the name of religion ? who speaks in the name of culture ? Generally it is male conservative religious self appointed 'leaders'. This is a highly undemocratic process of representation. Why should religion represent a whole population ? I can see no other example in the present European context, where religious men are called to solve social problems, except when ' Muslims' are concerned. Do governments call on the Vatican when there is a miners' strike ? or do they negotiate with unions ? ! - With the erosion of the notion of citizenship comes a growing fragmentation of the people into smaller and smaller entities. While a few decades ago, migrants in Europe united and organized for their rights with vigor and success, it is now "Muslims", "Sikhs", "Hindus", etc... who seek separate rights, status and representation and make varied demands. How to ignore the fact that this fragmentation of the people weakens struggles and ultimately serves capital ?... That could well explain the tolerance that fundamentalists in Europe enjoy from governments. But what of the Left with its short sighted defence of fundamentalists ? These are frightening consequences of the lack of political analysis regarding fundamentalism. When the Left supports fundamentalist movements and parties on the ground that they are popular forces oppressed by undemocratic states or by imperialism, they are blind to their political program and to their societal project. Popular they are. And populist too. So were fascists, and Hitler indeed was elected by the people. To a situation of oppression, exclusion, marginalization, racism, etc... there are responses from the Left at large, from progressive or revolutionary forces ; and there are responses from the Right, there are fascist responses. Fundamentalism is a response from the Extreme Right, it is not a legitimate answer that can or should be supported. Progressive secular oppositions to undemocratic states, imperialism and capitalism exist in all Muslim countries and they exist among migrants and citizens of migrant descent in Europe as well. They exist despite fierce repression by states, despite physical elimination by fundamentalist non state actors and despite abandonment by those who should be their natural allies : democrats, progressive, secular, human rights people in Europe. Progressive forces in Muslim countries warned the world for the past few decades already, regarding the fascist nature of fundamentalism. Largely in vain, it seems. We feel as lonely as must have felt the anti nazi Germans in the early thirties, when those who should have listened to their warning were busy compromising in Munich, supposedly for keeping peace in the world, with a Frankenstein monster that was soon to impose its rule over many peoples and nations. Give us visibility. Give us a voice. We are the alternative. HELIE-LUCAS Marieme * Algerian sociologist, Marieme Helie Lucas is a founder of the 'Women Living Under Muslim Laws' international solidarity network. Former International Coordinator of WLUML. #9: NEWS BRIEFS The August issue of the American Atheist magazine reports extensive details of the successful defense of the Smalkowski family of the small town of Hardesty, Oklahoma. Last April the magazine reported the resistance of their daughter Nicole, to compulsory prayers before basketball games. Subsequently her father Chuck was charged with assault against the school principal. With the assistance of Ed Kagin of the American Atheists legal team, Chuck was acquitted at his trial on June 22. Information on obtaining this issue of the magazine may be had from American Atheist, PO Box 5733, Parsippany, NJ 07054 The website is www.atheists.org. The Freedom from Religion Foundation’s monthly newspaper Freethought Today reports regularly on their campaign to challenge the U.S. government’s Faith-Based Initiative program, which has given millions of dollars to religious organizations on the basis that they provide social services. A major lawsuit filed against the Veterans Administration was filed in April, and is proceeding through the courts. Their website is www.ffrf.org. The Secular Humanism Online News, vol. 2, No. 11 reported on a congress in the Netherlands, celebrating the 150th anniversary of the foundation of the Dutch Freethought Association, with lengthy details supplied by a participant, Floris van den Berg. Norm Allen of African Americans for Humanism supplies a fascinating account of the current state of humanist organizations in Africa, from his recent visit to several countries, inn the AAH Examiner for Spring 2006. Contact him at his organization, PO Box 664, Amherst, NY 14226. #10: RESOURCES Brave Minds, journal of the ICPF, edited by Dr. Marvin F. Zayed, is available from PO Box 41153, Elmvale, 1910 St. Laurent Blvd., Ottawa, Ontario K1G 5K9, Canada. This is a large format print magazine for which a subscription is required, but it is now established as a major source of international documentation and analysis concerning the status of Freethinkers and Freethought in many countries, with a focus on the situation in the Islamic ones. In addition, Brave Minds and the IPCF now have a website!! Go to: www.braveminds.info. Parts of the site are still under construction. We need your interest and support for this project. Harsh Kapoor runs a valuable website, the South Asia Citizens Web: www.sacw.net. This presents reports on current conditions and issues in the subcontinent. Currently, for example, there is a perceptive essay by physics professor Pervez Hoodbhoy, “Pakistan: Waiting for Enlightenment.” Similarly, Steve McGiffen runs a site that offers reports focusing on the European Left: www.spectrezine.org. It provides updates on cultural events and political demonstrations, etc. The National Secular Society of Britain issues a regular, extensive “Newsline” bulletin edited by Terry Sanderson. Naturally it concentrates on the U.K., but has reports from the rest of Europe and around the world, and includes a lively section of correspondence. The NSS website is: www.secularism.org.uk. To subscribe to this, send a blank email with “Subscribe to Newsline” on the subject line to enquiries@secularism.org.uk. If you do not wish to continue receiving this Freethought Solidarity Bulletin, send a message to fredwh@swbell.net with FSB UNSUBSCRIBE in the subject box.

Arab Free Thinker Raja Ben Slama

2006-11-03T03:07:00.000-08:00

By Abu Khawla (*)

Raja Ben Slama, Literature Professor in the University of Tunisia, rose to pre-eminence thanks to her original writings on issues of religious intolerance, Muslim woman status, and broader political issues of social modernization and progress. This owes much to her original thinking and writing skills, and also to the advent of the Internet, which means freedom in the Arab world, as the so-called independent media remains completely founded and dominated by Islamist petrodollars.

The fact that her focus was on defending woman rights and freedom of conscience, and her role as a leading light in the "League of Arab Rationalists" made her, from the beginning, a target of radical Islamist groups, starting with Tunisian Nahdha, whose leader Rached Ghannouchi called for her "public hanging", along with Tunisia's prominent free thinker, Lafif Lakhdar.

Following this murderous call, Ghannouchi went to action in a pornographic campaign, subjecting the writer to bestialities that would stop only after public calls were made to the British police for inquiry by prominent Arab intellectuals campaigning in support of Lafif Lakhdar, after he was falsely accused on Ghannouchi's Nahdha.net Web site, on 6 May 2005, of writing a blasphemous book about Prophet Muhammad.

Last August, Raja Ben Slam published a critical article of Hezbollah, whose miscalculated adventure brought destruction and bloodshed to Lebanon. The reaction came from remnants of Tunisia's leftist movement. This included articles published in the national labor association's newspaper "Al-Shaab". More serious however was an article published on the 13th of last August on Al-Wasat newspaper ( www.tunisalwasat.com ), signed by "Abu Al-Walid", certainly a pen name for Nahdha leadership, accusing Raja Ben Slama and the League of Arab Rationalists of apostasy, an offense punishable by death, in Islamic jurisprudence.

Nahdha mobilized also four former students of Professor Ben Slama to "testify" against her in writings published in their electronic newspaper Tunisnews.net.

So far, the reaction of Arab free thinkers remains timid. Prominent writer Shaker Nabulsi wrote an article to publicize her case, which was widely disseminated in Arab liberal sites. My own article on her fate was posted on the leading liberal site Elaph.com (more than 300 thousand readers per day) and re-produced in many others.

The orchestrated campaign against the prominent feminist free thinker is but the latest example of a huge propaganda machine that uses petrodollars, mosques and a web of charities and religious schools. However, this new campaign could easily backfire as was the case of many previous attempts, as long as like-minded people are ready to defend the truth, by exposing the ugly side of the Islamist agenda of hate mongering and deceit. While the primary responsibility, in this respect, falls on Arab/Muslim intellectuals, Western support is crucial to help organize what remains a disparate movement, lacking the basic means of communication.
----------------------------
(*) this article is based on the original version published in Arabic on Elaph.com, on October 21, 2006. Contact: Abuk1010@hotmail.com

Freethought Solidarity Bulletin #5

2006-10-28T03:01:00.000-07:00

Freethought Solidarity Bulletin #5

#1: SALAH CHOUDHURY CASE, BANGLADESH

Muslim moderate journalist Salah Choudhury faces death 11.10.2006 Here is a nightmare adventure as bad as anything cooked up in television dramas, and it is all true. Without our help, a very good man may die. Speaking out against radical Islamism and advocating dialogue and diplomatic relations with Israel are apparently "crimes" punishable by death in Bangladesh. Fearless journalist Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury is on trial for sedition, a capital offence, because of those stands. His trial begins October 12. That is hardly the worst part of his story. Salah was one of the first to warn about the rise of Islamist radicalism in Bangladesh, explaining how it was carefully incubated in Madrassahs and encouraged by corrupt authorities. The world was surprised when bombs began going off all over Dhakka some time later, but Salah was not surprised at all. When the US pressed Bangladesh to recognize Israel, Salah supported the move through his newspapers. He established contact with an Israeli dialogue group, IFLAC, and attempted to come to Israel to talk about encouraging dialogue through the media. He was arrested at the airport in November, 2003 as he was about to board a flight for Israel. He began living a Kafkaeseque nightmare that has continued for three years. Salah wrote several letters from jail describing the conditions and his failing health. He was charged with sedition, and with a passport offence for attempted travel to Israel. The Arab world press generated outrageous rumors insisting that Salah was an agent of the Israeli Mossad intelligence organization. Pressure from US officials and the House of Rrepresentatives ultimately obtained his release on bail after he had served much longer jail time than the passport offence penalty would have required. Salah was convinced that the sedition charges would be dropped, but that was not to be. The case has dragged on and on as the government sought to fabricate a case for sedition. The office of his newspaper was recently bombed and Salah was badly beaten by a mob. It seems that getting beaten up and having your office trashed is also against the law in Bangladesh. Salah now faces an addition "trial" for that "offence." This is how it happened, as Salah relates: I was assaulted by a mob led by BNP's Cultural Wing leader Helal Khan and Babul Ahmed on 5th of October. Weekly Blitz Managing Editor M. A. Ahsan was also seriously injured, which resulted in suspension of the publication of Weekly Blitz for this week. ...Mr. Ahsan and I immediately rushed to the Shahbagh Police Station and met the officer-in-charge, Rezaul Karim, to lodge a complaint against the attackers and ask that they send police forces to our office to guard our properties. However, the police officer, (who reportedly received TK. 200,000 as a bribe from the attackers) reluctantly asked us to go back to homes, take a shower and meet him after several hours... The attackers took unlawful possession of our office and looted a number of computers, printers and other valuables from the office. Earlier, when they attacked me, Babul Ahmed shouted, "He is an agent of Jews, kill him". They snatched my mobile phone, took TK. 42,000 cash from my pocket and forcibly took away the key of the vault of the office and looted TK 350,000 cash. It may be mentioned here that police protection was mysteriously withdrawn from our office four days before the attack. Meanwhile, more surprisingly, the government has also withdrawn police protection from my residence, which has definitely put my entire family in to a tremendous horror. Now, supposedly being given legal protection by the police, we lodged a formal case with the Court of Metropolitan Magistrate on Sunday, 8th of October. The Metropolitan magistrate Mizanur Rahman sent the case to criminal Investigation Department (CID) for investigation and necessary actions. But, the influential people (the attackers) belonging to the ruling party are now trying to press CID to send the matter to cold storage. Hearing that we lodged the complaint, the attackers, under the direct patronage of the officer-in-charge of Shahbagh Police Station, lodged a false complaint with the police station in the evening of 8th October, where Rezaul Karim (the OC) instructed his fellow officers to issue warrant of arrest against us. On the following day (9th of October) another false complaint was filed by the attackers with the Court of Metropolitan Magistrate, which the court sent to Shahbagh Police Station for investigation and action. The court also accepted the petition of the attackers and instructed the police to raid my office and residence. This incident forced me to go into hiding on the dark hours of 9th October, as I was told by some journalists that the officer in charge was ready to arrest me, assault me in custody and kill me. The officer in charge is continuously conspiring to do everything to 'give me a proper lesson'. The attackers also held a press conference in Dhaka on 10th of October, where attacker Babul Ahmed said, "Shoaib is an agent of Israel and Jews". I appeared before the Court of Metropolitan Magistrate Mr. Shafiq Anwar on the 11th of October 2006 through my lawyer Advocate Samarendra Nath Goswami for bail. The magistrate in the bail order wrote, "the counsel appearing for the state (that is a police officer) strongly opposed the bail petition. But, the allegation is confusing. So, the bail is granted"....They want to harrass us and want to see the complete death of Weekly Blitz, which is the most outspoken newspaper in Bangladesh. If we do not find a way to help him, Salah may be convicted of treason and executed, or killed by the mob. In the best case, his life and health would be ruined by a long jail sentence and a slanderous and violent campaign. Please write or phone elected representatives, Bangladesh government officials and human rights groups. Frankly, letters from Israel to Bangladesh authorities may harm his case. An article by Bret Stephens that describes Salah's ordeal is below. Letters to Bangladesh authorities should be polite and not abusive and should emphasize the harm that this case is doing to the good image of Bangladesh in your country and the need to pursue justice. Sample letter (with additional contact information in the addresses) Ms. Khaleda Zia, Prime Minister, Government of the People's Republic of Bangladesh, PM's Office, Old Sangshad Bhaban, Tejgaon, Dhaka, Bangladesh Fax: 880-2-8113244 Mr. Md. Lutfozzaman Babar, State Minister, Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of the People's Republic of Bangladesh, Bangladesh Secretariat, Topkhana Road, Dhaka-1000, Bangladesh Fax: 880-2-7171611 Ambassador Shamsher M. Chowdhury Embassy of Bangladesh 3510 International Drive NW Washington, DC 20008 Telephone : (202) - 244 - 0183. Emergency number during evening hours: 202-244-4727 Fax: (202) - 244 - 7830/2771 Email: bdootwash@bangladoot.org Your excellencies, I am gravely distressed to learn of the trial of award winning journalist Salahuddin Shoaib Choudhury for sedition and other false charges. Mr. Choudhury has done nothing more than pursue his job as a journalist and his duty as a citizen. In addition to legal procedings, he has been beaten and robbed and denied police protection. I request your urgent intervention to stop this nightmare travesty of justice, which is ruining the image of Bangladesh around the world. Additional contact information for Bangladesh officials: Bangladesh Consulate, New York, Fax: 212-682-9211 Email: contact@bdcgny.org Sheikh Mohammed Belal, Counsellor-1 (Pol.), Embassy of Bangladesh, Washington DC. Tel: 202-244-4616 (W) 718-938-1271 (cell) Letters to elected officials in your country and human rights groups should explain the case and ask for action to protect Mr. Choudhury. Sample letter: Dear XXX, This is to request your urgent intervention to save the life of award-winning Bangladesh journalist Salahuddin Shoaib Chourhury. He has lived a three year nightmare of jailings, and beatings since he tried to travel to Israel in November 2003, and is now being tried for sedition and other false charges that are capital offences because of his outspoken stands against Islamist extremism. His case has been the subject of editorials in the New York Times and Wall Street journal. A previous appeal by the US Congress helped bring him a reprieve, but the Bangladesh government has continued to prosecute his case. Without your help, Salahuddin Shoaib Choudhury may die. US officials US Embassy in Dhakka, Bangladesh - dhaka@pd.state.gov US Senators: Go to www.senate.gov Click on "find your senators" in the top right corner. US Congresspersons: Go to www.house.gov Enter your zip code near the top in "find your representative" Human rights groups Amnesty International http://web.amnesty.org/contacts/app.nsf/contact+us?readform&language=eng&presence=international+secretariat Human Rights Watch: 350 Fifth Avenue, 34th floor New York, NY 10118-3299 USA Tel: 1-(212) 290-4700, Fax: 1-(212) 736-1300 hrwnyc@hrw.org OR 1630 Connecticut Avenue, N.W., Suite 500 Washington, DC 20009 USA Tel:1-(202) 612-4321, Fax:1-(202) 612-4333 hrwdc@hrw.org

PLEASE FORWARD THIS MESSAGE TO FREINDS AND ACQUAINTANCES AROUND THE WORLD AND ASK THEM TO ACT
Ami Isseroff

Darkness in Dhaka

October 10, 2006
Bret Stephens
Wall Street Journal
Meet Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury.

