Aziz Poonawalla: March 2009 Archives

In an explicit bid to appease hard-line Islamists, Afghanistan's "president" ¹ Hamid Karzai has signed a bill into law that essentially legalizes rape of a woman by her husband:

Critics claim the president helped rush the bill through parliament in a bid to appease Islamic fundamentalists ahead of elections in August.

In a massive blow for women's rights, the new Shia Family Law negates the need for sexual consent between married couples, tacitly approves child marriage and restricts a woman's right to leave the home.
...
The provisions are reminiscent of the hardline Taliban regime, which banned women from leaving their homes without a male relative. But in a sign of Afghanistan's faltering steps towards gender equality, politicians who opposed it have been threatened.
The most controversial parts of the law deal explicitly with sexual relations. Article 132 requires women to obey their husband's sexual demands and stipulates that a man can expect to have sex with his wife at least "once every four nights" when travelling, unless they are ill. The law also gives men preferential inheritance rights, easier access to divorce, and priority in court.

A report by the United Nations Development Fund for Women, Unifem, warned: "Article 132 legalises the rape of a wife by her husband"

As a bonus, the law is named the "Shia Family Law" even though the bil is not representative of mainstream Shi'a jurisprudence, but rather focused on the extreme attitudes within a distinct ethnic minority:

The law regulates personal matters like marriage, divorce, inheritance and sexual relations among Afghanistan's minority Shia community. "It's about votes," Ms Karokhail added. "Karzai is in a hurry to appease the Shia because the elections are on the way."
...
Most of Afghanistan's Shias are ethnic Hazaras, descended from Genghis Khan's Mongol army which swept through the entire region around 700 years ago. They are Afghanistan's third largest ethnic group, and potential kingmakers, because their leaders will likely back a mainstream candidate.

Even the law's sponsors admit Mr Karzai rushed it through to win their votes. Ustad Mohammad Akbari, a prominent Shia political leader, said: "It's electioneering. Most of the Hazara people are unhappy with Mr Karzai."

So in addition to reducing women to the status of Taliban-approved accessories, the bill also manages to stoke sectarian prejudices.

If there's a silver lining in this, it's a minor one:

Some female politicians have taken a more pragmatic stance, saying their fight in parliament's lower house succeeded in improving the law, including raising the original proposed marriage age of girls from nine to 16 and removing completely provisions for temporary marriages. "It's not really 100% perfect, but compared to the earlier drafts it's a huge improvement," said Shukria Barakzai, an MP. "Before this was passed family issues were decided by customary law, so this is a big improvement."

That is indeed progress of a sort. But as Megan at Jezebel points out sarcastically, "I'm sure that will be prosecuted with the same alacrity that women are prosecuted for leaving the house or working without the permission of their husbands." Indeed, in a law like this that is so biased and misogynistic, such provisions can only be considered a fig leaf.

Let's not mince words. It's doubtful that President Obama's administration was unaware of the rape bill. It's more likely that they are intent on sticking by Karzai and supportive of whatever he needs to do to get re-elected, Secretary Clinton's rhetoric about elevating women's rights in foreign policy during her confirmation hearing aside. This kind of ends-justify-the-means foreign policy is essentially realpolitik revisited - the exact kind of short-term "great game" thinking that created the Taliban itself. It's a disgrace and an embarassment to Obama's entire Afghanistan policy, and the domestic economic crisis is no excuse for such a craven failure to stand up for the values we purport to uphold.

¹ Karzai is sometimes referred to as the "Mayor of Kabul" since the federal government he leads has essentially no authority beyond the safe zone of the country's capital. The Taliban have retaken most of the country.

UPDATE: We are having a pretty intense debate at Talk Islam about the merits of "imposing our values" on other countries. I take issue with that characterization and the argument by others that we should take an isolationist tack. I'm also not unsympathetic to Daniel Larison's point here, but I think there's a principled middle ground between the disasters of outright neoconservative intervention on one hand and paleoconservative isolationism on the other; namely, pragmatic liberal interventionism, which sometimes involves Youtube videos instead of armies. Sometimes we need to call the WOT a WOMBAT, too.

