Mohammed on Women:

WOMEN

Women are deficient in mind and religion.

Mohammed asked some women, "Isn't the witness of a woman equal to half that of a man?" The women said, "yes," He said, "This is because of the deficiency of the woman's mind. " Vol. 3:826

Mohammed to women: "I have not seen any one more deficient in intelligence and religion than you." Vol. 2:541

The majority of people in hell are women.

Mohammed said, "I was shown the Hell-fire and that the majority of its dwellers are women. " Vol. 1:28, 301; Vol. 2:161; Vol. 7:124

Women are a bad omen.

Mohammed said, " Bad omen is in the woman, the house and the horse." Vol. 7:30

Women are harmful to men.

Mohammed said, "After me I have not left any affliction more harmful to men than women." Vol. 7:33

Women may not wear wigs.

Mohammed said, " Don't wear false hair for Allah sends His curse upon such ladies who lengthen their hair artificially." Vol. 7:133

~~~

Mohammed on Sex and Marriage.

SEX AND MARRIAGE Mohammed's sexual strength is equal to 30 men.

Anas said, "The prophet used to visit all his wives in an hour round, during the day and night and they were eleven in number." I asked Anas, "Had the prophet the strength for it?" Anas replied, "We used to say that the prophet was given the strength of thirty (men). " Vol. 1:268

Mohammed married a 9 year old girl.

"Narrated Aisha that the prophet married her when she was six years old and he consummated his marriage when she was nine years old." Vol. 7:64

Allah hurries to please Mohammed's sexual desires.

When the Quranic verse that allows Mohammed to postpone the turn of any wife was revealed, and when Mohammed said that Allah allowed him to marry his adopted son's wife, Aisha (one of his wives) told him, "O Allah's Apostle I do not see but that your Lord hurries in pleasing you. " Vol. 7:48

When a woman is divorced irrevocably, she can not return to her husband until she marries (including having sexual intercourse) with another man.

"Narrated Aisha: The wife of Rifaa Al-Qurazi came to Allah's Apostle and said, 'O Allah's Apostle, Rifaa divorced me irrevocably. After him I married Abdur-Rahman bin Az-Zubair Al-Qurazi who proved to be impotent.' Allah's Apostle said to her, 'Perhaps you want to return to Rifaa? Nay (You cannot return to Rifaa) until you and Abdur-Rahman (the impotent man) engage in sexual intercourse! '" Vol. 7:186

~~~

Mohammed on Human Rights and Ethnic Cleansing.

HUMAN RIGHTS Islam is to be imposed by force.

Mohammed said, "I have been ordered to fight with the people till they say, "None has the right to be worshipped but Allah, and whoever says, " None has the right to be worshipped but Allah , his life and property will be saved by me." (otherwise it will not). Vol. 4:196

Apostasy is punishable by death.

Mohammed said, "Whoever changes his Islamic religion, kill him." Vol. 9:57

A Muslim must not be killed if he kills a non-Muslim.

Mohammed said, " No Muslim should be killed for killing a Kafir" (infidel). Vol. 9:50

Ethnic cleansing is practiced.

Mohammed said to the Jews, "You should know that the earth belongs to Allah and His Apostle (Mohammed) and I want to expel you from this land (The Arabian Peninsula), so, if anyone owns property, he is permitted to sell it." Vol. 4:392

Mohammed's last words at his deathbed were: "Turn the pagans (non-Muslims) out of the Arabian Peninsula." Vol. 5:716

~~~

Mohammed on Eternal Security and Holy War.

ETERNAL SECURITY

No assurance of Salvation.

Mohammed said. "By Allah, though I am the apostle of Allah, yet I do not know what Allah will do to me." Vol. 5:266

God punishes a deceased if his relatives weep.

Mohammed said, "The deceased is punished because of the weeping of his relatives." Vol. 2:375

When you speak badly about a deceased, the deceased will go to hell.

Mohammed said, "You praised this, so Paradise has been affirmed to him, and you spoke badly of this, so hell has been affirmed to him. You people are Allah's witnesses on earth." Vol. 2:448 Urine on your clothes will bring punishment from God. Mohammed said, "The deceased person is being tortured in the grave not for a great thing to avoid, it is for being soiled with his urine. " Vol. 2:460

Holy war (Jihad) is a guarantee of heaven.

Mohammed said, "The person who participates in (Holy battles) in Allah's cause and nothing compels him to do so except belief in Allah and His Apostle, will be recompensed by Allah either with a reward, or booty (if he survives) or will be admitted to paradise (if he is killed). " Vol. 1:35

~~~

Mohammed on Medicine.