As these lines are being written, Mr. Choudhury, a gadfly Bangladeshi journalist, is running for his life. Assuming he survives till Thursday, he will face charges of blasphemy, sedition, treason and espionage in a Dhaka courtroom. His crime is to have tried to attend a writers' conference in Tel Aviv on how the media can foster world peace. If convicted, he could face the death penalty Welcome to Bangladesh, a country the State Department's Richard Boucher recently portrayed in congressional testimony as "a traditionally moderate and tolerant country" that shares America's "commitment to democracy, human rights and the rule of law." That's an interesting way to describe a country that is regularly ranked as the world's most corrupt by Transparency International and whose governing coalition, in addition to the ruling Bangladesh Nationalist Party of Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, includes two fundamentalist Islamic parties that advocate the imposition of Shariah law. There are an estimated 64,000 madrassas (religious schools) in Bangladesh. The Ministry of Industries is in the hands of Motiur Rahman Nizami, a radical Islamist with a reputation of a violent past. In March the Peace Corps was forced to leave the country for fear of terrorist attacks. Seven other journalists have also been brought up on sedition charges by Ms. Zia's government, most of them for attempting to document Bangladesh's repression of religious minorities. But few stories better illustrate the Islamist tinderbox that Bangladesh has become than Mr. Choudhury's. "When I began my newspaper [the Weekly Blitz] in 2003 I decided to make an end to the well-orchestrated propaganda campaign against Jews and Christians and especially against Israel," he says in the first of several telephone interviews in recent days. "In Bangladesh and especially during Friday prayers, the clerics propagate jihad and encourage the killing of Jews and Christians. When I was a child my father told me not to believe those words but to look at the world's realities." With that in mind, Mr. Choudhury, then 38, began publishing articles sympathetic to Israel in the Weekly Blitz while reaching out to Jewish and Israeli writers he encountered on the Web. That led to the invitation by the Hebrew Writers' Association, and to Mr. Choudhury's only crime: By attempting to travel to Israel in November 2003, he violated the Passport Act, which forbids citizens from visiting countries (such as Israel and Taiwan) with which Bangladesh does not maintain diplomatic relations. Violations of the Passport Act are usually punishable by a fine of $8. But that wasn't the sentence meted to Mr. Choudhury. Following his arrest he was taken into police custody and, as he tells it, blindfolded, beaten and interrogated almost incessantly for 10 days in an attempt to extract a confession that he was spying for Israel. He refused to offer one. He spent the next 16 months in solitary confinement in a Dhaka jail, where he was denied medical treatment for his glaucoma. By then, Mr. Choudhury's case had come to the attention of Congressman Mark Kirk (R., Ill.), who intervened with Bangladesh's ambassador to the U.S. to secure Mr. Choudhury's release on bail, though the charges were never formally dropped. Help also came from Richard Benkin, a Chicago-area activist who has taken up Mr. Choudhury's cause, and the American Jewish Committee, which invited Mr. Choudhury to the U.S. in May to receive its Moral Courage Award. But Mr. Choudhury says he decided to forgo the trip after a government minister warned him, "If you go, it will not be good for you." In July, the offices of the Weekly Blitz were bombed by Islamic militants. In September, a judge with Islamist ties ordered the case continued, despite the government's reluctance to prosecute, on the grounds that Mr. Choudhury had hurt the sentiments of Muslims by praising Christians and Jews and spoiling the image of Bangladesh world-wide. Last week, the police detail that had been posted to the Blitz's offices since the July bombing mysteriously vanished. The next day the offices were ransacked and Mr. Choudhury was badly beaten by a mob of 40 or so people. Over the weekend he lodged a formal complaint with the police, who responded by issuing an arrest warrant for him. Now he's on the run, fearing torture or worse if he's taken into custody. Much of Mr. Choudhury's current predicament can be traced to Ms. Zia's reluctance to cross her Islamist coalition partners, who are keen on the case of the "Zionist spy" and would like nothing more than to see him hang. It doesn't help that a powerless caretaker government will take charge later this month in preparation for next January's elections. The U.S. Embassy in Dhaka has kept track of Mr. Choudhury and plans to send an observer to his trial. But mainly America's diplomats seem to have treated him as a nuisance. "Their thinking," says a source familiar with the case, "is that this is the story of one man, and why should the U.S. base its entire relationship with Bangladesh on this one man?" Here's an answer: Bangladesh does not mean much strategically to the U.S., except for the fact that it is home to some 120 million Muslims, many of them desperately poor and increasingly under the sway of violent religious notions imported from Saudi Arabia. The Bush administration, which every year spends some $64 million on Bangladesh, has made a priority of identifying moderate Muslims and giving them the space and cover they need to spread their ideas. Mr. Choudhury has identified himself, at huge personal risk, as one such Muslim. Now that he is on the run, somewhere in the darkness of Dhaka, will someone in the administration pick up the phone and explain to the Bangladeshis just what America expects of its "moderate and tolerant" friends? Wall Street Journal, October 10, 2006 Original content is copyright 2006 by the author. Posted at ZioNation-Zionism and Israel Web Log, http://www.zionism-israel.com/log/archives/00000262.html . Please forward by e-mail with this notice, cite this article and link to it. Other uses by permission only.

#2: KOBRA RAHMANPOUR CASE, IRAN On behalf of this 25-year old woman in prison, sentenced to death for defending herself against her mother-in-law, her family is appealing to the world community for her life. Kobra was abused and assaulted by her elderly husband, and when her mother-in-law attacked her with a knife, she struck back. There are many such cases in Iran, Pakistan, etc. Full information is available at: www.save-kobra.blogfa.com. A Petitition in her support has now been signed by over 2000 people world-wide. It may be found on the Web at: www.petitiononline.com/mod_perl/signed.cgi?kobra. Note: between mod and perl there is a space: _. Thus: mod_perl.

#3: UPDATE ON OTHER CASES The Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk has just been awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. Yet last winter he faced charges of defamation of the nation in a Turkish court. Fortunately, he was acquitted, but the scene at his trial was tumultuous. Similarly, Elif Shafak was brought to trial on the same charge (Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code) on September 21 of this year. She was unable to attend as she had just given birth to a baby and was in the hospital. The actual charge was based on a character in Shafak’s novel The Bastard of Istanbul. At the trial, the charge was dismissed by the court on the grounds that fictional characters could not be actionable. In an op-ed essay printed in the Washington Post on September 24, Shafak reviewed the dramatic development and conclusion of her case: “I was receiving tremendous support from many…segments of Turkish society—women, Kurds, non-Muslim minorities, Sufis, liberals, conservatives, intellectuals, academics.” She sums up her response thus: “I felt that I was seeing the start of a transformation of Turkish society, and the hope for a transformation of the legal system and the political culture that surrounds it.” In a similar case from India, ICPF Coordinator Jaya Gopal reports that in the case of the confiscation of Taslima Nasrin’s autobiography by authorities, the ban has been lifted, and all the confiscated copies returned to the author.

#4: RESOURCES Issue #12-13 of Brave Minds, the Chronicle of the ICPF, for May-August 2006 has been published. In its extent of 80 pages, editor Marvin Zayed includes the first part of his report on his recent trip to Russia and other countries in Europe. In Russia he attended a Conference on Knowledge and Belief at the Academy of Philosophical Sciences, where he gave an important talk, the text of which is also included in this issue. Write PO Box 41153, Elmvale, 1910 St. Laurent Blvd., Ottawa, Ontario K1G 5K9, Canada. In addition, Brave Minds and the IPCF now have a website!! Go to: www.braveminds.info. Parts of the site are still under construction. We need your interest and support for this project. The redoubtable scholar Warren Allen Smith has now developed a new phase of his work, which he calls the Philosopedia, somewhat on the model of the internet encyclopedia called Wikipedia. This is now available on the Web at: www.philosopedia.org.

Moving From Salafi to Rationalist Education

2006-06-22T06:15:00.000-07:00

Contribution to the conference on modernity and Arab modernity
held in Beirut from 30 April to 2 May 2004).

By: Lafif Lakhdar

In an article published in the Paris daily Le Monde (1) under the title ‘Geared up for the 21st century’, Gerome Binde, Director of the Analysis and Forecasting Office of UNESCO, wrote that humanity should rise to meet four challenges dictated by the new century. First, the principle of “lifetime education for everyone” should become a foundation of a new social contract which should substitute the now-decrepit 1945 welfare-state contract. Second, sustainable development should be promoted, since future generations are entitled to a clean environment and abundant resources. It goes without saying that education is a key factor in realising future development. Third, global democracy should be instituted. Again, this challenge can only be met through providing people with a good education, since democracy cannot flourish in illiterate societies, to say nothing of societies which regard democracy as a sign of apostasy, believing in shura (consultation) as an alternative. The fourth challenge is the realisation of peace, which is also a precondition for meeting the three other challenges. Because when education—religious education in particular—advocates jihad (holy war against the infidels) as the focal mission which contemporary Muslims should pursue unto the Day of Judgment, it becomes incapable of meeting the challenge of peace.

On its part, the World Bank Report of 2003 cited education as the central challenge in the development process. A focus on education implies a focus on comprehensive and sustainable development.

I have always believed—and written to this effect since 1993—in the modernisation and rationalisation of education in general, and religious education in particular, as a central mission of the Arab intellectual elite.

The question is why education is so important.

Piaget said that during his time, French schools degraded the genius into a talented person and the talented into a trivial one. Along the same line of thought we can say that, due to the role played by salafi religious education, the Arab-Islamic school—with the sole exception of the modern, rationalist Tunisian school—has followed suit and moved even further: it has degraded the peaceable person into an aggressive one, and the aggressive person into a terrorist.

The self-evident question is why the Arab-Islamic elite provides new generations with an education which falls short of enabling them to cope with the era they live in and to confront its challenges. The answer in brief is that because the Arab elite lacked democratic legitimacy, especially based upon political and socio-economic achievements, it sought to adopt Islamism—without resorting to Islamists—instead of a societal project guided by modernity and rationalism.

The school which embraces such a project should cover the workers of the future, the technicians, engineers, researchers, scientists and physicians. And its job should be to produce citizens who are equipped for the contemporary age, who think independently of their forefathers, and who are good at using logical reasoning instead of leaning on the authority of the text. They should accept, without any complication or feeling of guilt, the rational and human institutions, sciences and values of their age, even those which contradict with their forefathers’ heritage and tradition. Such a school is as yet non-existent in any part of the Arab World except Tunisia, which has managed, especially since 1990, to restructure religious education in a way that breaks away with the salafi school. The salafi school relies on the authority of the literal religious text in its superficial form, steering clear off any interpretation which takes into account the historical reading of the text. It is only through such a historical reading that Islamic religious discourse may be renovated, and Islam may be adapted to modernity, especially since it has become clear that adapting modernity to Islam—the so-called Islamisation of modernity—was a trick to evade modernity itself. Open religious rationalism—subjecting the religious text to rational investigation and research—ought to become the core of the aspired religious education in the Arab-Islamic region, since it is absurd to believe the text and deny reality.

The salafi school instils in the younger generations a religious fanaticism which entails a phobia of dissimilarity and a rejection of the other, to the upper end of approving his or her execution. This rationale has dominated Islamic—especially Sunni—consciousness since the emergence of the Qadry belief (referring to the caliph al-Qader Bi’amr Allah – in 422 of the Hejra).

The rational religious school equips religious education with modern sciences, including the study of comparative religions. This serves to open the Islamic consciousness to extinct religions such as the Babylonian and the Egyptian, and helps to understand the historical development of the three monotheist religions. Actually, without studying extinct religions, comprehending living religions would be mythical. The sociology of religion teaches the young generations the social functions of religion, and how it was exploited by social and political actors. Psychology teaches these generations that God is similar to the father, who is the origin of the idea of God to children and primitive people, and offers them paternal protection as well as comfort and solace during hardships. Religion also responds to a basic deep-rooted need in the human psyche: the need for a second life; Freud said that the subconscious is dominated by an aspiration for eternity. Linguistics teaches young generations that the religious text is a convergence of texts which interacted throughout history, and that each text is prone to interpretation due to its metaphoric character. Students can then think of the sacred text on their own, and interpret it according to people’s interests and needs, as well as the requirements of the times.

Philosophy promotes critical thinking—an ingredient sorely missing in our heritage. Students can thus practise creative questioning instead of relying on ready-made answers either imported from outside or deduced from the heritage of their forefathers. Worth mentioning is that philosophy curriculum now taught in Tunisia in the last two years of secondary education, in accordance with that taught in France. It is also taught at Zaitouna (religious) University, as well as in all other scientific studies, including technical specialisations. Human rights studies guarantee the modernisation and rationalisation of Islamic consciousness through advocating values of modernity and rationalism. Islamic consciousness has so far distanced itself from modernity, on the pretext that it was the domain of Jews and Christians, which according to Ibn Taymiya of the salafi school, should be disproved even if it is good for Muslims.

If we are to aspire to an open religious rationalism, top priority should be given to introducing three main reforms to Islam in order to transform it from a religion based upon Jihad and martyrdom into one based upon spirituality. For centuries, before the Roman Empire adopted it as its formal religion, Christianity had lived on as a spiritual religion—a shelter of comfort and solace to believers in the face of oppression. But when it became the state religion, its spirituality faded and gave way to interference in mundane issues—even though such interference contradicts the message of the gospels. The spirituality of Christianity was only saved through the churches which the state had not dominated, such as the Coptic Church.

As for the Roman Catholic Church, it abandoned Christian spirituality and allied itself with the state, plunging in all its Machiavellian and military practices, even resorting to hiring warriors to launch wars on its behalf, and the atrocious Inquisitions. The Church retrieved its spirituality only when modernity separated religion and state, and clerics were sent to quiet monasteries just as the apostles had lived.

Islam, for its part, will not become a spiritual religion unless it is separated from the state with its mundane practices. Separating the spiritual and temporal aspects of Islam however, can only be realised through two indispensable conditions: reconciling Islam to itself and to the other. The former entails recognising the humanity of women and their equal status in relation to men. Positive law should substitute fiqh (Islamic Jurisprudence), which deems women deficient in terms of both religion and reason. When the Saudi Mufti Sheikh Abdelazis al-Sheikh announced a few weeks ago that women driving cars were equivalent to adulteresses and had, hence, to be punished by stoning, he showed the world the real and astounding image of non-spiritual Islam: the Islam which is hostile to women and validates physical punishments. Reconciling Islam with the other implies, on the other hand, substituting modern constitutions which recognise full rights for all citizens regardless of religion for fiqh provisions on dhimmis (free non-Muslim subjects living in Muslim countries), which as non-Muslims are considered semi-citizens or even non-citizens. In the same token, such reconciliation involves recognising international law to substitute fiqh regulations which divide the world into dar (zone of) Islam, dar of war and dar of kufr (infidelity).

How can this end be reached?

We should rid religious education and discourse, as well as our laws and institutions, of all the temporal aspects of Islam. A new reading of Islam has to be adopted in school curricula and religious discourse. It should recognise, as its starting point, that the spiritual message of Prophet Mohammed was confined to preaching: “But if they turn their backs, verily unto thee belongeth preaching only” (Surat 3). That the Prophet’s message was restricted to preaching was cited in 13 verses, all of which were in the Koranic chapters revealed at Medina. The concept was expressed in different ways in many verses such as: “Wherefore warn the people; for thou art a warner only” (Surat 88). Thus the spiritual message of the Prophet of Islam was limited to reminding. As for domination or governance, it is the mission of earthly rulers. Verses of spiritual Islam, based upon preaching and reminding, converge with the Biblical verse which was the foundation of separating the temporal and the spiritual in Christianity: “Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s and unto God the things which are God’s”. But after migrating to Medina, Mohammed became a prophet, an army leader, and a chief of a core of a confederation he called Umma (nation), a Hebrew word meaning tribe. Consequently, Mohammed’s political and military practices as well as the Koranic verses which codify them are not trans-historical but temporal and limited to the era which produced them. Verses on jihad, war, physical punishment and earthly dealings were temporal, and are no longer consistent with Muslims’ and non-Muslims’ needs and interests or with present-day requirements and values.