This is exactly the worst possible thing that could have happened - BJP candidate and Indian political dynasty scion Varun Gandhi, whose paranoid rants against muslims were caught on video a few weeks ago, has been arrested:

A politician from India's main opposition party has been arrested for allegedly making an anti-Muslim speech during a recent election rally.

At least 10,000 supporters of Varun Gandhi shouted pro-Hindu slogans at police as he was arrested in the northern Uttar Pradesh state on Sunday.

Gandhi, a grandson of the late Indian prime minister, Indira Gandhi, is alleged to have made inflammatory comments while campaigning as a candidate of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) earlier this month.

"Varun will remain in judicial custody in Pilibhit jail till Monday when his bail plea will be decided", Mani Ram Rao, the investigating police officer in the case, said.

Let's be absolutely clear here. The best possible response to hate speech is not to outlaw it, but to confront and rebut it. Silencing Varun via arrest is akin to making him a political martyr, and playing directly into the very stereotypes about muslims that Varun himself was stoking. Varun himself was clearly delighted by being arrested, predictably claiming the martyr mantle:

"I am ready to go to jail. And I have come here to boost the morale of my people," Gandhi said before his arrest.

Varun is essentially having it both ways - denying ever having made the hateful comments at all (he claims the video evidence was doctored, which will be entirely believable to credulous villagers) but also deriving maximum political benefit from having said them, from his Islamophobic base.

The other lesson of all this is to underscore the simple reality - there is no such thing as free speech in India, just as there is no such thing as free speech in Europe (or anywhere else in the world, really, apart from the United States).

This is a guest post by Zeba Iqbal.

A provocative title, though I doubt the discussion will be quite as titillating. Before getting into a debate over the title, I'd like to establish some context. Marriage is important in Islam, for men and women. Love and respect are too. To even contemplate loving and respecting someone enough to marry them, one has to meet and speak with the person sufficiently in open, non-judgmental, supportive and protected settings that promote honest and relevant dialogue. That is the premise for 'dating while Muslim'.

Even before that, men and women both make significant contributions to communities and to families. Islam recognizes that, and encourages respect between men and women. Courtship and marriage come later, but first Muslim men and women need to be able to interact effectively and respectfully with one another.

A Case for Dating

Dating as we know it in broader American society is a taboo with most Muslims. This is understandable because although Islam is not a prudish religion, it is very particular about behaviors within marriage and outside of marriage. Within marriage, the relationship between man and woman is very intimate and one of protection. Outside of marriage, men and women cannot be intimate. They each need to protect themselves. Thus, the free mixing of men and women in unchaperoned settings is not encouraged because of what it may lead to, namely 'zina' or fornication.

However, let's take a step back and ask ourselves, really, what is dating? Dating in essence encompasses the communications and interactions between a man and a woman that are based on mutual interest and could potentially lead to marriage. In a Muslim American setting, these interactions can be controlled and adapted to be 'halal', relevant, thoughtful and transparent.

Let's be honest, as a community we may not talk about dating among Muslims, but ignoring it doesn't mean it doesn't exist does it? Wouldn't it be better to acknowledge its existence, and establish that there's nothing wrong with it within certain established parameters?

From the perspective of Muslim singles today, really, what option do we have? In our parents and grandparents generations and historically, marriages were arranged. Families were very critical to the decision-making process and the decisions were often strategic, matrimonial alliances. That is not the case anymore.

Now, we are on our own. Family and friends may suggest individuals, or we may put ourselves out into the matrimonial circuit (sites, events, 'rishta' aunties or matchmakers), but once the introductions are made, it's just us.