MEDICINE

Drinking camel's urine will make you healthy.

"The prophet ordered them to follow his camels, and drink their milk and urine , so they followed the camels and drank their milk and urine till their bodies became healthy." Vol. 7:590

Fever is from the heat of hell.

Mohammed said, " Fever is from the heat of hell, so put it out (cool it) with water." Vol. 7:619

A fly in your drink is a cure.

Mohammed said, "If a housefly falls in the drink of anyone of you, he should dip it (in the drink), for one of its wings has a disease and the other has the cure for the disease. " Vol. 4:537

How the baby's looks are determined.

Mohammed said, "As for the child, if the man's discharge precedes the woman's discharge, the child attracts the similarity of the man, and if the woman's discharge precedes the man's, then the child attracts the similarity of the woman." Vol. 5:275

~~~

Should a Christian Girl Marry a Muslim Man?

Consider this scenario and facts of Islam.

He is asking for your hand in marriage, and you have fallen in love with his bronze Middle Eastern complexion. He is intelligent, rich, well-educated and well-mannered. So, what more can a woman ask for?... THIS MOST ELIGIBLE BACHELOR IS ALSO A MUSLIM ! "There will be no problems" he will say, "you can keep your religion, I will keep mine". And while it is true that Islam allows a Muslim man to marry a Christian woman, is it true that there will be no problems in such a marriage? To answer this question, a woman has to examine what it is like to be a Muslim's wife

Your Status Islam teaches that men are superior to women." Surah 2:228 Islam teaches that women have half the rights of men: In court witness Surah 2:282 In inheritance Surah 4:11

Islam considers the wife a possession. "Fair in the eyes of men is the love of things they covet: women and sons, heaped-up hoards of gold and silver; horses..." Surah 3:14 Islam instructs women to veil themselves always when they are outside their homes" and say to the believing women...that they should draw their veils over their bosoms and not display their beauty"Surah 24:31

Mohammed teaches that women are lacking in mind and religion "I have not seen any one more deficient in intelligence and religion than women" Al Bukhary vol. 2:541

Muhammed teaches that women are a bad omen. "Bad omen is in the women, the house and the horse" Al Bukhary vol. 7:30

Mohammed teaches that women are harmful to men "After me I have not left any affliction more harmful to men than women" Al Bukhary vol.7:33

Your Marriage Islam allows polygamy: A man may marry up to four wives at one time. "Marry women of your choice, two, or three, or four... " Surah 4:3

A man can divorce his wife by oral announcement, the wife has no such right. "Divorce is permissible twice" Surah 2:229

When a husband has pronounced divorce three times on his wife, she then may not lawfully remarry her husband until she has married and been divorced by another man (including having sexual intercourse with him). "...So if a husband divorces his wife he cannot after that, remarry her until after she has married another husband, and he has divorced her" Surah 2:230

Islam teaches that a wife is subject to punishment by her husband, beating a wife or abstaining from sexual relations with her is allowed. "As to those women on whose part ye fear disloyalty and ill-conduct, admonish them, refuse to share their beds, beat them... " Surah 4:34

Your Sex Life Islam considers the wife a sex object. "your wives are as a tilth (a field to be ploughed) unto you, so approach your tilth when or how ye will " Surah 2:223

Your Children Your children have to be raised according to their Muslim father's religion: Islam. If he divorces you, he gets custody of the children, and you wouldn't be able to see your children again.

The Sharia (Islamic Law) states that in mixed marriages "the children will follow the better of the two religions of their parents", which in your case is considered Islam. The Quran states that Islam is the only true religion, "The religion before Allah is Islam" Surah 3:19. Non Muslims can not act as protectors to Muslims, "O ye who believe; take not for friends (protectors) unbelievers rather than believers" Surah 4:144

Your Future Should you survive your Muslim husband, and his wealth is in an Islamic country, the Islamic law will apply. The wife who has not converted to Islam gets nothing, the wife who has converted to Islam gets very little. According to the Quran a wife does not inherit all her husband's wealth. If the husband dies and he leaves no children, she gets a fourth of his wealth, his parents, brothers, uncles...etc will get the rest. If the deceased husband leaves children, then the wife gets an eighth, the children get the rest; the male child gets double the portion of the female. "In what ye leave, their (wives)

share is a fourth if you leave no child; but if you leave a child, they (wives) get an eighth ; after payment of legacies and debts." Surah 4:12 Before You Say "I DO" Before you commit yourself to marry a Muslim, it is a good idea to examine the motives behind it. While your motive may be love, his motive could be just to obtain a "Green Card". I know, they say "love is blind", I hope however that this message will serve as an eye- opener for you. You may say that your husband-to-be is a non-practicing Muslim. But let's not forget that Islam is more than a religion; it includes a complete legal code for Muslims and non- Muslims to follow in an Islamic State. In case of a dispute between you and him , all he needs to do to get the upper hand over you is to travel to an Islamic country. If you are in doubt about this, may I suggest that you see the movie "Not without my daughter" which is based on a true life story of an American woman who married a Muslim man. Other similar movies are: "Princess, Dreams of Trespass, and The Stoning of Soraya M?" This may be a life-saving experience. The lives you will save are your own, and those of your future children. "Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?" 2 Corinthians 6:14