That some Koranic verses are invalidated by the Koran itself, represents an overt admission that these were temporal verses whose provisions later became out-dated. In this sense, the Prophet’s Companions understood temporal verses. Abu-Bakr abrogated the verse on 'those whose hearts are reconciled': “Alms are to be distributed only unto the poor and the needy, and those who are employed in collecting and distributing the same, and unto those whose hearts are reconciled” (Surat 9). To explain invalidating the verse, Tabari said: “bribery existed during the Prophet’s time, but not after he passed away". Omar Ibn el-Khattab, Ali Ibn Abitaleb, and Moad Ibn Gabal invalidated verses on spoils: “And know that whenever ye gain any spoil, a fifth part thereof belongeth unto God, and to the apostle, and his kindred” (Surat 8). Similarly, faqihs (jurisprudents) abrogated the verses necessitating the existence of written debt-contracts: “When ye bind yourselves one to the other in a debt for a certain time, write it down” (Surat 2). Al-Wenshrisi invalidated verses exempting the Prophet’s relatives from receiving alms. The Companions and faqihs used logical reasons to justify invalidating some Koranic verses and Hadith (the Prophet’s sayings): Abu-Bakr, to justify invalidating the verse on those whose hearts are reconciled, said: “Islam is strong enough and there is no need for them”. Omar Ibn el-Khattab justified abrogating the verse on spoils by the “interests of future generations: “If you take Iraq, what will be left for your successors?” Faqihs justified invalidating the necessity of written debt-contracts by the “widespread illiteracy in different areas”. Al-Wenshrisi considered that “Giving alms to the Prophet’s relatives was more protective of their dignity than letting them beg in the streets”. He said: “Time has dictated the provision of alms to the Prophet’s relatives”. In the meantime, we can build upon al-Wenshrisi’s logic and further say: ‘The passage of time dictates the invalidation of all temporal verses because they are no longer consistent with the needs of the period we live in or the interests of our contemporaries’.

The necessity of separating the temporal verses from the spiritual is no longer an issue to be shelved, but is becoming increasingly dominant in modern Islamic consciousness. Dr Mohammed Abdel-Mutalib el-Houni says: “In brief, a large number of Islamic codes did not operate in a vacuum, but were interrelated with people who had their grievances, cultures, economies and lifestyles. All Koranic verses therefore which enact laws on human dealings are temporal, and should not be endowed with a nature of perpetuity, because they concerned Muslims who lived at that time or in subsequent periods, under similar conditions. At the same time, we must differentiate between crime in the civil sense, the punishment of which should be determined by the people according to the conditions of the time they live in, and in the moral sense, meaning crime of a trans-historical nature. In other words, we should differentiate between crime and sin: the former is dealt with by the people, while the latter is concerned with the conscience, and if it warrants punishment, it is related to the hereafter. Such a distinction has become necessary today so as to differentiate between life and the hereafter.” The passage is a quotation from a forthcoming book entitled: al-Ma’zaq al-Arabi: al-Arab fi Mowagahat al-Istratigiya al-Amrikeya (The Arab Crisis: Arabs in the Face of the American Strategy), in the chapter on ‘Misunderstanding Faith’.

Adopting this kind of historical reading of Islam in religious education, and teaching students that Jihad should be invalidated, are major pre-conditions to transform Islam into a spiritual religion, wherein believers do not die for the sake of God. The situation is inverted in Christianity where God dies to redeem His sons. To entrench this new reading in the minds of the younger generations and realise the enlightened education we call for, many verses may be used as a starting point. One example is the verse “Call upon me and I will hear you” (Surat 23). In this verse, God presents Himself to believers as a sympathiser who wastes no time to respond to their calls. Another verse “He is careful over you and compassionate and merciful towards the believers” (Surat 9) shows God as compassionate and merciful, not requiring believers to die for Him.

Liberating the state from religion has the merit of converting the state into a purely mundane institution which handles citizens from a rational and earthly reference point, away from theological constraints. This entails a modern constitution, law, and education, which all lead to equality between men and women, Muslims and non-Muslims. Moreover, liberating the state from religion would transform the latter into a spiritual and Sufi gift, admired even by those who do not follow any religion. Spiritual religion is close to art, which is enjoyed by all exquisite souls. I feel a special pleasure when reading Sufis of all religions, particularly Ibn Arabi, the founder of the ‘religion of love’, which was developed some centuries later by Seurbach in his book, “Essence of Christianity”.

The religious education prevalent in the Arab World, except for Tunisia, fights the modern reading necessary for Islam today. Consequently, I herewith present models of Islamic education based upon jihad, which antagonises the other in its broader meaning: the self, women, non-Muslims, life and reason. In contradistinction, I will present a sample of the curriculum taught at the Tunisian Zaitouna University, which I consider a solid base for teaching the religious rationalism we so badly need.

Teaching the worship of forefathers

“With the passage of time, far-reaching deviations took place with the message of Mohammed. Many traditions disappeared, giving way to heresy. The Companions and their adherents stood firmly against these heresies and suppressed them. The Companions revealed the truth and annulled matters of suspicion. Whenever a heresy emerges, God sends persons to face it, expose its defects and render victorious the Sunni tradition. And whenever one of those who advocate an aberration appears, God sends a great Sunni figures to confront and defame him through annulling his heresy. When the first heretical tendencies appeared at the time of Omar al-Farouk, God sent Omar who corrected the deviation, punished the whole nation, chastised the deviators through burning them with fire, and ordered to whip those who underestimated the two Sheikhs [Abu Bakr and Omar]. When some people rose to deny the predestination, late companions such as Ibn-Amr, stood against them and exposed their defects. When Gilan al-Demashqui declared his heresy, followers of prophetic tradition stood against him. When he persisted, Hisham Ibn-Abdel-Malik killed him. In the same way Prince Khalid Ibn-Abdullah al-Qasry sacrificed al-Gaad Ibn-Derham. Wherever heresies arose, Sunni multitudes rose to combat them. When advocates of heretical tendencies mobilised, God sent them Ahmed Ibn-Hanbal, the Sunni Imam and the suppressor of heresies. He defeated them, and thanks to God, they never rose again with the same strength. Ibn-Taymiya, the Sheikh of Islam, was a fighter who used his knowledge and rhetoric against those of scholastic theology, philosophy, Sufism and other heresiarchs. His legacy and writings still represent a reference to anybody adhering to Sunni principles and a mote in the eyes of each heresiarch.” Tawheed (monotheism) curriculum, first year of secondary education. (2)

This text is only one of many taught to Saudi young people to coach them in the worship of the forefathers. This worship has been strongly present in the collective Islamic sub-conscience, and it prevented the acceptance and comprehension of the sciences, and especially the humanities, as well as the values of modernity. Moreover, the text instructs pupils to reject the right of disagreement. Muslims other than salafis are treated as heresiarchs or deviators; thus enemies. A student therefore becomes ripe for the execution of all sorts of symbolic and bloody violence; he can burn others with fire as Omar allegedly did, and behead those who disagree with him as Khalid beheaded the faqih al-Gaad Ibn Derham (a ruler of Damascus under the Umayads, known for adopting ideas of Mu’tazela). This shows how could education lead to incitement for terror.

Another text which mirrors the salafi perspective, based upon accusations of infidelity and heresy, reads: “Celebrating the Prophet’s birth implies the imitation of Christians. Thus ignorant Muslims, clergies and mobs gather to celebrate in a way which is not devoid of polytheist and repulsive practices”. (3)

In the same context, Saudi curricula mobilise students to deem those Muslims who depart from the salafi principle infidels. These curricula teach that, “Arab nationalism is an idea related to atheism and jahiliya (pre-Islamic state of ignorance), and aims at fighting Islam and getting rid of its codes and teachings.” (Curriculum of hadith, second year of secondary education). “Nationalist thought overlooks religion and regards it as a stumbling block in the way of nationalism.” (Hadith, second year of secondary school). “Adhering to parties and to nationalism—which is an aspect of racism—is a sign of riddah (apostasy from Islam)”. (Curriculum of Tawheed, third year of secondary education).

“Beyond doubt, the idea of nationalism is a setback towards jahiliya.” “After being politically and culturally invaded by Europe, the Muslim World became subject to these fanaticisms based upon race and nationalism, but people should know that these loyalties represent a punishment inflicted by God on those who turn away from his Sharia (Islamic code) and disavow his religion”. (Tawheed curriculum, third year of secondary education.) (4).

In the context of teaching young generations to reject the achievements of modernity as signs of infidelity, Saudi curricula say: “Muslims should not listen to the press, radio, or television, since these are immoral institutions detached from faith.” (5)

“If a journalist writes that development plans terminate poverty and that progress of medicine puts an end to malady, he is a mushrik (polytheist)”.

“Taking part in activities such as ‘tree week’ or ‘traffic week’ is an mimicking of infidels; students who follow this practice are sinful and disobedient.” (7)

“A Muslim who travels to the countries of infidels to learn, trade or cure, should live with them while harbouring feelings of hatred towards them.” (8)

Al-Azhar curricula make no less effort to inject into the Islamic consciousness legends of the Middle Ages that malign women, non-Muslims, reason and life.

Dr Khalid Montasser says: “If we look into the curriculum of al-Azhar secondary education, we will find a level of intellectual backwardness that the graduate later carries even as he attempts to respond to the latest developments in our time. The books of fiqh that al-Azhar students have to study were written centuries ago. Both al-Raod al-Morabaa fi Sharh Zad al-Mostanqaa which explains the doctrine of Ahmed Ibn-Hanbal, and al-Iqnaa fi Hal Alfadh Abi Shogaa on the doctrine of Shafei, were written four centuries ago, and al-Ekhtebar li-Taaleel al-Mokhtar was written more that five centuries ago to explain the doctrine of Abu-Hanifa. The most recent book is the one on the doctrine of Malek al-Moqarar Mena al-Sharh al-Saghir was written two centuries ago.

The jargon in these titles is surprising. It is natural that these books, written so long ago, should bear some weird and archaic terms and ideas. Enlightened Muslims have called for modernising religious education. Among the most important studies to this effect is one by Alaa-Qaoud in his book on reforming religious sciences, as well as studies by Ahmed Sobhi Mansour, Selim al-Awa, Tareq al-Beshri, and the Sheikh of al-Azhar.

Spotlighting a few points of the al-Azhar curricula may help us realise how dangerous a role they can play in breeding disguised terrorism or at least sponsoring stagnation and bigotry.” (9)

“In the 21st century, students of al-Azhar read what would happen if a man tells his wife ‘I will divorce you if it is found that this flying bird is a crow’. Pupils keep trying to solve this difficult puzzle. They have to study what is the fate of two bisexuals or two lesbians who make love in Ramadan before sunset. Is it necessary to wash if a man inserts his penis in a vulva of a beast? What if a monkey or any animal inserts his organ in a human being? If a woman has two vulvas, what would be the fate of menstruation? We, poor human beings, are ordered to bow down while resting on seven bones: head, two hands, two knees, and two legs; what will happen if one was born with two heads and four legs and four hands?”

“What benefit will our young people and children gain if they have to read strange, archaic terms which appear meaningless to present-day Arabic speakers? The same can be said of the terms these books use to identify measures, shares and weights; they resemble mysteries in hieroglyphic or Chinese. Prayers should be shortened if the distance between one’s home and the place he travels to accounts to 10 farsakh. The weight for giving alms is wesq, which is 60 saa (we know neither the former nor the latter). We should take into account that the Islamic derham is equal to six donaq”!

“The above is a sample of the archaic terms and weird puzzles our poor children and brothers studying at al-Azhar are subjected to. Again, the attitudes and habits of the period when these books were written are elucidated in boring detail. Deplorably, these norms are offered in the form of orders that should be obeyed. In a chapter on wedding banquets and refinement in eating, it says: “One should eat with three fingers and should clean the spaces between the teeth; he should wipe the plate and suck the remaining food and drink. A book on ‘selling’ instructs that it is prohibited to price things and to sell dogs. A section on funeral prayers teaches: “It is better for the patient not to be cured.” Does this imply that we should get rid of health insurance in al-Azhar schools to save effort and money? As for the regulations on testimony, it is written that the testimony of singers and those who eat outside their home, should not be approved. In brief, the testimony of Umm Kolthoum—the greatest singer of the second half of the last century—would not be accepted, neither would that of contemporary pop singer Hisham Abbas or any other singer.

As for you, dear reader, you can be sure that your testimony would never be accepted in a court of law because I am sure you have eaten a sandwich of falafel or Kentucky Fried Chicken one of those days! You should then be cursed and counted among those disreputable people whose testimony cannot be accepted, according to the laws of the honourable al-Azhar.” (10)

“At the beginning of the third millennium, al-Azhar students learn medical myths of old days. They read about cures using camel urine, and are taught that men should never talk while making love because this would result in dumbness or stammering! In the section on ears, these old books instruct muezzins to place the forefinger in the ear while announcing the hour of prayer because this makes the voice louder. The prayer is void if a black dog passes by, because black dogs are devils. Along the same line of thought, the menstrual flow is described in odd terms: ‘the blood departs from the bottom of the womb for feeding and raising children’. The book on funerals indicates that the signs of death are: ‘temples go down, nose leans, hands separate from the body and legs loosen up’! Conservative faqihs have used this quotation to preclude a law on organ transplant and to reject the determination of clinical death through modern medicine. The book on the Shafei doctrine contains so much unscientific information. For instance, it teaches that dead lice and fleas are not impure because they have no blood; water at night is a shelter for jinn; after doing the ablution before prayers, one should not dry himself with the lower part of the robe, since this would bring poverty. Clothes should be folded at night so as not to be worn by jinn. As for the refinements of going to the toilet, it is undesirable to fill the urinary passage with cotton, and one should not spend much time in toilets because it creates pains in liver. When the books refer to nature, thunder is reported as an angel whose wings are the lightning which helps direct the clouds! Relaxation of brain nerves is caused by vapours that rise out of the stomach. The book defines death as: ‘the disappearance of the heart’s consciousness though the organs continue active and strong’. Malek defines twins as: ‘the two sons should be considered twins in their mother’s womb if the time separating their age is less than six months”! (11)

A firmly established concept of Middle Ages fiqh—to this day taught in al-Azhar and other religious institutes in the Arab World except for Tunisia—is antipathy towards women. Women are symbolised by the rapacious mother. The book of al-Raod al-Moraba teaches that a man is not required to pay for his wife’s coffin, since he is only required to pay for her clothes as long as they are married and he can take pleasure in his woman. Again, the same book, in the section on expenses instructs: ‘a husband may not pay for his wife’s medication or doctor fees, because treatment is not one of her habitual necessary needs’. He also has ‘the right to prevent her from attending the funeral of her father and mother and from breast-feeding her baby from another man. He has the right to beat her in a non-severe way if she fidgets while talking to him. Such non-severe beating approved by the book is ten whips—less than a dozen strokes! Definitely, a woman’s deyya (the money paid as compensation for killing someone) is half that of a man’s. Even the aqiqa (the sheep slaughtered to celebrate the baby’s birth) is minor when the baby is a girl: two sheep are slaughtered when the baby is a boy and one sheep when it is a girl. The chapter on making love yields the oddest information one can think of. The husband is obliged to no more than one sexual intercourse every four months and his wife has no right to object. The book sanctions the marriage of a man to a girl who is less than nine years old. Other books which students have to study are full of ridiculous talk on female slaves, regulations for marrying them, their deyya, and on the private parts of the body. Regulations directing the relationship with female slaves are different from those of free women. Strangely, it is better to marry a woman whose mother is dead than one whose father is dead, because mothers spoil their daughters. There are many more terrible things these books cite on women.

The second concept persistent in old Islamic fiqh is resentment towards non-Muslims. Today, leaders of political Islam still call for such concepts to be put into practice. When Mustafa Mash’hour called for expelling Christians from the army and transforming them to dhimmis, he was applying what he had learned in the honourable al-Azhar. A chapter on Aqd al-dhimma (the contract governing the relationship between Muslims and non-Muslims in Islamic countries) instructs: this contract implies that Muslims approve the infidelity of some non-Muslims under the condition that the latter pay jizya (tribute paid by non-Muslims). They should be humiliated while paying the jizya; they should be forced to stand for a long time with their hands dragging, in accordance with Allah’s saying: “pay tribute by right of subjection”. Further discrimination takes on a horrible dimension; if implemented, society would be ruined. It is recommended that: ‘they (non-Muslims) should not be buried in our tombs; should enter bathrooms with jingles or leaden marks on their necks; they should ride donkeys without saddles, they should not be allowed to ride horses; they should not be allowed to lead meetings; should not be treated respectably when they arrive; they should not be saluted, congratulated, consoled, or wished merry feast; they should be prevented from ringing their (church) bells; they should resort to the narrowest alleys when walking”.

