Sharia

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Campaign for thorough reform of Muslim law deserves mainstream coverage -- now

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Campaign for thorough reform of Muslim law deserves mainstream coverage -- now

The world’s largest organization of Muslims is campaigning for thorough worldwide reform of how to understand the faith’s religious law (Sharia) and applied jurisprudence (Fiqh).

Such an ambitious goal may seem unlikely and, to date, western media have given the effort minimal coverage. It’s time for that trend to change.

Far from some esoteric intellectual discourse, such a philosophical change could potentially affect the future of the world’s second-largest faith regarding democracy, blasphemy laws, human rights, education, the role of women, treatment of other religions, warfare, extremism, terrorism and crime and punishment.

The organization in question is Nahdlatul Ulama (NU, meaning Revival of Islamic Scholars) in Indonesia, the nation with the largest Muslim population. Consider these numbers from James M. Dorsey, a freelance writer and adjunct senior fellow in international studies at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University: NU encompasses an estimated 90 million lay followers, tens of thousands of religious scholars, 44 universities and 18,000 lower schools.

NU upholds Sunni orthodoxy, but with a more tolerant tone than is customary in the Mideast. Its legal reform program was prominent during the massive February celebration of its 100th anniversary, analyzed in Dorsey’s March 31 Substack column. His article is a good starting point for journalists, but its opinionated viewpoint warrants careful follow-up interviewing. Also note this 2021 NU backgrounder by political scientist Ahmet T. Kuru (akuru@sdsu.edu).

Moderate Muslim thinkers have long favored some sort of move away from rigid legal traditionalism. Dorsey depicts a two-sided struggle among them, pitting allies of NU’s fully democratic and tolerant outlook against religious leaders beholden to rulers in the Mideast, as in Saudi Arabia, where certain social liberation is being allowed without fundamentally rethinking Islamic law or politics.


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In Islamic tradition, what is a fatwa? Why the demands to kill novelist Salman Rushdie?

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In Islamic tradition, what is a fatwa? Why the demands to kill novelist Salman Rushdie?

THE QUESTION:

In Islam, what is a fatwa? Why the demand to kill novelist Salman Rushdie?

THE RELIGION GUY’S ANSWER:

In 1989, the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Iran’s theocratic ruler, ordered the assassination “without delay” of novelist Salman Rushdie because of his novel “The Satanic Verses.” Remarkably, this official fatwa imposed the duty of freelance killing in the name of God upon masses of Muslim believers in all nations, and also demanded death for the editors and publishers involved with the book.

Three decades later, a Lebanese-American stands accused of attempting to murder Rushdie by repeated stabbings onstage at New York’s Chautauqua Institution. The author suffered severe injuries but survived. Though the Muslim Council of Britain condemned the attack, the Iranian regime’s Kayhan newspaper dispatched “a thousand bravos” to “the brave and dutiful” assailant while militants in other Muslim lands celebrated. We’ll see what prosecutors and defense attorneys finally say about links between Iran’s fatwa of death and the sensational bloodshed.

Rushdie’s complex fantasy had dream sequences in which depraved enemies of Islam — not the author himself — complain about moral absolutism and treatment of women and demean the Prophet Muhammad’s wives and closest Companions. They also challenge the divine inspiration of the Quran. A Wall Street Journal op-ed correctly noted that the far greater threat to the Quran is the revisionist theorizing on its origins by the late John Wansbrough at the University of London.

The Rushdie novel resulted in book-banning and riots in the Muslim world, and the famous fatwa sent Rushdie into hiding for years. In 1998, Iran’s president declared the case “finished” during diplomatic efforts, but the regime did not actually abolish the fatwa. It was reaffirmed by Khomeini’s successor as Supreme Leader in 2017, and re-published on a government Web site five days before the Chautauqua stabbing. During the past decade, Iranian groups have pledged to pay a $3.9 million bounty to anyone who slays Rushdie.


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What does the New York Times mean when it reports on 'religious leaders' in Afghanistan?

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What does the New York Times mean when it reports on 'religious leaders' in Afghanistan?

Anyone who has read GetReligion for more than a month probably knows that I have always been concerned about the lack of press coverage of endangered religious minorities in large parts of the world — including nations such as Afghanistan.

It’s crucial to remember, when talking about religious freedom issues and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, that it is tragically common for members of a major world religion to punish other members of their own faith because of strong disagreements about doctrine and tradition. It is common to see persecution of those who have no faith — think atheists and agnostics — as well as those who have converted to a new faith.

As a reminder, here is Article 18 of that landmark United Nations document:

Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.

With all of that in mind, it’s easy to understand why I was interested in this headline atop a New York Times report: “The Taliban holds first meeting of religious leaders since taking Kabul.”

The key, of course, is the meaning of these two words — “religious leaders.”

If you follow news updates, you know that the ancient Jewish community in Afghanistan is long gone — unless merchant Zablon Simintov chose to attend this meeting. Was there a Catholic representative at the meeting? Were leaders of the growing underground church invited? Did they dare to come out of hiding? What about the Muslim leaders of progressive (for lack of a better word) mosques who cooperated with Western leaders during the past 20 years?