When meeting Muslims within the community, we are meeting people who are grappling with the same issues of identity, insecurity, judgment/criticism and social pressure that we are. The result of this is that when it comes to potential affairs of the heart, Muslim men are increasingly passive (or passive aggressive) and Muslim women are increasingly aggressive. Without forums for broader discussion and guidance ('khutbas' or sermons, dialogues, discussions, roundtables on Islam, marriage, gender relations, sexual relations, etc), this divide will only grow. We need to normalize basic gender relations between Muslim men and women through consistent efforts by the community in order to get Muslim men and women to the table for relevant and meaningful interaction and dialogue.

Additionally, the suggestion has been made that single Muslim women should start looking outside the community (after all that's what Muslim men do right?). Conceptually, I agree with my friend who says that it's a form of 'dawah' (educating non-Muslims). She mentioned to me that in her very conservative community there is a position that women should be allowed and encouraged to marry non-Muslims who take the 'shahada' (the proclamation of faith in Islam) because Islam has the capacity to evolve in one's heart over time. If communities are in fact encouraging this, how does a woman meet and get to know those men except through some form of dating?

Being on our own, Muslim singles (particularly women) need the support and the protection of the community, whether we are meeting fellow Muslims or non-Muslims from outside the community. Establishing an acceptable framework for Muslim dating that is open and supported by the community might help to enforce a level of accountability, a system of checks and balances, that is not robust at this time.

Why is this important? Let me illustrate. I had an online suitor once, a single Muslim man in another city via a matrimonial website. Initially, he seemed intelligent, interesting and personable. We spoke on the phone once or twice a week for several weeks. As we spoke more, I started noticing evasiveness about basic personal facts. I began to get the distinct feeling that he was not only hiding information, but that he was lying and misrepresenting himself. Additionally, he was trying to manipulate my thinking by consistently quoting particular sections of a certain 'hadith' (oral traditions of the Prophet Mohammed PBUH). I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt, but was becoming increasingly uncomfortable. I finally took a friend who was acquainted with this person into my confidence and asked him for his advice. As soon as he figured out who it was, he said three words, 'Zeba stay away'.

This feeling of being alone and unprotected in these situations is magnified (at least for me) on non-Muslim matrimonial websites and when meeting non-Muslims because they may come from a different moral framework and there are few if any ways to place them (among Muslims I can find a brother, sister or friend that I know). Our families help as much as they can, but the broad based support and protection of the community would be invaluable.

By not considering a progressive position on issues like dating we, as a community, are not only encouraging covert behavior and a lack of accountability, we are also not supporting or protecting our vulnerable populations.

Improving Interactions Between Muslim Men and Women

One of the reasons Muslim singles are facing challenges today in gender based relations is because of the no-talk rule between Muslim girls and boys at Sunday School and through college in the MSA. When many of us were growing up we were told in no uncertain terms that we could not/should not talk to Muslims of the opposite gender.

As a result, Muslim men and women often don't know how to speak with each other and when they do that little nagging voice is saying, ''tauba'(repent)! you are not allowed to talk to Muslim boys/girls'. Once the voice is quieted we realize that we are still about 15 in this arena, and very self-conscious and uncomfortable interacting with each other, particularly in community settings. We don't know what to expect of each other, and cannot always speak openly with each other.

Another illustration, I once met another suitor for dinner in Chicago. We had spoken and emailed for a month or two. I was visiting and so we met for dinner. After dinner we were walking in downtown Chicago, and suddenly, he disappeared. Or, actually, he ducked. After about a minute or so he reappeared telling me that he saw his cousin driving down the street and didn't want the cousin to see him with me. Honestly, even 15 is pushing it, I mean how juvenile is that?

The heart of the issue is Muslim men and women need to be able to talk to each other with respect, but without self-consciousness, fear of judgment, anxiety, or the feeling that they are doing something wrong. We need to be strong fellow Muslims to one another and this emotional underdevelopment is crippling. Being able to relax and take mixed-gender situations in our stride is vital if we want to raise the level of discourse and the ability to speak and interact with each other in meaningful ways.