Had al-Azhar resorted to rational thought, it should have taught its pupils and students the book by the Egyptian historian Abbad Abdelrahman Kohaila, “Ahd Omar” Treaty of Omar—the treaty said to have been signed upon the surrender of Jerusalem to the Muslims (Dar al-Dirasat wal-Bohooth al-Insaniyya wal-Igtimaiya, Cairo, 1996). The book manages, through using historical methodology, to show that attributing the Omar Treaty to Omar Ibn-al-Khattab is a myth. Islamic consciousness may thus open to the principles of modern citizenship which reject religious-based discrimination, or that based upon any other difference.

Except for Tunisia, the solid base of religious education in Arab religious institutions is the worship of forefathers, briefly justified by near-mathematical axioms such as: Ijtihad (individual innovative judgment) is not allowed in things regulated by Koran and Hadith. To justify this idea, Rashid al-Ghannoushi (leadr of a Tunisian extremist group) said, “because our nation does not accept anything but what Allah and his Prophet said.” (12)

What does it mean?

It means rejecting everything new on the ground that it is a heresy. Hadith says: “Each heresy is a deviation, and each deviation is doomed to hell”. This implies rejecting modernity together with all its institutions, sciences, values, and lifestyles, since modernity is supposedly an imitation of the infidel Jews and Christians. Ibn Taymiya said in his book Iqtidaa al-Sirat al-Mostaqim Mokhalaffat Ahl-al-Gahim (walking in the right path requires being different from the people of hell): “Our forefathers used to say: if one of our Ulama deviates, it means he is imitating Jews, and if one of our ordinary people deviates, he is imitating Christians.” (13). He added: “Stress your differences from them in some or most things” (14). Because being different from them [Jews and Christians] brings us benefits and good in everything we do. Even the good things they do in their lives could be harmful to us in our lives or in the hereafter, so remaining different from them will bring us goodness”. (15)

Such psychological enslavement is core to the worship of the forefathers, which involves a commitment to their literal orders and prohibitions, and a verbatim implementation of their texts without any independent judgment; otherwise the forefathers would inflict their wrath upon us. “Indigenous people of the Pacific venerate ships, since they believe that the food brought by ships to white colonisers was a gift sent by their ancestors, whereas their own ancestors sent them no similar ships, as a retribution for their disobedience. Not only that, but their ancestors let them be less technologically advanced than the whites. These people then try to satisfy their ancestors so as to send them ships loaded with food instead of those sent to their white enemies.” (16)

Marcia Iliad said: “When anthropologist and evangelist Strehello asked people of the “Arentha” Australian tribe of the reasons behind some of their rituals, they said: ‘because our ancestors ordered us to do so’. In New Guinea, members of the Cay tribe justify their refusal to change their lifestyles by: ‘our ancestors used to do this and we follow them: we must slaughter as they used to do, and we should do today what they did in ancient times’. We hear the same words among Hindus: ‘we should do what our gods did in the early days’. In Hindu tribes, women should sit in a squatting position and men should sit with their legs crossed, because the first woman [Eve] and the killer of the monster [Adam] used to sit so when the universe was first created. People of the Karadgy Australian tribe say that the tribe’s habits and manners such as the manner of cooking crops, hunting animals and the position one should take while urinating, were established by supra-natural beings at the time of dreaming.” (17)

Ancestor-worship impeded the development of primitive people’s consciousness, since it discouraged them from independent interpretation of the words and deeds of their forefathers. The Salafi School followed exactly that same path when it converted the text into an absolute reality—a ceiling to the freedom of thought. The text became a constraint which chained mentalities, at least since the 12th century when traditional exegesis defeated rational exegesis and when traditional jurisconsult defeated rational jurisconsult. In this context, faqihs used to mock the ‘jurisprudence of opinion’ advocated by the Hanafi tradition.

The ancestor-worship which dominates religious education and Koranic sciences, including language, literature, and grammar, has succeeded in sidelining the humanities which specialised in studying religion, such as the comparative history of religion, the sociology of religion, and suchlike. It resulted in a relentless war against the studies of humanities and called for their Islamisation, stripping them thus of their critical momentum. As for the natural sciences, they were either maligned or stripped of their original role—as concepts explaining phenomena—and exploited to serve religious delusions.

Examples abound. In 2000, al-Azhar banned writings on the theory of evolution, and barred all books which contained any sign of critical thinking. It is no coincidence that Cairo hosts an annual gathering on the miracle of science in the Koran—the pretension that the Koran contains all human scientific knowledge. This despite the fact that both Imam al-Shatbi and al-Taher ben Ashour denied the existence of any such miracle of science, on the ground that Allah addressed the Arabs of the age of the Prophet in a manner which then suited their mentality. There have also been repeated fatwas (formal legal opinions voiced by Muslim clergies) throughout more than a century, deeming the theory of evolution a sign of apostasy. The most famous of these fatwas was issued by Sayed Qutb in his book Maalem ala al-tareeq (Milestones on the Path), in which he regarded the theory of evolution, philosophy, and humanities as antagonistic to religion in general and to Islam in particular. In the same context, some faqihs forced the Saudi government to close the institute of genetic engineering, under the pretext that “genetic and bio-engineering represent an interference by creatures in the affairs of the Creator” (18). Saudi and Muslim researchers had to migrate to Canada and the US. In his book “Naqd al-aqliya al-arabiya” (A Critique of Arab Mind), Tunisian researcher al-Hashemy Shaqroun wrote: “Books are still to be written on summing the number of angels, using calculators, and estimating them at 120 million, that could be recruited in the war launched by Arabs and Muslims against Israel”. (19)

The ancestor-worship which dominates education from school to university reigns supreme in all aspects of social life, even those covered with the gloss of modernity. Mid-20th-century Iraqi writer al-Zahawi was right when he said: “We have sciences, a Constitution and a parliament, but the meaning and role of each is distorted”. Ancestor-worship is also manifested in the modernity-phobia which dominates the Arab mentality, modernism being regarded as heresy or imitation of Jews and Christians. This mentality resorts to two subconscious tricks to evade modernity. The first is religious self-sufficient narcissism which considers itself in no need of any kind of self-renovation, on the pretext that “The first left nothing to the last”. This concept dominated the Sunni Salafi jurisprudence of the Middle Ages, which is based upon the superficial literal text, and excludes any interpretation thereof. Those who rely on interpretations are said to “inherit nothing but aberrations”.

The second trick was adopted by most—if not all—Islamic reformers of the 19th century and is still to the present day advocated. It argues that we should renovate our thought so as to evade French modernity. These reformists succeeded in eluding modernity, but did not renovate fiqh due to a very obvious reason: the core of renovating fiqh lies in the adoption of modern legislation, values, sciences, and institutions whose logic and ends are different from those of the fiqh of the Middle Ages. The above-mentioned samples of this school of fiqh are but a mere drop in a sea of outdated values and regulations.

Egyptian Islamic writer Mohammed Emara says: “After Refaa al-Tahtawi (an early 19th century thinker) realised the threat posed by Western non-religious positivism while in Paris, he called for renovating the fiqh of Islamic dealings to prevent Napoleon’s positivist secular law which was already infiltrating the Islamic World’s commercial circles, governance institutions, judiciary and legislation. His student Mohammed Qadry Pasha codified the fiqh of the Hanafi doctrine to meet the same end: filling the void in the then-existing law through renovating and legislating Islamic jurisprudence. The huge effort exerted by the Ottoman state to codify the fiqh of the Hanafi doctrine—published in 1869 in the magazine of judiciary regulations—followed the same path of renovating fiqh, thought and discourse to fill the vacuum in the Islamic World with an Islamic civilisational alternative instead of westernisation.” (20)

In brief, all conscious and subconscious tricks were used to abandon the imitation of Jews and Christians and reject their civilisation. This was achieved either through ancestor-worship in its blunt form, or through the less overt illusion of inventing a type of modernity exclusive to us. The third trick was the schizoid mating of modernity and authenticity, which merely neutralised one by the other.

If my diagnosis is accurate, the exit from the stormy crisis of modernity faced by the Arab World is through a conscious break with “the commitment to be different from Jews and Christians”, especially in the media, education and religious discourse. This implies reconciliation with their modernism—which has become international—without complexes or guilt feelings. Reconciliation with the other—in this case Jews and Christians—is an indispensable pre-condition for reconciliation with their civilisation.

In the case of Tunisia, the media, educational system, and religious discourse began some fifty years ago the break with the Islamic consciousness of the Middle Ages, dominated by a phobia of Christians and Jews. The three concepts central to religious studies in Zaitouna University are the promotion of ijtihad in understanding religious texts without any restriction on rational thinking, the reliance upon rationalist thought and the humanities which specialise in the study of religion during the study of religious texts, and third, the realisation that Islamic consciousness must reinstate the other, particularly the Jew and the Christian.

A law issued on 8 February 1995 delineates the tasks of Zaitouna University and the objectives of the education it provides as follows:

“In view of the general objectives of higher education and scientific research and the mission of universities, and in view of the Tunisian national identity, the commitment to Arab and Islamic civilisation, and the duty to enrich human civilisation, the system of study in Zaitouna aims at meeting the following ends:

1. Securing a cognitive structure which qualifies the learner to discover aspects of Islamic faith, thought and civilisation which lead to the elevation of the human self to a free and responsible personality, able to adhere to the noble ends of religion and at the same time respond to the exigencies of life.
2. Entrenching the awareness that Islamic thought, with its different aspects, is a fruit of the efforts of generations of creative and thoughtful ulama. Commitment to Arab and Islamic civilisation requires inspiration by its brilliant facets, and the focus on ijtihad to advance knowledge so as to add to previous creative achievements.
3. Firmly establishing Zaitouna University as a model of a school for religious thought based upon enduring tolerance, a renovated viewpoint on religion and history, an aspiration to a rich spiritual life and persevering work for the good of humanity.
4. Empowering the learner to interact profoundly with cultures and civilisations, enrich human thought, and combine the brilliance of modernity with that of heritage. This would urge the student to understand well all the various aspects of modern knowledge, and would afford an opportunity to experience directly products of global thought”.

In view of this outlook, I herewith detail the most important parts of “the student’s guide”—the programme of the Higher Institute of Religious Fundamentals of Zaitouna University. I place the model before decision-makers in the educational domain in the Arab World and the whole world, if they wish to prove their sincerity in their pursuit to reform education in general and religious education in particular through versatile rationalism and the reinstatement of Jews and Christians. This should be the gateway to open the consciousness of Muslim young people to modernity.

**Unit of Sira (biography of Mohammed) and Sunna (the Prophet’ words and deeds)
• Writing the Sira: “Objective: The course is concerned with the early writers of sira, particularly Ibn Ishaq, and the nature of writing this art. The aim is to grasp:
a- The historical and mythical aspects of narrating sira;
b- The objectives of Sira associated with glorification of the Prophet and those associated with devotion;
c- The manner in which narrators perceived the Prophet’s character”.
• Sunna, its problematic recording and legislation: “Objective: Justifying the need to record sunna and the conditions which surrounded the process of recording it. How sunna was transformed from a subsidiary of sira into a source of legislation. The aim is that the student understands the historical and scientific difficulties surrounding legislation that is dependent on sunna”.

** Unit of History of Fiqh: “Objective: The course aims at utilising the perceptions adopted by faqihs concerning human society and societal values, based upon Islamic faith. It is concerned with revealing the role of fiqh, studying the early emergence of provisions and how fiqh opinions proceeded to reach the status of doctrines; each doctrine has its own perception, closely related to the society of the faqih with respect to time and place”.

** Unit of History of Religions
• Introduction to history of ancient religions: “The course focuses on ancient religions among Egyptians, the people of Carthage and Indians. It reveals the general conception of these beliefs, and explains their emergence and development; it aims to objectively deduce the features of religious thought.”

I would like to draw readers’ attention to the fact that the ancient Egyptian religion, which influenced Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, is taught solely at Zaitouna University; no other religious university in the Arab World—including al-Azhar—teaches it. To comprehend the impact of ancient Egyptian religion on monotheist religions, the reader may refer to the book written on this topic in French by Tharwat al-Assuity.

• Introduction to Scriptural Religions: “Objectives: The course scrutinises Judaism and Christianity, explaining their emergence and highlighting the similarities between them two, in a manner which respects the words of their founders.”

I would like to draw the readers attention to the relevance of “in a manner which respects the words of their founders” since it represents the first step towards reconciliation between the fanatic salafi consciousness and religions of the other, particularly the Jew and the Christian. The Tunisian religion curricula—from primary to higher education—prepares the consciousness of young generations to respect both the Jewish and Christian discourses, and to consciously break away with the hatred of Jews and Christians.

**Unit of Old and Modern Doctrines of Commentary:
• Commentary and its doctrines up to the 7th century: “Objectives: The course seeks to reveal the historical character of commentary and the fundamentals of commentators as shown by their works. To achieve this aim, the emergence of the need for commentary and the transformation of commentary into a science is studied, as are the directions of commentary and interpretation, through relating them to the commentators’ concerns and to the period they lived in.
• Commentary currents in modern times: “Objectives: the course seeks to explain how the interests of the Ulama influenced their interpretation of the Koran. It elaborates on the commentators’ concerns, explains their views and investigates aspects of modernity in their discourse as well as the way they grasped preceding methods of commentary.

**Unit of Fiqh and its Fundamentals
• The emergence of the science of fiqh fundamentals and its status among sciences of Sharia: “Objectives: The course focuses on the fundamentals of fiqh as a science which regulates the relationship between faith and the development of society. It explains fiqh fundamentals through Islamic code, divisions of discourses and aspects of reasoning, and it construes the character of fiqh thought and determines the status of fiqh fundamentals among the sciences of Koran and Hadith.”

** Unit of language
• English, French, German, Spanish or Turkish. “Objectives: The courses focus on broadening the first year curriculum, and stress its application to religious texts.”
• Latin, Greek, Persian or Hebrew. “Objectives: The courses focus on broadening the first year curriculum, and stress its application to ancient religious texts”.

** Unit of Islamic Sects: “Objectives: The course is concerned with:
a- The central effect of socio-political factors on infidelity and belief;
b- Differences among sects in interpreting religious texts in accordance with society’s needs;
c- The consistence between sectarian views and transformations of Islamic societies;
d- Foundations of Islamic thought, based upon the different sects”.

Source: al-Nobakhty, Feraq al-shia (The Different Sects); Al-Ashaary Maqalaat al-Islamiyeen (sayings of Islamists).

** Unit of Sufism: “Objectives: The course focuses on studying Islamic Sufism through investigating the history of its emergence, the factors behind Sufism and the roots of Sufi quotations. The course looks into the development of Sufism and the relevance of the answers it gives—through private interpretation and personal worship—to the questions posed by Islamic societies. It deduces the standing of Sufism in the course of Islamic thought.

Source; Ibn Arabi, al-Fotouhat al-Makkiya (Mecca Invasions). Al-Ganeed, Ibn al-Fared, al-Hallag.

I would like to draw the readers’ attention to the fact that most religious curricula, particularly in the Gulf countries, consider Sufism a regression towards paganism, but the Tunisian educational system studies it objectively. We should not forget that Sufism rid Islam—especially Sunni Islam—of part of its coarseness, and provided it with a spiritual breeze that had been always missing.

** Unit of Modern Islamic Thought
• Reformist thought in the 13th century of the Hijra (19th AD) and early 14th century of the Hijra (20th AD). “Objectives: The course is concerned with the emergence of reformist thought in the Arab and Islamic countries throughout the mentioned period. It focuses on the writings of reformists such as Qabado, Tahtawi, Khaireddin, al-Afghani, al-Kawakbi, Mohammed Abdou, Rashid Reda, al-Thaalbi, al-Haddad, al-Taher bin Ashour, as well as the movements they expressed. Their writings are analysed to show the influence of modern values on their opinions.

Sources: Selections of writings by reformists of the epoch.

** Unit of Sciences and Arts of the Arab-Islamic Civilisation.
• History of sciences in the Arab-Islamic epoch: “Objectives: The course is concerned with the classification of the sciences by the Greek philosophers, the development of the meaning of science among Arab-Muslim thinkers, and the way the latter classified the sciences. It is reveals the philosophical prefaces justifying such classifications.