Who were these “religious leaders”?


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Story of concern for Nigerian boy jailed for blasphemy offers hope, despite lackluster reporting

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I started writing this post the day after Yom Kippur, which I spent Zooming services from my favorite virtual synagogue family, New York City’s Romemu congregation.

It was profoundly emotional for me, for reasons I’ll soon make clear.

First understand that I’m all for profound emotions. I believe being in touch with one’s deepest feelings spurs emotional maturity. But there was also a downside. The various post ideas I had contemplated doing lost all immediacy.

Why, I thought, write yet another post detailing news coverage of China’s miserable treatment of it’s ethnic religious minorities? Or coverage of how insular religious communities — such as ultra-Orthodox Jews in Israel and New York — still refuse to take the coronavirus pandemic seriously, causing its spread in their midst?

Perhaps the unnerving knowledge that, as I sat down to write, the first 2020 American presidential campaign debate was just hours away also colored my mood. (And how godawful did that, unsurprisingly, turn out to be?)

Then there was my agitation over a loved one who is fighting debilitating physical pain, daily, resulting from a life-threatening disease. Couple that with the soul-crushing realization that there’s nothing I can do about it.

So I fell into an emotional maelstrom. I needed more uplifting post material. And then I found this story by way of The Washington Post. Its headline read: “A Nigerian boy was sentenced to 10 years for blasphemy. Then people started offering to serve part of it.”

I grabbed it. A news story spotlighting compassionate people — of indeterminate faith — jointly working to make lemonade out of the most sour of religious lemons offered hope. Here’s the story’s top, which is long, but essential:

DAKAR, Senegal — After a religious court in northwest Nigeria sentenced a 13-year-old boy to 10 years in prison for blasphemy, the head of the Auschwitz Memorial in Poland publicly offered to serve part of that time, invoking the memory of the Holocaust's youngest victims.

The Polish historian said he received dozens of emails over the weekend from people around the world who wanted to do the same thing.


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For newsroom source lists: A female Muslim lawyer to watch on religious-liberty issues

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A Pegasus Books release has this curious title: “When Islam Is Not a Religion.”

Huh? Say what?

Is the pope not Catholic? Don’t U.S. Democrats constitute a political party? (With Britain’s Conservatives and Labour that’s open to question lately.) The subtitle then explains what the book is about: “Inside America’s Fight for Religious Freedom.”

Author Asma Uddin’s title targets American right-wingers who are claiming Islam is not “really” a religion — but a dangerous political movement.

Islam is, in actuality, a variegated global religion that usually intermingles beliefs with politics in ways that can become problematic, just as with some variants of Christianity -- including some of those making that anti-Islam claim.

Uddin, a Pakistani-American lawyer in Washington, D.C., belongs on your prime source list (if she is not there already). Contact: asma.uddin@altmuslimah.com. For starters, this Muslim studied her civil rights specialization at the elite University of Chicago Law School.

She became the founding editor of a lively, decade-old online magazine that journalists should be monitoring, altmuslimah.com. It emphasizes hot-button gender issues in Islam (e.g. women’s rights, man-woman relationships, polygamy, harem, genital mutilation, honor killing, headscarves and burqas). You won’t want to miss articles on whether Islam, and also Christianity, can consistently be considered religions (!), like this one.

In an interview posted by her law school last year, Uddin says her altmuslimah colleagues felt “there were so many of us who wanted to be authentic to our faith, devoted to our faith, and who were struggling with issues that we didn’t always know how to fit with our lived realities. It turned out that these were conversations that people were desperate to have. The response has been overwhelming.”

Most important, Uddin is a principled defender of religious liberty across the board, naturally quick to defend the rights of fellow American Muslims but also concerned about believers in all other faiths, including those who suffer suppression in Muslim countries.


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Spot the news here: First openly gay presidential candidate in 'Arab' or 'Muslim' world?

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To answer a question I hear every now and then: Yes, we do hear from Ira “Global Wire” Rifkin from time to time. If you follow him in social-media circles you know that he is doing well, especially when hanging out with his lively family.

Also, he sends us URLs and cryptic hints when he bumps into GetReligion-ish stories linked to international news. Take this Washington Post story, for example: “An openly gay candidate is running for president in Tunisia, a milestone for the Arab world.”

How important is this story? Rifkin had this to say: “This is not nothing, though I think his chances of ending up in exile in Paris (or dead or in jail) are greater than his winning.”

There are several interesting angles in this story, as far as I am concerned. All of them are directly or indirectly linked to religion. However, I’m not sure that the Post foreign-desk squad wants to face that reality head on. Here is the overture:

Lawyer Mounir Baatour officially announced his candidacy for the Tunisian presidency …, becoming the first known openly gay presidential candidate in the Arab world and heralding a major step forward for LGBT rights in a country that still criminalizes gay sex.

Baatour, the president of Tunisia’s Liberal Party, presented his candidacy to the country’s election commission a day ahead of a Friday deadline to qualify for the Sept. 15 election. He received nearly 20,000 signatures in support of his candidacy — double the required number — according to a statement posted to his Facebook page.