So, I'll say it again, 'dating while Muslim' anyone?

Zeba Iqbal is the Vice-Chair of CAMP (Council for the Advancement of Muslim Professionals) and the conference manager for their 2009 Leadership Summit. She is an active social and community networker and an activist for the Muslim American community, and currently works at Princeton University. The essay above is reprinted with permission from the Goatmilk Blog by Wajahat Ali, and is a sequel to an earlier piece, "Over 30 and Unmarried"

Relations between the Shi'a minority and the Sunni majority in Saudi Arabia aren't great even in teh best of times, but in some ways the events of the past few years - notably the war in Iraq and the emergence of Iran as a regional player via proxy in the Israel-Palestine conlfict - have made fears of a "Shi'a Crescent" more acute among the Sunni establishment. This has translated into increasing restrictions on the Shi'a in KSA, but it also has meant that the Shi'a minority is also emboldened to a degree to push back.

For example, via John Burgess and his indispensable blog Crossroads Arabia, is a piece in the Financial Times about the Saudi relations with Shi'a both within and without the Kingdom:

The hopes of Saudi Arabia's Shia minority for greater representation were dashed last month when Riyadh shook up its government and religious establishment.

King Abdullah appointed reformers to strategic posts in government and the first female deputy minister, and opened the door for diversity within the senior ulema council - the body that shapes religious and legal discourse in the kingdom. But although Sunni Muslims were invited to advise the council for the first time, Shia clerics were not invited.

Analysts warn that marginalisation of the estimated 1.5m to 2m Shia living in Saudi Arabia's oil-rich Eastern Province fuels tensions in the region - with majority-Shia Iran across the Gulf and majority-Shia Bahrain across a causeway, and a newly installed Shia government in Iraq. They believe that the kingdom can no longer afford to ignore the issue.

John adds his own analysis, noting that Iran's attempts at regional hegemony are one provocation for the Saudi government's antipathy, but the real root of the problem is much more fundamental::

It is not regional politics, however, that are at the root of this problem. Rather, it is a well-developed and centuries old religious fear and loathing of Shi'ism that is proving the most troublesome barrier to resolving the frictions that run through the country and society. The Ismailis in Najran, for instance, have nothing to do with Iran or Iranian Shi'ism, but they still find themselves targets of opprobrium with some measure of government involvement. Here, the typical Saudi fear of 'the other' rears its head to the detriment of Saudi Arabia as a whole.

While King Abdullah has taken measured steps to open the door to other manifestations of Sunni Islam within Saudi Arabia, he needs to push that door further in welcoming Saudi Shi'a to the fold.

I personally consider this to be a human rights and freedom of religion issue as far as Shi'a within Saudi Arabia are concerned, but there is a broader strategic question as pertains to US policy as to whether there is such a thing as a "Shi'a Cresent" or not and what impact it may have on our long-term goals for the region. The Council on Foreign Relations actually had a symposium titled "The Emerging Shi'a Crescent" in summer of 2006 (audio, video and transcript available) that delved into this question in great depth, with luminaries such as Fouad Ajami and Vali Nasr (author of The Shi'a Revival) on the panel. It's a substantive discussion with quite a lot of ideological depth and diversity, and I think is essential reading for anyone intent on commenting on sectarian tensions in the Middle East. My general take is that the Shi'a are indeed resurgent, but the idea of a "crescent" as being anything more tangible than a general demographic feature is as tenuous as the idea of a broader pan-Islamic Ummah. It doesn't exist except in the minds of romantics; there is no unity across nationalist boundaries (and often not even within them).

Incidentally, I've inaugurated a new category here at City of Brass, The Shi'a Crescent, in which I plan to devote more attention to these sectarian tensions and hopefully, solutions.