** Unit of Introduction to Linguistics
• Linguistic theories in studying the text: “Objectives: The course stresses the relevance of linguistic concerns in the science of lexical meaning especially in relation to understanding and interpreting texts. To this end, it explains some of the relevant theories of linguistics and reveals their bases in philosophy and knowledge. The aim is that the student would realise the relevance of linguistics in understanding religious texts.”

Source: Ferdinand de Saussure, Lessons on General Linguistics.

I would like to draw the readers’ attention to the central goal of studying linguistics in religious education: ‘linguistics are relevant in comprehending religious texts’.

** Unit of Introduction to the Study of Law
• Introduction to the study of law. “Objectives: The course is concerned with the emergence of the need for law institutions; it investigates aspects of legislation, the relationship between law and society, and the services offered by law to the human value of freedom. It studies the sources and development of contemporary Tunisian law.
Source: Mohammed el-Shorafi, Madkhal ila Derassat al-Qanoon (Introduction to the Study of Law); Institutions and ruling systems in Islamic thought.

** Unit of Fiqh and its Fundamentals
• Tunisian doctrines of fiqh: “Objectives: The course focuses on the history of Tunisian doctrines of fiqh and analyses the reasons behind the emergence of certain doctrines and the absence of others. Specific models of the fiqh on dealings are studied to grasp features of Tunisian thought of fiqh and to analyse them.”

Source: Sahnon, al-Modawana al-Kobra (The Greater Record). Ibn Aby Yazeed, al-Ressala (The Message). Al-Zelaei, Tabeen al-Haqaeq (Revealing Realities).

• Fundamentalist positions on consensus, analogy, and tradition as means of concluding provisions. “Objectives: The course stresses the relevance of these fundamentals among other basics of provisions; it explains questions of consensus, analogy, and tradition, and matters of agreement and disagreement; it manifests foundations of different opinions, investigates the starting point of each current, and deduces some features of old fundamentalist thinking.

Source: selections of books on fundamentals, consensus, analogy, and tradition such as Ibn Hazm and al-Amadi: al-Ahkam fi Ossool al-Ahkam (Fundamentals of Provisions).

** Unit of Scholastic Theology Research and Philosophical Questions
• People’s deeds among the Motazalites, Hanabalites, Asharians: “Objectives: The course is concerned with quotations from the three sects on people’s deeds; the quotations are examined in the light of the societal concerns of their time. The aim is that the student would grasp the development of conviction among Muslims, the perceptions adopted by these sects on man’s status in being, living and the hereafter, and the way they understood the reasoning behind human action. The explanation and interpretation of Koranic texts is the base of studying these questions.

Source: Abedlghabar al-Moghny: Asl-aladl (Origin of Justice); Ibn Batta al-Hanbaly: al-Ibana (The Exposition); Ibn Fork: Mogarad Maqalat al-Sheikh abi al-Hassan al-Ashari (Mere Writings of Sheikh Abi al-Hassan al-Ashari).

• The Question of Freedom in Modern and Contemporary Philosophical Thought: “objectives: The course seeks an understanding of modern philosophical European thought on the question of man’s freedom, will and actions, through investigating the thought of Espinoza and Sartre. It highlights the:
a- Differences between Islamic and modern European thought on the question of fatalism and voluntarism;
b- New values manifested by modern thought;
c- The influence of new modes of understanding on modern Islamic thought.

Sources: Selected writings by Espinoza and Sartre.

• Sacred Religious Books: “Objectives: The course is concerned with the faith of prophecy in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam; matters of disagreement are analysed.

Sources: The Bible and Koran.

I would like to draw the readers’ attention to the relevance of studying the Bible and the Koran side by side, to re-educate Islamic consciousness as to the equal status of the books of the three monotheist religions. Books of Judaism and Christianity are considered by religious curricula in Arab countries as distorted books devoid of sacredness and whose instructions should not be respected except for those approved by the Koran.

• Human rights in Islam, religious heritage and international and regional conventions: “Objectives: The course seeks to construe the perception of the believer in Islamic revelation on the one hand, and in scriptural religious heritage on the other. The aim is that the student would grasp the interest of all religions in preserving the rights of human beings, and in liberating them from any constraints which hinder their ability to bear personal and civil responsibilities. It is also concerned with presenting international and regional conventions on human rights and analysing the modern values advocated by these conventions. The aim is that the student would be aware that the question of human rights is a totality that leans on global values and represents a consequential for progress. For the question of human rights to be established, daily efforts and a sustainable culture are required.

Sources: Koran, Sahifa, the Bible. Human Rights International and Regional Documents, prepared by Mahmoud Sharif Basuini, Mohammed Said al-Daqaq, and Abdelazeem wazeer.

** Unit of Comparative Fiqh
• Earthly provisions among Sunni and Shiite Imams: “Objectives: The course elucidates earthly provisions as thought of by both Sunni doctrines and Shiite jurisprudence of imams; these provisions are analysed in the light of conditions in Islamic societies. The aim is to grasp how Shiite and Sunni doctrines considered social reform on the basis of faith and interpretation of Islamic texts”.

Source: Malek: al-Maota. Abu Youssef Ketab al-Kharag. Al-Toussi, al-Mabsout”.

**Unit of Comparative Religions
• Monotheism in scriptural religions: “Objectives: The course is concerned with monotheism faith in Judaism, Christianity and Islam; it traces and analyses common and different perceptions.

** Unit of Comparative Religious Research
• Prophecy in scriptural religions

** Unit of Contemporary Commentary on Islam and Islamic thought:
• Modernity in contemporary Arab-Islamic thought: “Objectives: The course deals with the problematic of modernity in contemporary Arab-Islamic thought through explaining:
a- The philosophy of modernity as formulated by some contemporary Arab thinkers;
b- the currents of thought they present to modernise their societies;
c- Foundations of each current in relation to the understanding of heritage and the present challenges of knowledge”.

** Unit of History of the Philosophy of the Middle Ages
• Introduction to political philosophy in Islam: “Objectives: The course tackles the dimensions of politico-philosophical thought in relation to the problems facing Arab-Islamic societies in the Middle Ages. It also focuses on evidence of Greek philosophy in Islamic politico-philosophical thought.

Sources: Al-Farabi, Araa Ahl al-Medina al-Fadela. (Opinions of Utopians).

** Unit of Sociology of Religion
• Currents, methods and problematic of sociology in relation to studying the phenomenon of religion: “Objectives: The course deals with sociologists’ explanations to the religious phenomenon, the questions they deal with when analysing the affect of religious beliefs on social attitude, and the impact of social affairs and societal requirements on religious writings on divinity, prophecy, revelation, Day of Judgement and completion of creation.

Sources: Emile Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life.

**Unit of Methodology
• Research methodology: “objectives: The course tackles four major questions:
a- The character and tools of sociological research;
b- The use of necessary references including dictionaries, encyclopaedia, and original texts such as al-Tabaqat, al-Regal, al-Boldan (Classes, Men, Countries);
c-Summarising articles and books and determining how to benefit from them;
d- An acquaintance with the art of verifying manuscripts”.

** Unit of the History of Ancient Philosophy
• World and divinity in Greek philosophy: “Objectives: the course is concerned with the theory of divinity and the relationship between God and the world in Greek philosophy; it evidences the influence of Greek philosophy on Islamic philosophical thought”.

Sources: Aristotle’s book on Metaphysics; Platos book on Dialogues with Timeos.

Following the above sample of the courses offered by Zaitouna University, is an examination model which summarises the central dimensions of the philosophy of religious education in Tunisia. We hope that they would also become the central dimensions of the philosophy of religious education in the Arab World.

Ministry of Higher Education
University of Zaitouna
Higher Institution for Fundamentals of Religion
Exam for the academic year 1997/8
Year: first
Course: Koran
Semester: May
Class: four credit hours; maximum: 40
Questions:

• You remember that a number of instances were behind God’s saying: “Let there be no violence in religion” (The Cow). Among these incidents was one in which a man of the Ansar [people of Medina] had a son whom he wanted to force to convert to Islam. When the father raised the issue to the Prophet, the verse was revealed. Another incident was when a man of the Ansar had two sons who were evangelised by Syrian merchants and departed to Syria; he wanted to run after them to bring them back to Islam. A third was when Ansar women made a vow that if they bore a boy, they would make him a Jew or a Christian so as to live longer. Their fathers wanted to bring the sons to Islam. When they raised the issue to the Prophet, the verse revealed and he said: “God asked your friends to choose, if they choose them, they will be theirs and if they choose you, they will be yours”.
• Investigate these stories and use them to elaborate on the Koran’s stance on the freedom of belief, and the question of accepting the other who is different in religion. Try to employ them in accordance with modern requirements to found the civil society, which prerequisites tolerance and coexistence in order to guarantee progress and security, and in accordance with the aspirations by global community to build interactions on a base of the exchange of interests, regardless of colour, sex or religion.

Signature: Mohammed al-Toumi [then head of Zaitouna University, and the present Minister of Religious Affairs].

FREETHOUGHT SOLIDARITY BULLETIN #4 - May 23, 2006

2006-05-31T11:11:00.000-07:00

Items: #1: Attack on Turkish judges #2: Nazanin case in Iran #3: Writer imprisoned in Iran #4: Book Review #5: Resources

#1: ATTACK ON TURKISH JUDGES

On May 17, an armed attorney opened fire in the country’s highest court, killing one judge, Mustafa Yucel Ozbilgin, and seriously wounding four others while shouting “Allahu Akbar” (God is most great) and “I am a soldier of Allah.” The perpetrator declared to police that he carried out the attack because the court had ruled that a woman who wore a headscarf could not be promoted to headteacher in an elementary school. Since the foundation of modern Turkey, the headscarf issue has been a constant source of friction, as Kemal Ataturk, the country’s acknowledged leader in the 1920s, had prohibited it as a symbol of the subjugation of women. The present government, under Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is in large part Islamist, and appears to aim at weakening secularism. After the attack, tens of thousands of ordinary citizens and political leaders marched to Ataturk’s tomb, in defense of secularism. Turkey’s President, Ahmet Necdet Sezer, declared that “pressure and threats will not intimidate the Turkish judiciary, which will continue its constitutional duties bound to the secular and democratic republic.” The same assailant participated in an attack on the secularist newspaper Cumhuriyet. Messages of protest and solidarity may be directed to Prime Minister Erdogan at bilgi@basbakanlik.gov.tr, and to President Sezer at cumhurbaskanligi@tccb.gov.tr. Sources: Guardian, May 18, 19, 20, 2006; see also the English language edition of the daily newspaper, Zaman, at www.zaman.com, and www.turkish-media.com. The Turkish Human Rights Association has been active in this area for the past 20 years; their website is http://ihd.org.tr, and they have a section on the site in English.

#2: NAZANIN CASE IN IRAN

On January 3, 2006,

Nazanin Mahabad Fatehi, a young woman, was sentenced to death by a criminal court for murder in a case where she stabbed an assailant who with two others, had attempted to rape her and her niece. At trial she stated the act was a matter of self-defense, but unless the Supreme Court of Iran reverses the decision, she will soon be executed by hanging. While we have no information that Nazanin is a freethinker, we still encourage readers to protest such an unjust sentence. Messages should be directed to His Excellency Ayatollah Sayed Ali Khamenei, Supreme Leader, Government of Iran, Soahada Street, Qom, Islamic Republic of Iran, e-mail info@leader.ir. Source: http://save.nazanin.googlepages.com.

#3: WRITER IMPRISONED IN IRAN

In late April, 2006, security officers arrested scholar Ramin Jahanbegloo, and transported him to the notorious Evin prison. The minister of information told the press that he had ordered the arrest because of “his contacts with foreigners.” Jahanbegloo earned a Ph.D. at the Sorbonne in Paris, and is the author of 20 books in English, French and Persian on topics of philosophy and culture. Before his arrest, he was director of contemporary studies at Iran’s Cultural Research Bureau and an advocate of nonviolence and intercultural dialogue.” The April 27 issue of Le Monde newspaper printed remarks by this Jahanbegloo critical of current policies of the Iranian government, and this was the likely cause of the arrest. Letters or messages of concern and protest should be directed to Supreme Leader Khamenei, details in #2 above. Source: New York Times, May 21, 2006

#4: BOOK REVIEW

Robert Spencer.
The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades). Regnery Publishing, Inc., One Massachusetts Avenue, Washington, DC 20001. 2005. 270pp. Paperback. $19.95. Future historians of this book should consider that soon after its publication in the autumn of 2005, it quickly rose to a place on the New York Times bestseller list, before a single review ever appeared. Indeed, as of this date (late November, 2005), the only reviews that have appeared are in a few conservative on-line sources such as Front Page. How could it so quickly have been a success? One factor was the author’s position as director of Jihad Watch, a valuable website (jihadwatch.org) which daily publishes short notices on current developments in the rise of militant Islamic fundamentalism. Another was that Spencer had the good fortune of being invited to various radio programs around the country. Not least is the simple fact that such a book was needed; that is, it is timely, and pulls no punches in its exposé of this variety of fundamentalism. For not only were there the infamous attacks of September 11, 2001, but a multitude of terrorist events which followed: bombings, mutilations, and the like, continuing in many countries. As the title suggests, the book is divided into two complementary sections, the first on Islam as such, and the second on the Crusades. Unlike many “liberal” commentators, Spencer argues that we cannot really understand the Crusades, or indeed, contemporary history, without understanding the origins and character of Islam itself. And also unlike most liberals, Spencer insists that from its beginning, Islam was militant, expansionist, and predatory. The first chapter takes up the life of Muhammed, “Prophet of War.” Here we read a dreary chronicle of assassination, deceit, and revenge. The emphasis is on the role of Muhammed “the raider.” When his own Quraysh tribe of Mecca rejected his prophecies, his “frustration and rage became evident. When even his uncle, Abu Lahab, rejected his message, Muhammed cursed him and his wife in violent language that has been preserved in the Qur’an.” The text (Qur’an 111:1-5) runs thus: “May the hands of Abu Lahab perish! May he himself perish! Nothing shall his wealth and gains avail him. He shall be burnt in a flaming fire, and his wife, laden with faggots, shall have a rope of fiber around her neck!” Subsequently, other tribal warriors in Medina accepted him as a prophet, and launched a series of raids which “kept the nascent Muslim movement solvent and helped form Islamic theology.” Indeed, one could cogently argue, as Spencer does throughout this book, that from its origins, Islam arose as a series of daring raids by desert nomadic peoples against such cities as they encountered. Time and time again, hundreds, then thousands of such warriors would appear as if out of nowhere, proclaiming to the astonished inhabitants of an encircled city that they would be spared if they immediately submitted to Allah and his Prophet. Heavily outnumbered, they usually submitted; those who did not were duly put to the sword. Women and children were sometimes killed as well, but on other occasions were “merely” enslaved. As Islam proceeded with such conquests, extending within a century across many thousands of miles of territory, the victors realized that they needed some local survivors to provide even a minimal form of government. This gave rise to the concept of the dhimmi—the people of “the book,” Jews and Christians who were given a subordinate status on the condition that they pay a heavy tax called the jizya. Such “latitude” has given rise to what Spencer calls the PC myth of tolerance. Forcing Jews to wear a distinguishing Star of David was one of the milder forms of submission. One historian cited by Spencer states that “restrictions of all kinds, unlawful taxation, forced labor, persecutions, violence, imprisonment, death, abductions of girls and boys and their confinement to Turkish harems, and various deeds of wantonness and lust” were the fate of the dhimmi in 19th century Greece under the Ottomans. Such harsh measures, such as assassinations, torture, mutilation and destruction of churches continue today, all carefully documented with extensive footnotes. Muslims often argue that their religion respects women, whereas “western” societies degrade them. Spencer cites numerous passages from the Qur’an stipulating that women are forever to be subordinate to men, including physical punishment for the unruly. Thus verse 4:34: “Good women are the obedient, guarding in secret that which Allah hath guarded. As for those from whom ye fear rebellion, admonish them and banish them to beds apart, and scourge them.” Given such postulates, horrendous practices such as female circumcision are a logical conclusion, justified by leaders like the grand sheikh of al-Azhar in Egypt, “the highest spiritual authority for nearly a billion Sunni Muslims.” Spencer establishes that these ideas and practices are not an aberration within Islam, but are intrinsic to it. Of course, not every Muslim follows these precepts, and there has been resistance throughout history to them, including from women themselves, then as now brutally suppressed. Well, some have argued, even so, Islamic societies have produced science, culture and art comparable to those of any advanced civilization. Spencer’s answer to this is that “there was a time when Islamic culture was more advanced than that of Europeans, but that superiority corresponds exactly to the period when Muslims were able to draw on and advance the achievements of Byzantine and other civilizations.” Jews and Christians within Islamic societies were often the source of achievements in science, philosophy and medicine inaccurately attributed to Muslims. Of course, Muslim scholars began to participate in fields such as mathematics and optics, but the record was mixed insofar as the reinforcement of religious orthodoxy by figures like al-Ghazali (1058-1128) prevailed. In his influential work The Incoherence of the Philosophers, al-Ghazali attacked the “denial of revealed laws and religious confessions” and “rejection of the details of religious and sectarian [teaching], believing them to be man-made laws and embellished tricks.” The result was a many-centuries-long stagnation of Islamic societies. In other words, Spencer charges Islam not only with psychological brutalization, but with philosophical and cultural repression, all of which continue abated to the present day. The second section of the book takes up the Crusades, and here Spencer’s discussion runs into real problems. He cogently argues that in some degree, the Crusades, which began out of contests and disputes with Byzantium over territorial control in the 10th century, were an attempt by Christians to “take back” what the Muslims had seized. Spencer is too honest to just ignore the various horrors carried out by the Crusaders, such as the pogroms against Jews in Germany, but he argues that these were more or less incidental to the broader enterprise. If, however, he has successfully argued that predatory war was “essential” to Islam, how can he argue the same for the abuses by the Crusaders, which included the slaughter of everyone in Jerusalem in 1099. “The Crusaders’ sack of Jerusalem was a heinous crime,” Spencer admits, “particularly in light of the religious and moral principles they professed to uphold. However, by the military standards of the day, it was not out of the ordinary.” What is “ordinary” then? The “rivers of blood” in contemporary accounts, says Spencer, are but “a rhetorical flourish.” Rather lamely, he suggests “there weren’t enough people in Jerusalem to bleed that much.” Citation of other contemporary slaughters of Christians by Muslims doesn’t exactly help his case. The fact is, much of history is filled with horrors perpetrated in the name of religion—whether Muslim, Christian, or Jewish (read the Old Testament for details of the latter). The motto at the beginning of Spencer’s book is Deus Vult!—“God wills it!—the famous (or infamous) battle cry of the Crusaders. Searching the Internet for information as to Spencer’s own personal religious affiliation, I learned that he is a Melkite Christian (Catholic Report, September 22, 2005, at catholicreport.org). Thus he has, if we may use the expression, a personal ax to grind here. Any author is of course entitled to have such a perspective, but readers should be clear that Spencer’s view is that of a conservative Christian. It is thus that his book drew advanced publicity praise from conservative and neo-conservative writers such as Michelle Malkin, Bat Ye’or and Serge Trifkovic. This does not at all mean that Spencer’s book can be ignored. Indeed, writers from this perspective have arguably been more perceptive about Islam’s political trajectory than more blinkered liberals. The great value of Spencer’s book is its marshalling of a great deal of information of which the general public and even scholars are ignorant. His publisher, Regnery, is a venerable conservative house, notable for a long list of stolid and rather boring titles. With this series of “Politically Incorrect Guides,” some of which have been rather harshly reviewed previously, they embark on a new course. This book’s virtues, aside from its main arguments, are attractive sidebars (including some splendid quotations from such as John Quincy Adams and Winston Churchill), careful documentation, and clear, accessible design. While Spencer’s book ignores or minimizes the depredations of Christianity (consider the position of women in that religion!), it is still a relevant and valuable contribution to the field of Islamic studies. (Reprinted from Brave Minds journal, #10/11)