“This enthusiasm already testifies to the immense will of the Tunisian people, and especially its youth, to see new a political wind blowing on the country and to concretely nourish its democracy,” the statement said, calling Baatour’s candidacy “historic.”

OK, is the newsworthy hook here that we are talking about political “first” in the “Arab” world or in the “Muslim” world? Yes, I realize that the answer could be “both-and.” But that is a different answer than simply saying “Arab” and leaving it at that.


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Istanbul's LGBTQ community: Dealing with 'conservative attitudes' or DNA of Islamic law?

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If you are reading a newspaper in India and you see a reference to "community violence," or perhaps "communal violence," do you know how to break that code?

As I have mentioned before, a young Muslim journalist explained that term to me during a forum in Bangalore soon after the release of the book "Blind Spot: When Journalists Don't Get Religion."

Whenever there are violent clashes between religious groups, especially between Hindus and Muslims, journalists leave out all of the religious details and simply report that authorities are dealing with another outbreak of "community violence." Readers know how to break the code.

As the student told me, if journalists write accurate, honest stories about some religious subjects in the nation's newspapers, then "more people are going to die."

I thought of that again reading the top of a recent Washington Post story about the tensions in Istanbul between civil authorities and the LGBT community in modern Istanbul, symbolized by confrontations during gay pride parades. Please consider this a post adding additional information to the complex religious issues that our own Bobby Ross, Jr., described in his post about terrorist attacks -- almost certainly by ISIS -- at the always busy Ataturk International Airport in that city.

Here is the overture for that earlier Post report:

ISTANBUL -- It was just after sunset when patrons began to arrive, climbing a dark stairwell to the bar’s modest entrance. Here, in dimly lit corners, is where the mostly gay clientele come to canoodle and drink -- but without the threat of violence or harassment.


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Why shout 'Allahu Akbar!' when killing other Muslims? Did journalists answer that question?

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The stories have become tragically familiar. A band of jihadists enters a school or some other public facility somewhere in the Muslim world and massacres a large number of people. Mainstream media offer readers a few numbers and a heart-tugging human detail or two.

The latest nightmare unfolded this week in northwester Pakistan. As I read several news reports, a familiar detail was repeated time after time. This led to a question in my mind, one that I think some journalists need to ponder: "Why would radical Muslims shout 'Allahu akbar!' as they massacre other Muslims?"

In other words, if the basic goal in these stories is to provide the "who, what, when, where, why and how" facts, why not pursue the "why" issue? Some of the stories I read took at shot at this ultimate question and others did not.

The first story I saw was in USA Today. This is as close as it came to talking about this "why" issue:

Basit Khan, a computer science student, said he heard the terrorists through the fog and saw them in classroom buildings.
“They were chanting Allahu Akbar (God is great) when they started firing,” Khan said. “There were attackers in the stairwell and we had no arms to counter them. In the Pashto Department and Computer Science blocks, I saw at least three attackers.” ...

And later there was this:

A Taliban leader, Khalifa Umar Mansoor, claimed responsibility for Wednesday's attack, the Associated Press reported. Mansoor was the mastermind behind the deadly December 2014 attack on the Peshawar school.
A spokesman for the main Taliban faction in Pakistan, however, disowned the group behind the attack. The spokesman, Mohammad Khurasani, said Wednesday’s attack was “un-Islamic” and insisted the Pakistani Taliban were not behind it. Such statements among the Taliban are not uncommon since the group has many loosely linked factions, tje AP reported.
Khurasani said the Taliban “consider the students in the non-military institutions the future of our jihad movement” and would not kill potential future followers.

That was that.


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Raise your hand, if you know the definition of 'blasphemy' in modern Pakistan

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One of the toughest issues in reporting about any complex subject -- take religion for example -- is knowing how much background material needs to be included in a story for readers to be able to grasp the basic issues surrounding a piece of news.

So before we get to the actual event covered in this international-desk piece from the New York Times -- "Boy’s Response to Blasphemy Charge Unnerves Many in Pakistan" -- let's jump ahead to the background material. I thought this section of the story was especially strong, since the reporter had very few paragraphs to spare in a relatively short story.

By the way, this passage ends with what I considered a major piece of tech news, one worthy of its own story.

Blasphemy is a toxic subject in Pakistan, where a confusing body of laws has enshrined it as a potentially capital offense but also makes it nearly impossible for the accused to defend themselves in court. Even publicly repeating details of the accusation is tantamount to blasphemy in its own right.
Such cases almost never make it to court, however. The merest accusation that blasphemy has occurred has the power to arouse lynching or mob violence.
The governor of Punjab, Salman Taseer, was assassinated by his own bodyguard in 2011, after Mr. Taseer criticized the country’s blasphemy laws and defended a Christian woman who had been falsely accused under them. The assassin is a national hero to many devout Pakistanis: His jail cell has become a pilgrimage site, and a mosque was renamed to honor him.

And that tech story?


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