Related: Fouad Ajami's essay early into the Iraq War (which he supported) about how Sunnis feared Shi'a emancipation. Also, via POMED, another essay about Shi'a repression in Saudi Arabia, which has led to threats of secession by some Shi'a clerics. Given that most Shi'a live in the oil-rich provinces, you can imagine that the Saudis are taking that threat seriously.

A suicide bomber atttack at a mosque in the frontier town of Jamrud, Pakistan has destroyed the building and killed dozens of people during Friday prayers:

A suicide bomber blew himself up in a mosque packed with hundreds of worshippers for Friday prayers in northwestern Pakistan, killing at least 48 people and injuring scores more, officials said.

The blast badly damaged the mosque in Jamrud, a town near the Afghan border in an area beset by Taliban attacks as well as vicious feuds between rival tribes and militant groups. Authorities did not immediately speculate on a motive.

Rising violence in Pakistan's northwest is fueling doubts about the country's ability to counter Taliban and al-Qaida militants also blamed for attacks in neighboring Afghanistan.

Television footage showed scores residents and police officers digging frantically through the ruins of the white-walled mosque, whose roof appeared to have caved in.

The bomber struck when about 250 people were attending Friday prayers, said Tariq Hayat, the top administrator in the area.

He said rescuers had pulled 48 bodies from the rubble and predicted the toll would likely rise further. Another 80 people were injured, he said.

As the NYT notes, Jamrud is in the Khyber semi-autonomous tribal region of Pakistan, home of the famed Khyber Pass between Pakistan and Afghanistan and thus the primary land route to supply US and NATO troops in Afghanistan for goods arriving at the port in Karachi. in other words, an irresistible target for militants of all stripes. The region also has its share of other horrific atrocities like child slavery. All of this is further evidence ot the fact that the Afghanistan war is not a hermetically sealed one, and that any progress there can be easily undermined by the situation in Pakistan. Any long term solution will have to include Pakistan as well.

I am sympathetic to Pakistan's need for sovereign authority but in regions like Khyber, or in Swat, the authority of the central government is basically meaningless anyway. As a result, the US can and must play an active role.

As an aside, the strategic bottleneck of the Khyber Pass - which draws and exacerbates militant resistance - is one that the military would prefer to avoid reliance on. Alternate routes for land supply into Afghanistan are few, however - though one possibility would be via Iran, justifying rapprochement.

This is a horrific case of an honor killing in rural India:BHOJPUR (GHAZIABAD): A 16-year-old girl, Imrana, was set on fire inside her house on Monday in a case of what the police called 'moral vigilantism'. The victim had screamed...

Shari'a law is (by definition) a system for rule of Law. It may not be the kind of Law that Westerners would want to be ruled by, but it is a system of Law nevertheless. Therefore, in a very simple...

I find this a fascinating story. Usually you hear about how prison inmates convert, but this is almost exactly backwards, not least because Gitmo is not a prison but more of an oubliette. From the story, Army specialist Terry Holdbrooks...

Daniel Larison implies that RedState may have killed Culture11. Reading the piece on C11's founding to which he refers, I can't help but think that the conservative movement as a whole is imploding, and C11 simply got caught in the...

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke extensively of "smart power" in her description of how America's foreign policy would seek to engage the world. Obama's video message to Iran, on the occassion of Nowruz, is destined to become a case...

This is a press release from the Islamic Center at NYU, about their annual Shuruq ("sunrise") cultural symposium.  It is being organized by Haroon Moghul, one of the emeritus members of the Islamsphere. For more information, see the detailed listing...

The Council for the Advancement of Muslim Professionals (CAMP) is holding their third annual meeting on Saturday, May 2nd in Princeton NJ. I am reposting part of the announcement here - the early bird registration is March 25th so if...

This is the transcript and word cloud of Obama's video to the Iranian people for Nowruz, which goes far beyond the general Nowruz statements issued by previous Presidents Bush and Clinton.The word cloud is notable in that the words "New"...

There is something simply amazing about this. The video even has subtitles in Farsi. It is often said that the Internet allowed Obama to bypass the Washington DC media establishment and reach out directly to the American people; now he...