#5: RESOURCES

Robert Spencer’s website, jihadwatch.org, not only follows current developments concerning militant Islam, but has a subsidiary site for which a link is supplied, called dhimmiwatch, which follows controversies concerning accommodations to Islam in the West. There are links to numerous other websites, of varying quality, with conservative ones predominant. I have been a regular reader of postings on jihadwatch, and have noted that while the main viewpoints are conservative, Christian and “western-centric,” the focus is on evidence rather than simple name-calling or bigotry. A website that publishes a regular online “magazine” every two months is www.middleastwomen.org under the direction of Azam Kamguian in London. Also based in London is Houzan Mahmoud, one of the leading figures of the Organization of Women’s Freedom in Iraq (OWFI). Her blog is another good way to keep up with regional developments, at http://houzanmahmoud.blogspot.com. The International Freedom of Expression Exchange (IFEX) operates out of Toronto, and since 1992 has defended “those who have the courage to insist upon their fundamental human right to free expression” when they are “censored, brutalized or killed.” The IFEX has campaigns, spotlight reports and an enormously helpful set of links to related sites. On the links I found the Beacon for Freedom of Expression, supported by the government of Norway, with an informative short account of the great ancient libraries and research centers of Alexandria, as well as special reports on the history of censorship in Norway itself, and a list of the books included on the Index of Prohibited Books of the Catholic Church, which was promulgated on its claim of authority for 400 years. For IFEX, go to ifex.org, and for the Beacon, go to beaconforfreedom.org. We have now received “An Introduction to Reality”—a CD-ROM produced by the remarkable and diligent Emmett Fields of Louisville, Kentucky. Among many other Freethought works on this disk are Joseph McCabe’s 40 volume set “Key to Culture,” originally published by E. Haldeman-Julius in Girard, Kansas. McCabe presents the basic facts of physics, astronomy, geology, biochemistry, paleontology, botany, zoology, comparative anatomy, anthropology, philology, embryology, psychology, history, literature, political science, economics, art, and philosophy, which in times past would have consisted of a good high school education in America, but now would approximate the first two years of college if not more. I read through a large part of the volume on Logic, and found it a masterful exposition. McCabe moved from being a Catholic to a status as “the world’s greatest scholar” and a dedicated Freethinker. The same disk includes McCabe’s “Why I Left the Church,” and his 100-page book “The History and Meaning of the Catholic Index of Forbidden Books,” and more books by other authors—all this for $25 plus postage! Fields has also reissued Watson Heston’s hilarious collection of cartoons from 1892, “The Bible Comically Illustrated” in CD-ROM format. For details, go to bank-of-wisdom.com or write PO Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201. For details on the journal of the ICPF, Brave Minds, direct an e-mail to diahumanism-institute@sympatico.ca, or write PO Box 41153, Elmvale, 1910 St. Laurent Blvd., Ottawa, Ont. K1G 5K9, CANADA. The journal has now reached several issues, and is a unique source for analysis and documentation of the contemporary defense of Freethinkers, and the historical context in depth. IF you do not wish to continue receiving this Bulletin, send a message to fredwh@swbell.net with FSB UNSUBSCRIBE in the subject box.

Back from Iraqi Kurdistan

2006-05-26T16:17:00.000-07:00

By Abu Khawla (*)

The Spring Festival took place in Erbil, the capital city of Iraqi Kurdistan, on April 22-30. The event was organized by Almada, Presided by Fahkhri Karim, a long time opponent to the regime of Saddam Hussein, and offered a great opportunity for Arab participants to witness the progress the autonomous province has made since the early 1990's.

As soon as we started landing to Erbil international airport, one could witness how the city expanded during the last 15 years under the protection of the "no fly zone". Indeed, as early as 1992, the newly established authority spent about 200 dollars per capita on infrastructure and other basic services (primarily education and health). A public administration was created and a Parliament was elected. Media also witnessed a remarkable boost. No less than a dozen newspapers are now available, in addition to a wide variety of TV channels, broadcasting in Kurdish, Arabic, and one in Turkmen.

The fall of Saddam offered a new opportunity for further developing the province. A new All-Kurdistan Parliament was elected where women occupied 25 % of the seats. Last January, an agreement was reached by the two Kurdish leaders Jalal Talibani And Messaoud Barazani to unify the administration, and a new unified government was sworn in last week in which 11 out of a total of 27 ministerial posts were allocated to small groups.

Oil revenues from the federal budget helped create
better infrastructure. In Erbil, two universities were created and a new industrial city and an offshore media city are planned. And the city of Sulaimaniya is striving to achieve similar progress. Recently, an American pharmaceuticals company announced an investment in the amount of $ 900 million to satisfy demand in the province and the rest of Iraq.

A Reuter's dispatch dated 29 April, 2006 stated "not only Kurdish expatriates are moving in. The Sulaimaniya Palace has been overtaken by a Lebanese company; a Norwegian outfit is looking for oil; Turkish, British, Iranian, Chinese and other multinational firms are looking for bases here". These companies are voting with their feet for Iraqi Kurdistan to seize the immense opportunities the province offers. Fertile land and abundant water could turn the region in a granary for Iraq and beyond. Similarly, there is huge potential for Agro-industries and meet production and processing, mountain tourism attractions and others... Further oil exploration is also a real possibility. K. Petrolium company from Canada just signed an agreement with the Kurdish authority for oil exploration, and others are expected to follow suit.

For an Arab like me it was heartening to witness first hand how Kurds are welcoming our visit after long decades of isolation and oppression. And the opening of Erbil international airport in 2005 is making it possible for them to reach out to the outside world. Direct flights are now organized from Amman, Istanbul and Stockholm. Other destinations will soon be available.

Two points were stressed in our meetings with Presidents Messaoud Barazani and Jalal Talibani: (1) Kurdish autonomy in a Federal Iraq and (2) outreach to the Arab world. On the former, the Kurdish leadership is well aware of the impossibility of total independence, and that being part of a unified and federal Iraq may offer better protection against neighboring Iran and Turkey. As regards outreach to the Arab world, this enhances their relation with the Arab majority inside Iraq, and offers them good prospects in terms of investment and trade.

The Festival was also an opportunity for us to meet Iraqis coming from Baghdad and other regions. Differences in opinion remain about the role of the foreign military presence, but there was unanimity about the condemnation of the rebellion and a cautious optimism about the ability of the new government to defeat terror.

(*) The author is former President of the Tunisian section of Amnesty International. E-mail: Abuk1010@hotmail.com