~~~

Mohammed on Unbelievers.

[4.56] (As for) those who disbelieve in Our communications, We shall make them enter fire; so oft as their skins are thoroughly burned, We will change them for other skins, that they may taste the chastisement; surely Allah is Mighty, Wise."

[22:19-22] But as for those who disbelieve, garments of fire will be cut out for them, boiling fluid will be poured down their heads. Whereby that which is in their bellies, and their skins too, will be melted; And for them are hooked rods of iron. Whenever, in their anguish, they would go forth from thence they are driven back therein and (it is said unto them): Taste the doom of burning.

[8.12] When your Lord revealed to the angels: I am with you, therefore make firm those who believe. I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Therefore strike off their heads and strike off every fingertip of them.

[58:5] Those who resist Allah and His Messenger will be crumbled to dust, as were those before them: for we have already sent down Clear Signs and the Unbelievers will have a humiliating Penalty

~~~

Why Does Bin Laden desire Americans out of Saudia Arabia?

Sahih Muslim Book 019, Number 4366: It has been narrated by 'Umar b. al-Khattib that he heard the Messenger of Allah (may peace be upon him) say: I will expel the Jews and Christians from the Arabian Peninsula and will not leave any but Muslim.

~~~

What more does the Prophet of Peace say on Unbelievers?

Sahih Muslim The Book of Faith (Kitab Al-Iman)

Book 001, Number 0033: It has been narrated on the authority of Abdullah b. 'Umar that the Messenger of Allah said: I have been commanded to fight against people till they testify that there is no god but Allah, that Muhammad is the messenger of Allah, and they establish prayer, and pay Zakat and if they do it, their blood and property are guaranteed protection on my behalf except when justified by law, and their affairs rest with Allah.

[9.29] Fight those who do not believe in Allah, nor in the latter day, nor do they prohibit what Allah and His Apostle have prohibited, nor follow the religion of truth, out of those who have been given the Book, until they pay the tax in acknowledgment of superiority and they are in a state of subjection.

[9.123] O you who believe! fight those of the unbelievers who are near to you and let them find in you hardness; and know that Allah is with those who guard (against evil).

[4.74] Therefore let those fight in the way of Allah, who sell this world's life for the hereafter; and whoever fights in the way of Allah, then be he slain or be he victorious, We shall grant him a mighty reward.

[9:5] But when the forbidden months are past, then fight and slay the Pagans wherever ye find them, an seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem l.

[4:34] Men are the managers of the affairs of women for that God has preferred in bounty one of them over another, and for that they have expended of their property. Righteous women are therefore obedient, guarding the secret for God's guarding. And those you fear may be rebellious admonish; banish them to their couches, and beat them.

~~~

Mohammed on Beating one's wife and their place in Hell.

Abu Dawud Book 11, Number 2142: Narrated Umar ibn al-Khattab: The Prophet (peace_be_upon_him) said: A man will not be asked as to why he beat his wife.

Sahih Bukhari Volume 7, Book 62, Number 33: Narrated Usama bin Zaid: The Prophet said, "After me I have not left any affliction more harmful to men than women."

Sahih Bukhari Volume 7, Book 62, Number 126: Narrated Imran: The Prophet said, "I looked at Paradise and saw that the majority of its residents were the poor; and I looked at the (Hell) Fire and saw that the majority of its residents were women."

~~~

Mohammed on having Christian/Jewish friends.