"The Dark Arts are many, varied, ever-changing and eternal. Fighting them is like fighting a many-headed monster, which, each time a neck is severed, sprouts a head even fiercer and cleverer than before. You are fighting that which is unfixed,...

InnaLillahi Wa inna Ilahi Raji'unHamid Tehrani at Global Voices Online brings the tragic news that a jailed Iranian blogger, Omid Reza Misayafi, has died. It seems that he may have committed suicide. Apart from the personal tragedy his family must...

Varun Gandhi is now backpedaling in public, denying making the outrageous and incendiary comments about "cutting heads" of muslims:Varun Gandhi said he was a "victim of a political conspiracy" and that he never made the comments attributed to him. Gandhi...

a classic short story by Ali Eteraz. It begins, The Great J.A.F.I (Just another Frothing Islamophobe) stepped through the door and said he was looking for Ali Eteraz. Somewhere in the world some murderers who called themselves Muslims had done...

This is disgusting and vile - Varun Gandhi, son of the late Sanjay Gandhi and grandson of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, went on a wild rant against muslims while campaigning in a rural area:Raising his hands, he repeatedly said...

This is a guest post by Joe Trippi.I've talked about Roy Bennett and his imprisonment for weeks, talked about his courage, about Roy really being the heart and soul of the MDC opposition to Mugabe in Zimbabwe, and rejoiced when...

The view from inside the observation deck of the Coit Tower, in downtown San Francisco. I am struck by how similar the tower's design is to the minaret of a mosque....

View of San Francisco from the south, during takeoff from SFO airport....

Sea lions lounging at Pier 39 in San Francisco....

Further to my earlier post on the topic, we are having a healthy debate at Talk Islam about whether global warming should be a "muslim issue"....

The term Dawah (more correctly spelled Da'wah in transliteration from Arabic) means to prosletyze Islam. The term literally means "invitation". There are different forms of da'wah, the main types being passive and active. Passive da'wah is the belief that living...

Larison makes a great point that bears repeating:let us recall that McCain supported cap-and-trade (even if he didn't necessarily understand what he was talking about when he said so), proposed an insane mortgage bailout plan that pretty much everyone hated,...

I confess that I was defeated by this monstrosity, encountered at the Santa Cruz boardwalk in San Francisco....

A new paper about relative humidity in the upper atmosphere is making the rounds of global-warming skeptic blogs. I'm not a climate scientist,  but my own scientific training does give me the tools to at least read a paper's abstract...

I've been following Bill Richardson for years and he was among my favorite contenders for the Democratic nomination for President. Ultimately I signed onto the Obama camp but I initially thought Richardson has the gravitas and experience to be a...

I had hoped that the New York Times would pick Joshua Trevino to replace Bill Kristol's sordid run as opinion columnist, but their pick of Ross Douthat is definitely a solid choice (though also a far more cautious one). Douthat...

My apologies to my few remaining readers for my delayed absence - I was in the Bay Area from thursday morning until late last night and have rather enjoyed the hiatus from my electronic overlords. My email inboxes have certainly...

A post-racial politics means being able to talk about race rather than ignoring it or pretending it doesn't exist. The clearest indicator of a (non-white) politician's approach to racial issues is their name. Consider that Barack Hussein Obama once went...

There's a fascinating survey of American muslims by Gallup that all sorts of interesting results (direct PDF link). One of the key findings is that American muslims consider themselves to be "thriving", even more so than muslims in the Islamic...

Bobby Jindal is a Catholic. He was born to Hindu parents but converted to Catholicism.  It bears repeating because it seems likely that Jindal will probably face some version of the same "muslim smear" that Barack Obama had to deal...

I was saddened to hear of Paul Harvey's passing today. Harvey was an American radio icon - I was introduced to his program by my father,  for whom news radio 780 AM (Chicago) is essentially the only station in existence....