Lafif Lakhdar: Religion Within the Limits of Reason

2006-05-16T04:07:00.000-07:00

On March 17, 2006, the weekly magazine of the Israeli daily Haaretz published an intellectual profile of Tunisian-born reformist thinker Lafif Lakhdar, which was titled "The Roots of Jihad." In the interview section of the profile, Lakhdar, a veteran activist, [1] analyzes the roots and goals of Islamism and Islamist movements, and presents his vision of reform in the Arab and Muslim world.
Lakhdar, a former columnist for the Saudi-owned London daily Al-Hayat, was fired on the instructions of the paper's owner, Saudi Prince Khaled ibn Sultan, for describing the Saudi regime as "barbaric" on an Al-Jazeera talk show. [2]
In the Haaretz interview, Lakhdar argues that Islamist terrorism should be treated as a crime against humanity. In October 2004, he was one of three Arab intellectuals who asked U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and the Security Council to establish an international court to try these terrorists, including clerics who issue fatwas calling for the killing of "infidels." [3]
Referring to the Muhammad cartoons printed by the Danish paper Jyllands-Posten in September 2005, Lakhdar asserts that "every artist and every researcher should be free to write about all religions without any restriction."
In the interview, Lakhdar traces the roots of terrorism in Islam back to the period when Muhammad and his followers established the Muslim community (the Umma) in Medina. He says he advocates going back to the Koranic verses that said that Jews and Christians would be saved at the end of days - verses which were later abrogated. Lakhdar states that it is his belief that this abrogation itself should be abrogated. Moreover, he says, verses that incite to jihad should be removed from school textbooks, and modern sciences should be introduced into religious institutions "so that students will be able to understand the religious text in terms of modern logic." Religious jihadist incitement should also be eliminated from the Arab media, he says.
Regarding Hamas's victory in the Palestinian elections, Lakhdar says that he believes that peace negotiations with Israel are unlikely, since Hamas's jihad ideology "prohibits the ceding of even an inch of Muslim land to infidels." In his view, Hamas is now facing a dilemma it did not seek: Either it forgoes its charter in order to negotiate with Israel, or the Palestinian people will forgo Hamas.
The following are excerpts from the Haaretz profile, including the interview with Lakhdar, in the original English. [4]
An Arab Spinoza
Lakhdar, who is 72, conducts his struggle from an apartment in a poor Paris neighborhood, many of whose residents are immigrants...
Dr. Shaker Al-Nabulsi, a Jordanian researcher who three months ago published (in Beirut) a book entitled "The Devil's Advocate," the first comprehensive study of Lakhdar's thought, wrote an ironic article about Arab society, which worries about ill and aging singing stars but ignores the misery of an intellectual of Lakhdar's stature. The article likens Lakhdar to the "prophet of liberty," Thomas Paine, who fought for human rights and secularism in the American War of Independence and in the French Revolution.
Yigal Carmon, head of the Washington-based MEMRI Institute, which studies the Middle East media - the institute has translated and published several of Lakhdar's articles - likens him to Spinoza, who like him was persecuted and ostracized because he insisted on grounding his thought, including his critique of religion, on reason.
"If we were living in a normal world, the entire international Left would acclaim him," Carmon says. "He is an amazing person, deeply immersed in Arabic and French culture, an intellectual with broad, diverse and up-to-date knowledge, not only in philosophy, Islam and history, but also in psychology, and he is thoroughly humane. The French, or the Europeans in general, who are coping with problems of immigration, should have placed him at the head of an advisory council on integration, where he could explain, educate and serve as a role model."...
Lakhdar was born to a poor Muslim family of fellahin... He received no formal education, only Koran studies in the village, and he chose a religious university because it was tuition-free and offered free lodgings and a modicum of food. ("For two weeks during the religion lessons, I secretly read Darwin.") He then studied law, and afterward worked for three years as a lawyer.
In 1958, he represented an opponent of the [Tunisian] regime who was convicted and executed. The authorities then issued an order restricting Lakhdar's movement. In 1961, he fled Tunisia with the help of Algerian freedom fighters and spent nearly 20 years wandering the world using forged passports.
He became a socialist in Algeria ("First of all from the gut, because of the hunger - I didn't understand why others had and I didn't - and then I found philosophical justification for the message of egalitarianism"). He was close to Algerian President Ahmed Ben Bella, and was present at the meeting of Abu Jihad and Che Guevara, but in 1965 had to flee Algeria after Ben Bella was deposed in a military coup.
... In 1968, he was a guest of the Fatah leadership in Amman, which housed him in the same apartment as Yasser Arafat, rather than in a hotel, in order to protect him from Algerian intelligence agents. Over the years he has incurred the wrath of nearly every Arab regime, and thus the danger of death is nothing new to him. He has also been highly critical of the "progressive" national movements and of the Arab Communist parties, which supported dictatorial regimes of oppression and feared to confront the clerics...
Lakhdar was soon disappointed with the Fatah leaders, some of whom were influenced by the ideas of the Muslim Brothers. "Abu Jihad told me that there is no chance of overcoming Israel by force of arms, but 'if enough Palestinians are killed maybe the world will hear about us.'" He was far more impressed by Nayef Hawatmeh, founder of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine. "Hawatmeh argued that the only justification for forming a fighting force is to topple the Arab regimes," he says. "He convinced me..."
He retranslated the Communist Manifesto into Arabic, based on the German source (he insisted that the cover declare that it is "the first genuine translation" and found a publisher only in the Israeli radical left), to which he appended a sequel of his own, "The Origins of the Arab Bourgeoisie." Some readers discerned a Koranic influence in his writing, to which he admits: "I integrate the poetic spirit of the early parts of the Koran, which are all poetry, with the logical, spare and synonym-less structure of the French sentence."...
Islam and Terrorism
Q: "Many Muslims are protesting the identification of Muhammad, and hence of Islam as such, with terrorism. Is terrorism in fact ingrained in Islam?"
A: "This is what the Islamists themselves say, like the spiritual mentor of Ayman Al-Zawahiri, who is not second in importance in Al-Qaida, but first in terms of religious law, as well as planning and thought. His mentor is Sheikh Abed Al-Qadr Bin Abed Al-Aziz (whose real name is Al-Sayed Imam Abed Al-Aziz Al-Sharif), who asserted, 'Terror is from Islam and anyone who denies this is a heretic.' He and others rely on a few verses from the Koran, and I will give you, as an example, only one of them, from the Surah of the Spoils of War [Surah 8:60]: 'Make ready against them all the power you can [gather], including steeds of war, to strike terror into [the hearts of] the enemies of Allah and your enemies.'"
Q: "On what, then, do Muslims who deny the identification of Islam with jihad and terrorism rely?"
A: "There are two Islams from the period of Muhammad. There is Meccan Islam [referring to Muhammad's period in Mecca], which is a 'Christian' Islam - that is, under Christian influence - and is essentially peace-seeking. The use of violence, even for self-defense, was prohibited. In this Islam, jihad was prohibited. This Islam was the basis for the mystical Sufi movement.
"When Muhammad was forced to move from Mecca to Medina, a second Islam - jihadist Islam - was born. And it is this Islam that the contemporary terrorists have adopted. To justify the passage from the 'conciliatory' peace of Mecca to the militant peace of Medina, Muhammad told the Muslims that jihad is permissible only for self-defense [Surah of The Pilgrimage - Surah 22:39]: 'Permission is given to those against whom war is made, [to fight], because they are wronged.' Muhammad was wronged - he was expelled from Mecca, and the purpose of the defensive jihad is to enable his return.
"Medinan Islam is terrorist Islam. Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradhawi says that terrorism in Islam is positive and should be welcomed. Here he is drawing in part on verse 12 in the Surah of the Spoils of War: 'I will instill terror into the hearts of the Unbelievers: Smite ye above their necks and smite all their fingertips off them.' Osama bin Laden, in a speech on the occasion of Id al-Adha [the Festival of the Sacrifice] in 2003, said that it is best to follow the blessed terror about which Al-Qaradhawi speaks."
Ways of Implementing Reform in the Arab World
Q: "Is there anything that can be done so that Meccan Islam will be strengthened and overcome Medinan Islam?"
A: "My answer is my plan for the reform of Islam, a reform of the Islamic discourse, of religious education, the religious media, the sermons in the mosques, and so forth. The plan is to remove from the textbooks all the violent and jihadist verses and leave them only in the source, in the holy writings."
Q: "Censorship?"
A: "To a certain extent, yes. In Tunisia, this has been done since 1999. The plan is that instead of the violent verses, schoolchildren will be taught the universal verses of peace which exist in the Mecca period. For example, Verse 62 of the Surah of the Heifer, which says [Koran 2:62] 'Those who believe [in the Koran], and those who follow the Jewish [Scriptures], and the Christians and the Sabians, any who believe in Allah and the Last Day and work righteousness, shall have their reward with their Lord; on them shall be no fear, nor shall they grieve.' And there are another two similar verses. The sages of the sharia all said that these are 'abrogated' verses. We have to abrogate the abrogation of these three verses and declare that it is the verses against the Jews and the Christians that are 'abrogated.'
"The plan I proposed includes the introduction of modern sciences in the institutions of religious education, as well as comparative history of religion and psychology and sociology of religion, so that students will be able to understand the religious text in terms of modern logic. And also courses in philosophy and human rights, in order to instill modern values into Islam, in which there are now only values of permitted-prohibited.
"Several Arab regimes have already begun to implement this plan, or parts of it. In Morocco, for example, philosophy is now being taught in high schools. In Algeria, a year after I sent an open letter to President Bouteflika, calling on him to eliminate sharia instruction in high-school education, a law in this spirit was enacted last October. And in October 2005, Libya, too, canceled the teaching of jihadist Islam and of the verses that justify violence."
Q: "Many are convinced that the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip is one of the major reasons for Islamic terrorism. Is this so?"
A: "Not at all. People who say this, including experts on whose opinions Western decision-makers rely, do not truly understand the theology of Islamic terror. What are the goals of the terrorism perpetrated by Al-Qaida? Zawahiri described this clearly in his book, 'Horsemen under the Prophet's Banner,' which he in essence wrote as his last testament shortly before the terrorist offensive of September 11 (he was certain that after the attack the United States would liquidate all of them)...
"The goal of Islamic terror, then, is to establish a state that will implement the sharia and divorce itself completely from the infidels - from their religions, their customs, their dress, their institutions, their sciences, and their values.
"But Al-Zawahiri is smart and is aware of the reality. 'Regrettably,' he writes, 'these slogans are not comprehensible to the masses of the nation, who do not find within themselves readiness to sacrifice for slogans they do not understand, even if the slogans [al-hakimiya, al-walaa and al-baraa' - meaning religious rule based on the sharia - Islamic religious law; forging ties with believers only; and total and immediate severance from the unbelievers] are one hundred percent correct.'"
Q: "What solution does he propose?"
A: "...His [Al-Zawahiri's] answer: 'To our slogans [as listed above] we must add other slogans, which are understandable to the masses of the Islamic nation, and instead of viewing them as being of secondary importance, we must move them forward so that they take their place at the forefront' - on the same level as the three original slogans."
Q: "What are the additional slogans he promotes?" A:"'The slogan that the Islamic nation has understood well for 50 years,' he writes. 'This is the slogan of the call for a jihad against Israel.' You have to understand, for him this is a second-rank goal and its use is solely as a Machiavellian means: If we tell them that the goal is a Muslim state that will amputate thieves' hands, they will say no, but this goal is clear and simple.
"Another slogan that Zawahiri promotes is the liberation of the Islamic holy places in Saudi Arabia from the American military presence in the Arabian Peninsula, and in Jerusalem from the presence of the Israeli army. The liberation of Palestine is not the central goal of the terror, but the struggle for it helps the terrorists recruit Muslims for the jihad against the Jews and against the 'Crusaders.' In contrast to the Left, they hate neither American imperialism nor Zionism; they hate the Christians and the Jews. Not because of what the Jews and the Christians are doing to the Muslims, but only because they are Christians and Jews who did not accept the true faith, Islam."
The Muhammad Cartoons and Freedom of SpeechA: "...Culture should be free, and every artist and every researcher should be free to write about all religions without any restriction."Q: "Does that include the Danish cartoonist?" A: "Yes. It includes humor and satire. In the history of Islam you have the poet Abu Nawas, who joked about the Koran. He wrote, for example, 'Your Lord did not say woe to the drunkards / But woe to the worshipers.' That is a secular principle: separation between religion and politics, and between religion and artistic and literary creation, and between religion and scientific research. This is the greatest achievement of modernity. The clerics must not be allowed to intervene in these matters.
"As for the cartoons, one has to see which Arab and Islamic forces protested the affront to Muhammad and used it for their purposes. Syria was the first country to recall its ambassador from Denmark - the same Syria which in 1982 killed 30,000 'Muhammads' at Hama. Its protest intended to make people forget its responsibility for the assassination of [former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik] Hariri. Iran is the same Iran that prevents the Sunnis in Tehran from building a mosque. It protested in order to divert attention from its nuclear program.
"Saudi Arabia is the same Saudi Arabia that, as part of its plan to turn Mecca into a modern city, decided to demolish the building in which Muhammad married Khadija - a rare historic site - in order to build a public lavatory in its place. It protests in order to make [Muslims] forget its war against Al-Qaida.
"Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradhawi, who stirred up the Arab world against the cartoon in his television program on Al-Jazeera, did what all the Islamic movements did: He used the protest against the cartoon in order to show Muslims why it is necessary to break off relations with the 'infidels' and in order to foment an interreligious war..."
The Hamas Victory
A: "...Hamas asserts that Palestine is an Islamic waqf [inalienable trust]. This is undoubtedly an unattainable goal, but its role is to mobilize the Palestinians and the Islamic nation for a jihad against Israel and against its allies in the West...
"Contrary to the declared goal of Hamas, the establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza can be realized, but its establishment will undermine the excuse for terrorism (the liberation of Palestine), so that Hamas will be left only with the three slogans [listed by Al-Zawahiri], which the Islamic nation does not understand."
Q: "Taking into account the Hamas Charter, is there any prospect that this movement will reach a settlement with Israel?"A: "The Hamas Charter is taken from the theology of Islamic Jihad. When Hamas announced the possibility of a long-term hudna [cease-fire] with Israel, Western commentators, who are unfamiliar with jihadist theology, wrote that Hamas had become more moderate. That is a foolish diagnosis. Bin Laden recently offered the United States a long-term hudna - so has he become a moderate, too?
"Like bin Laden, Hamas took this straight from the jihad theology. What does this theology say? When the Muslim army is weak and is in an inferior position, it must ask for a hudna of three-four years in order to exploit the time to strengthen itself. This is the 'long-term' of jihad."
Q: "Is it possible to persuade the Hamas leadership to conduct peace negotiations with Israel?"
A: "It is difficult. In such a case, jihad theology will view the Hamas leaders as heretics, because that theology prohibits the ceding of even an inch of Muslim land to infidels. After the Oslo accord, Rashad Al-Ranoushi issued a fatwa in which he declared Arafat and the PLO leadership infidels and [said] that all the sages of Islam view as a criminal anyone who cedes one inch of the soil of Palestine. But reality is stronger than the Koran, and I have no doubt that the more rational of the Hamas leaders will deviate from that religious law and accept Israel's existence."Q: "So you also see a positive aspect in the Hamas electoral victory?"
A: "Yes. History has set an ambush for Hamas. The Hamas movement did not want to win; it wanted to be the second most important force, after Fatah, and to delay the implementation of the 'road map.' After the victory, the movement finds itself in a situation in which it must choose: either it forgoes its charter, and the jihad, in order to negotiate with Israel, or the Palestinian people will forgo it."
Q: "Is there also a democratic lesson here - there is no need to seize power by force, there is the possibility of winning at the polls?" A:"The Islamists are against democracy. For them, the legitimacy of government derives from Islamic religious law, not from elections."
Q: "If Hamas loses the next elections, will its people give up power?"
A: "Giving up power is forbidden in Islam: The ruler rules until his death. Hamas will not be ready for an exchange of government as a result of an election loss, but in the end this will be decided by the balance of power that will prevail at the time; it will depend on the true power that will accrue to the winning side."
Q: "The president of the United States says that jihadist terror is the greatest threat to world peace. Do you agree?"
A: "Islamic terror is a great enemy of humanity, but so is rampant capitalism. The world is being managed without wisdom and humanity is in constant danger of ecological disaster, nuclear disaster, and biological disaster..."

Open Letter to Prime Minister Urdugan

2006-05-16T03:58:00.000-07:00

Be a peace broker between Palestinians and Israelis

By Lafif Lakhdar (*)

Mr. Urdugan Leader of Justice and Development Party and Prime Minister of Turkey,

You are a rare Muslim leader. You displayed, indeed, a rare quality of being able to quickly shift from the theology of suicidal jihad to modern Politics, with all what that requires in terms of adjusting the means to the sought after objectives, taking into account the specific historical conditions. To this aim, you implemented most of the European Union requirements in terms of Penal Law, you fully recognized the rights of the Kurdish minority, and you adopted the modern institutions and values of rationality and global humanism, at the expense of old values of specificity. And it could never be over-stated how your intellectual flexibility allowed you to adapt to current-day requirements.

This is what encouraged me to send you the present letter, with the hope that your initiative -to be outlined below- may help the more intellectually flexible segment in Hamas leadership and the rest of Arab political Islam to revise their old assumptions and adopt your own pragmatic approach, based on an objective reading of the current balance of power, not the old religious texts.

Dear Prime Minister,

Your recent article published on "Alsharq Alawsat" newspaper, reproduced in French by "Jeune Afrique" Magazine, indicates clearly your willingness to go forward with your historic project to lead Political Islam from Jihad to Politics, and from dogmatism of blind certainty to pragmatism and realism.

It has been some time since I personally advised Hamas to give up its past positions and practice, in favor of pragmatism, the recognition of Israel, and to renounce armed struggle, i.e., all the taboos of current political Arab Islam.

Now that the organization is finding itself trapped in the aftermath of its recent electoral victory, I wished you moved before President Putin did, by inviting Hamas to Ankara to convince it to give up jihad for politics. And I still believe you can do better by going personally to Gaza with a Turkish Peace Initiative to address all concerned parties, particularly, Hamas, Fatah and Israel.

First, your agenda should be to convince Hamas to give up its Charter which calls for the liberation of every grain of sand of the whole of Palestine and its intention to turn it after liberation to an Islamic trust ("Wakf") for all Muslims worldwide.

More than nine years ago, I called upon Hamas to accept all the international obligations of the Palestinian authority, to integrate its "Al-qassam Brigades" and all other militias into the Palestinian liberation army, and to give up on the creation of a Shariaa-compliant society, which it already started to implement in Gaza by burning or closing down bars, but to no avail.

Second, you need to convince Fath to participate in a government of national unity with Hamas, as the latter "gives up on the positions and practices of the past." In this respect, the first move should be to implement the first part of the road map, i.e., to disarm the militias and to destroy the infrastructure of terror. This will obviously pave the way to the discussion with Israel on the second phase, i.e., the evacuation of the occupied territories.

Third, you need to convince Israel that thanks to your initiative, the Palestinians have become a credible peace partner, well entitled to sign an internationally guaranteed and monitored peace agreement.
Obviously, the mere participation to negotiations does not ensure good results. For this reason, there is a need for Israel's commitment -to you as well as to the Quartet- to free Palestinian prisoners and stop the economic blockade, cessation of payments to the Palestinian authority, targeting of wanted Palestinians, including the head of "Al Qassam Brigades," seizure of land under the pretense of historic or security considerations... These measures will open Palestinians' appetite for a peaceful settlement. In contrast, the failure to do so ends up weakening Palestinian moderates in favor of jihadist forces, including Al Qaeda, which is trying hard nowadays to use the card of the liberation of Palestine to better disseminate its message of jihad theology in Muslims' conscience.

Dear Prime Minister Urdugan,

I personally believe that your worthy initiative may well succeed, since the Hamas's psychological complex is mainly due to the refusal of the world to deal with it, in addition of being on the US and European list of terror organizations. As a result,
its moderate wing may well find it a good deal to give up jihad in exchange for international recognition.

Your initiative will give your Party and your country a regional and world prominence, and you will personally enter history as a major peacemaker in the Arab/Israeli conflict.
(*) The original version of the article was published in major Arab sites. Abu Khawla translated the article into English (contact: Abuk1010@hotmail.com)

Int.l Committee to Protect Freethinkers

2006-05-16T03:54:00.000-07:00

Jaya Gopal
International Coordinator
Sector-V, Arilova Colony,
Visakhapatnam – 530 040
India.
Email: icpf_campaign@rediffmail.com
Phone: 0091 98660 78486
Dr. Marvin F.Zayed, President,Canada
Email: diahumanism-institute@sympatico.ca
Dr. Madeline Weld, Canada
Email: madweld@rogers.com
Dr. Peter Priskill, Germany
Email: ahriman@t-online.de
Dr. Fred Whitehead, United States
Email: fredwh@swbell.net
Ms. Irene McLaurin-Dorn, EuropeDr. Nehal Karim, Dhaka, Bangladesh

To
Honourable Tony Blair,
Prime minister,
U. K. Fax: 00 44 20 7925 0918

Dear Mr. Prime Minister,

Subject: PLEASE PUT AN END TO FATWAS IN U.K. - ACTION AGAINST
THE FUNDAMENTALIST CLERIC SHEIKH RACHED GHANNOUCHI- REQUESTED.

Greetings.

Our organization: International Committee to Protect Freethinkers would like to draw your immediate attention to the case of the famous Tunisian writer Lafif Lakhdar whose life stands endangered due to the Fatwa issued by the London-based Islamic Al-Nahdah group led by the cleric Sheik Rached Ghannouchi.

As you are well aware the objective of Fatwas, being the religious edicts pronounced by clerics, has been the incitement to either oppress or kill any reasoning, deviant or freedom-loving individuals who advocates reform or changes in the existing laws and the "Closed System" of Islam. During the past two decades several thousands of Muslim freethinking writers, journalists, democrats, secular intellectuals and Human/Women's Rights activists were eliminated by fanatics who were inspired and incited by such Fatwas, for example, the great Ali Dashti, Farag Foda, Nobel Laureate Naquib Mahfoudh and forced over five thousand to go in exile from the Islamic countries.

Lafif Lakhdar, against whom the malicious charges of authoring an irreverent book about prophet Muhammad were fabricated and the Fatwa pronounced has been an advocate of secular democracy, tolerance and peaceful coexistence of Muslims with non-Muslims. This is the only real cause of the ire of the cleric in the pronouncement inciting to kill Lafif Lakhdar.

Despite Lafif Lakhdar's vehement denial of the accusation of having authored any book that is critical of the Prophet, the Fatwa has not been revoked thus forcing him to seek protection for not only his life but also to steer clear of the charges of Blasphemy. Fundamentalists of any religions like Sheik Rached Ghannouchi do not combat ideas with ideas.

Our organization, therefore demands Your Excellency to take necessary action against Sheik Rached Ghannouchi for having pronounced the edict (Fatwa) against the great Arab Freethinker Lafif Lakhdar. It is once again proved that Fundamentalists like Sheik Rached Ghannouchi, could only breed and preach hatred and violence, not love and justice. Obscurantism and bigotry as history testifies, will destroy peace, social harmony and reason by breeding hatred and tyranny.

In light of the facts, our organization would like to to assert that the life of Lafif Lakhdar is endangered due to the Fatwa by Sheik Rached Ghannouchi and that it is incumbent upon your secular democratic Government to render justice by taking necessary action against the cleric. Ghannouchi should be prosecuted under British law for incitement to kill and spreading hatred. Your Government is responsible for the life of Lafif Lakhdar. A serious but immediate action will be highly appreciated.

Thanking you.

With esteem regards,

(JAYA GOPAL)Coordinator, International Committee to Protect Freethinkers

International Committee to Protect Freethinkers

2006-05-16T03:49:00.000-07:00

Jaya Gopal
International Coordinator
Sector-V, Arilova Colony,
Visakhapatnam – 530 040
India.
Email: icpf_campaign@rediffmail.com
Phone: 0091 98660 78486
Dr. Marvin F.Zayed, President,Canada
Email: diahumanism-institute@sympatico.ca
Dr. Madeline Weld, Canada
Email: madweld@rogers.com
Dr. Peter Priskill, Germany
Email: ahriman@t-online.de
Dr. Fred Whitehead, United States
Email: fredwh@swbell.net
Ms. Irene McLaurin-Dorn, EuropeDr. Nehal Karim, Dhaka, Bangladesh

To Date: 13 August 2005
Honourable M. Jacques Chirac
President de la Republique,
Palais de l’Elsysee,
Paris,
FRANCE. Fax : 331-47-42-24-65

Dear Mr. President,

Subject: Please provide Protection to Tunisian author Lafif Lakhdar – Living in France

Greetings.

Our organization ICPF (International Committee to Protect Freethinkers) invites your immediate attention to the case of the noted Tunisian writer Lafif Lakhdar now living in France, but whose life has become a target for murder by Islamic fundamentalists due to the Fatwa issued by the London-based Islamic Al-Nahdad group led by its cleric Sheik Rached Ghannouchi.

Lafif Lakhdar who is living in France, has been a noted advocate for secular democracy and tolerance in Islamic countries. He is a staunch supporter of the oppressed and the Women’s Rights. He is a tireless activist for the emancipation and freedom of people in the large Arab world.

Lafif Lakhdar’s advocacy of social reform and calls for modernizing the Islamic system had invoked the wrath of Sheik Rached Ghannouchi, cleric of the Islamic Al-Nahdad, one of the fundamentalist groups based in London. Unable to challenge the ideas of Lafif Lakhdar the cleric Sheikh Rached Ghannouchi made false accusations against him of having authored an irreverent book denigrating Prophet Muhammad and thereupon pronounced a Fatwa (religious edict) inciting to kill him (Lafif Lakhdar).

Despite Lafif Lakhdar’s vehement denial of the accusation of having authored any book that is critical of the Prophet, the Fatwa has not been revoked thus forcing him to seek protection for not only his life but also to bring Ghannouchi to justice.

Since the Fatwa that incites to kill Lafif Lakhdar still continues to be spread through the webiste of Sheik Rached Ghannouchi (Nahdah.net) the life of the author stands endangered by fanatics having inspired by such fanatical and malicious provocations.

In view of the facts, our organization request you to provide immediate security and protection to the reformist secular writer Lafif Lakhdar as he is now living in your beloved country: France. Since your country is evolving as a truly appreciable secular country under your Government the responsibility to save the life of a secular thinker and reformer Lafif Lakhdar vests in your hands.

Our organization will be pleased to furnish any other related information, if necessary, on hearing from your good office.

With esteem regards,

(JAYA GOPAL)Coordinator: International Committee to Protect Freethinkers

Incitement To Kill

2006-05-16T03:42:00.000-07:00

By Abu Khawla (*)

The call to murder a fellow Muslim citizen takes, among others, the form of a "Fatwa" (religious edict or pronouncement). Once issued by a prominent Cleric, it becomes binding to the gullible faithful. As a result, countless free thinkers lost -and are still losing- their lives in this part of the world.

And to be established in the West is no panacea. Salman Roshdi learned about it the hard way, after the publication in the UK of his book The Satanic Verses. Moreover, the murder of the publisher of the Japanese version of his book in Tokyo, may mean that no one is safe, including non-Muslims in the West.

But what happened on May 6, 2005, may look somewhat different. On that faithful day, Islamist "Al-Nahda" web site published from London an information, pointing in clear terms to Tunisian prominent secular thinker, Lafif Lakhdar, as being the writer of a newly published book entitled "The unknown in the Life of the Prophet," which was previously posted on Alkalema.us.

The announcement is a clear incitement to kill, as we should now know from previous experience: the murder of writer Farag Foudah in Cairo and the stubbing of Egyptian Nobel Laureate Neguib Mahfoudh, to name but a few.

Indeed, the sequencing of events leaves no shadow of a doubt about the intentions. On May 2, the Pan-Arab newspaper "Al-Shark Alawsat" reported from its correspondent in Khartoum how riots erupted in the Sudanese capital against the journal of Islamist leaning "Al-Wifaq" for its publication of the first and one of the most controversial chapters of the book. The angry protesters belong to "Ansar Al-Sunna" student group, shouting for the murder of the "Murtad" (apostate).

Hence, the information notice posted four days later by Al-Nahda was nothing but the identification of the apostate. And since apostasy is to be punished by the death penalty, according to the current consensus of Islamist scholars, the call to murder the writer is straightforward.

This was not lost on the writer himself. On May 13, 2005, Mr. Lakhdar issued a call for support on the Internet to help him bring the leader of Al-Nahda, Sheik Rashed Al-Ghannouchi to justice (more details on the subject are available on the English, French and Arabic sections of Metransparent.com). The first reaction to the call came from Al-Nahda itself. It immediately withdrew the information from its site.

In his call, Lafif LAKHDAR -lonely, ill and almost completely paralyzed- asked from his bed for the support of all believers in free thought, first and foremost, international organizations active in this field. Indeed, organizations like Lawyers Without Borders, Pen International, and countless other humanist societies worldwide, have been instrumental in defending similar cases in the past. Their support to writer Lafif Lakhdar is no less warranted today.

For nearly five decades, Lafif Lakhdar has been leading the fight to expose the dark side of Islamism, the danger for nowadays Muslims to remain hostage to Salafi (forefathers) teaching, given its enmity to women, non-Muslims, and the requirements of modernization in general. Central to Lakhdar thinking is the need to adapt Islam to modernization, given the futility to attempt the other way around.

Recently, Lafif Lakhdar led the fight with two other prominent Arab liberals by issuing a Declaration addressed to the United Nations, calling for the trial of Clerics found guilty of issuing "Fatwas" calling for murder. And it named Rashed Al-Ghannouchi, among others. The Declaration collected more than four thousand signatures so far, from Arabs from all walks of life. And it was recently handed over to UN secretary general Kofi Anan.

Lafif Lakhdar deserves well our support today. And the least we can do, in this respect, is to help him hire a lawyer in London to take his case to justice, and urge the French authorities to provide appropriate protection for the writer as long as he resides on its soil. And it could never be overstressed how urgent is the case, for tomorrow may indeed be too late.

(*) Coordinator of Lafif Lakhdar International Defense Committee. Contact: LLIDC@hotmail.com

Communiqué

2006-05-14T14:59:00.000-07:00

Lafif Lakhdar International Defense Committee

Comité International de Défense de Lafif Lakhdar

بريد: Contact: LLIDC@hotmail.com

16/06/2005:Date
Reference: 1/2005

Today, we are excited to announce the creation of
Lafif Lakhdar International Defense Committee

Why, what are we trying to accomplish, and who are we?

Recently, the London-based Islamic Al Nahdha group led by sheik Rached Ghannouchi, falsely accused on its web site (Nahdha.net) the prominent Tunisian writer, Lafif Lakhdar, of authoring an irreverent book towards the Prophet.
The accusation took the form of a criminal Fatwa (a religious edict pronounced by a cleric), which is a straightforward incitement to kill the author.

During the last two decades alone, several liberal intellectuals have been the victims of similar fatwas. The murder of writer Farag Foudah and the stabbing of Nobel Laureate Neguib Mahfoudh, both from Egypt, are but few examples.

Upon becoming aware of the Fatwa, Mr. Lafif Lakhdar vehemently denied the accusation of authoring the book, and called on all who value the fundamental freedoms of thought and of expression to help him in bringing the Islamist leader Ghannouchi to justice.
Several web sites reverberated Lafif‘s call, hundreds of enthusiastic people from many countries sent him supportive messages. As the campaign of support gathered momentum, and more people rallied around Lafif, sheik Ghannouchi started feeling the heat; knowing that he cannot back up his accusation (because he fabricated it) he withdrew the incriminating article from his web site. This withdrawal represents only a small victory. It is a victory for all who long for or cherish freedom, and value enlightenment over obscurantism. However, the fatwa has not been revoked, and sheik Ghannouchi has not felt or expressed remorse. The real victory will come when Ghannouchi stands in front of a judge in a British court.

Today, the newly formed Lafif Lakhdar International Defense Committee, echoes Lafif’s call, thanks all who expressed their support, and encourage them to continue the drive to bring Ghannouchi to Justice, and uphold the rule of the law against the rule of the jungle of obscurantism.

The Committee urges the French authorities to provide appropriate protection to Lafif Lakhdar who lives in France, and the British authorities to investigate the illegal activities of the Nahdha group and its leader.

We in the LLIDC, are from different countries, cultures, religions, gender, and professions; and welcome you, particularly those who can contribute furthering this cause with the French authorities and the British legal system, to join us.
We are united by this just and noble cause to defend one of the few bright candles in the Arab world from a looming peril of the rampant obscurantism.

Lafif Lakhdar has dedicated his entire life to defend the oppressed and the dispossessed; he has been a tireless activist for the emancipation and freedom of people in the large Arab world. He argued for a modern Islam where women are equal to men and non-Muslims to Muslims. He has always believed that human beings, if liberated from obscurantism, tyranny, and ignorance, are capable of growing wings and soar in the sky with the birds.

Ghannouchi ‘s attack on the prominent free thinker Lafif Lakhdar is an attack on all of us who believe in freedom and democracy, and who whish for a better and brighter future for our region, and more peace and justice for the world. We stand in solidarity with Lafif, and call on every one of you, to do all you can, each according to her / his position and situation, to help bringing Ghannouchi to justice.

We Invite Activist legal groups in the United Kingdom, and international organizations like International Human Rights, Pen International, Lawyers Without Borders, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and others, to support this cause, because it is also your cause.

Please email us at:

llidc@hotmail.com

For further information on the subject, here is a short list of links:
http://www.metransparent.com/texts/campaign_defending_life_and_freedom_lafif_lakhdar.htm

http://www.metransparent.com/texts/lafif_lakhdar_appeal_vs_gannoushi_fatwa_english.htm

http://www.metransparent.com/texts/abu_khawla_incitement_to_kill.htm

The Role of Fatwas in Incitement to Terrorism
http://metransparent.net/lafif/lafif_lakhdar_role_of_fatwas_in_incitement_to_terrorism.htm

A Call on the UN to Establish an International tribunal to prosecute terrorists
http://metransparent.com/texts/arab_liberals_appeal_to_un_for_int_court_against_terror_fatwas_english.htm

Moving From Salafi to Rationalist Education
http://metransparent.net/lafif/lafif_lakhdar_salafi_to_rationalist.htm

The Missed Opportunity of July 2000 and Its Consequences
http://metransparent.net/lafif/lafif_lakhdar_missed_opportunity_of_july_2000.htm

Liberal Journalist Fired from Al-Hayat
http://metransparent.net/lafif/Lafif_Lakhdar_liberal_journalist_fired_from_al_hayat.htm

An Arab call for Peace
http://metransparent.net/lafif/lafif_lakhdar_an_arab_call_for_peace.htm

Impious, adulterous - Why the Reversion to Islamic Archaism? Lafif Lakhdar (1981)
http://struggle.ws/issues/war/afghan/pamwt/wt2/lakhdar.html

Dr. Abu Khawla,
Committee Coordinator

To Kill a Muslim Freethinker

2006-05-03T03:38:00.000-07:00

By MEMRI
FrontPageMagazine.com May 3, 2006

Arab reformists are constantly threatened by Islamists, who consider freethinkers to be guilty of the worst of crimes. [1] The most recent death threat against Arab intellectuals was issued by Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.
In an audiocassette released April 23, 2006, bin Laden addressed the issue of the Danish cartoons and what he regards as the Arab countries' failure to show an appropriate response. He emphasized that anyone mocking the Prophet or making fun of Islam should be killed.
Likewise, bin Laden attacked Arab "freethinkers," several of whom he mentioned by name, and called for them to be killed as well. He cited the precedent of Ka'b ibn Al-Ashraf, whom the Prophet had killed for writing poems against him, as a model for proper conduct in such cases. According to bin Laden, there is no need to consult anyone on this matter; every loyal Muslim should see it as his duty to eliminate these heretics.
The following are excerpts from bin Laden's speech, as posted by the reformist website Middle East Transparent on April 27, 2006. [2]
Freethinkers and Heretics who Defame Islam Should Be Killed
"To the entire Islamic nation...: This speech comes to further urge you and prompt you to [come to] the aid of the Prophet and punish those responsible for the vile crime being committed by some journalists from amongst the Crusaders and the apostate heretics, who have insulted the Prophet Muhammad…
"Imam Ahmad [3] said: 'Whoever reviles the Prophet or belittles him, be he Muslim or infidel, should be killed.' The freethinkers and heretics who defame Islam, and mock and scorn our noble Prophet - their case and the law concerning them have been clearly expounded by Imam Ibn Qayyim [Al-Jawziyya]. [4] He made it clear that the crime committed by a freethinker is the worst of crimes, that the damage caused by his staying alive among the Muslims is of the worst kind of damage, that he is to be killed, and that his repentance is not to be accepted...
"Ibn Qayyim Al-Jawziyya said, commenting on [Koran 9:12]: 'Whoever defames our religion is a leader of disbelief.' Many are the leaders of disbelief in our days in the lands of Islam, and many are the followers of Ka'b ibn Al-Ashraf in the Arabian Peninsula. [5] Many of them are writers in newspapers, and many of them are actors and broadcasters in the media. We warn here that a Muslim is not allowed to listen to any program that includes discussion with heretics, or any show that makes fun of Islam and of religious Muslims, for this is one of the greatest sins.
"How numerous are the heretics who are [government] ministers! And the foremost among them is the minister of labor in the Land of the Two Holy Shrines [i.e. Saudi Arabia], Ghazi Al-Qusaybi. Whoever wants to see the official fatwa proclaiming him guilty of disbelief and apostasy - such a fatwa was issued by former chief mufti 'Abd Al-'Aziz bin Baz, just as he issued a fatwa on the disbelief and apostasy of the heretic Shamlan Al-'Issa in Kuwait. [6]
"Among these heretics is Ahmad Al-Baghdadi [7] in Kuwait, and Turki Al-Hamad [8] in the Land of the Two Holy Shrines - a fatwa concerning the latter was issued by Sheikh Hamud Al-'Uqala - and many others like them. The book Modernity in the Balance of Islam [9] contains many of their names. Sheikh Sa'id Al-Ghamidi has also warned against them in his audio tapes..."

Do Not Consult Anyone About the Killing of These Heretics
"Indeed, this is our Prophet's law regarding anyone who mocks him, and belittles Islam and scorns it... They should be killed... Take an example from Muhammad ibn Maslama and his companions [who assassinated the poet Ka'b ibn Al-Ashraf]. It is intolerable and outrageous that the heretics are among us, scorning our religion and our Prophet.
"Therefore, you must fear Allah and do His will. Do not consult anyone about the killing of these heretics. Be secretive in carrying out that which is required of you.

"So much for the apostate heretics."