Quran: [5.51] O you who believe! do not take the Jews and the Christians for friends; they are friends of each other; and whoever amongst you takes them for a friend, then surely he is one of them; surely Allah does not guide the unjust people.

~~~

Salman Rushdie on Islam versus Islamism A war that presents us all with a crisis of faith Salman Rushdie on Islam versus Islamism Saturday November 3, 2001 The Guardian 'This isn't about Islam." The world's leaders have been repeating this mantra for weeks, partly in the virtuous hope of deterring reprisal attacks on innocent Muslims living in the west, partly because, if the US is to maintain its coalition against terror, it can't afford to allege that Islam and terrorism are in any way related. The trouble with this necessary disclaimer is that it isn't true. If this isn't about Islam, why the worldwide Muslim demonstrations in support of Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida? Why did those 10,000 men armed with swords and axes mass on the Pakistan-Afghanistan frontier, answering some mullah's call to jihad? Why are the war's first British casualties three Muslim men who died fighting on the Taliban side? Why the routine anti-Semitism of the much-repeated Islamic slander that "the Jews" arranged the hits on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon, with the oddly self-deprecating explanation offered by the Taliban leadership, among others, that Muslims could not have the technological knowhow or organisational sophistication to pull off such a feat? Why does Imran Khan, the Pakistani ex-sports star turned politician, demand to be shown the evidence of al-Qaida's guilt, while apparently turning a deaf ear to the self-incriminating statements of al-Qaida's own spokesmen (there will be a rain of aircraft from the skies, Muslims in the west are warned not to live or work in tall buildings, etc)? Why all the talk about US military infidels desecrating the sacred soil of Saudi Arabia, if some sort of definition of what is sacred is not at the heart of the present discontents? Let's start calling a spade a spade. Of course this is "about Islam". The question is: what exactly does that mean? After all, most religious belief isn't very theological. Most Muslims are not profound Koranic analysts. For a vast number of "believing" Muslim men, "Islam" stands, in a jumbled, half-examined way, not only for the fear of God - the fear more than the love, one suspects - but also for a cluster of customs, opinions and prejudices that include their dietary practices, the sequestration or near-sequestration of "their" women, the sermons delivered by their mullah of choice, a loathing of modern society in general, riddled as it is with music, godlessness and sex, and a more particularised loathing (and fear) of the prospect that their own immediate surroundings could be taken over - "westoxicated" - by the liberal, western-style way of life. Highly motivated organisations of Muslim men (oh, for the voices of Muslim women to be heard!) have been engaged, over the past 30 years or so, in growing radical political movements out of this mulch of "belief". These Islamists - we must get used to this word, "Islamists", meaning those who are engaged upon such political projects, and learn to distinguish it from the more general, and politically neutral, "Muslim" - include the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, the bloodsoaked combatants of the FIS and GIA in Algeria, the Shia revolutionaries of Iran, and the Taliban. Poverty is their great helper, and the fruit of their efforts is paranoia. This paranoid Islam, which blames outsiders, "infidels", for all the ills of Muslim societies, and whose proposed remedy is the closing of those societies to the rival project of modernity, is presently the fastest-growing version of Islam in the world. This is not wholly to go along with Samuel Huntington's thesis about the "clash of civilisations", for the simple reason that the Islamists' project is not only turned against the west and "the Jews", but also against their fellow Islamists. Whatever the public rhetoric, there's little love lost between the Taliban and Iranian regimes. Dissensions between Muslim nations run at least as deep, if not deeper, than those nations' resentment of the west. Nevertheless, it would be absurd to deny that this self-exculpatory, paranoiac Islam is an ideology with widespread appeal. Twenty years ago, when I was writing a novel about power struggles in a fictionalised Pakistan, it was already de rigueur in the Muslim world to blame all its troubles on the west and, in particular, the United States. Then, as now, some of these criticisms were well founded; no room here to rehearse the geopolitics of the cold war, and America's frequently damaging foreign policy "tilts", to use the Kissinger term, towards (or away from)

this or that temporarily useful (or disapproved of) nation state, or America's role in the installation and deposition of sundry unsavoury leaders and regimes. But I wanted then to ask a question which is no less important now: suppose we say that the ills of our societies are not primarily America's fault - that we are to blame for our own failings? How would we understand them then? Might we not, by accepting our own responsibility for our problems, begin to learn to solve them for ourselves? Interestingly, many Muslims, as well as secularist analysts with roots in the Muslim world, are beginning to ask such questions now. In recent weeks, Muslim voices have everywhere been raised against the obscurantist "hijack" of their religion. Yesterday's hotheads (among them Yusuf Islam, aka Cat Stevens) are improbably repackaging themselves as today's pussycats. An Iraqi writer quotes an earlier Iraqi satirist: "The disease that is in us, is from us." A British Muslim writes that "Islam has become its own enemy". A Lebanese writer friend, returning from Beirut, tells me that in the aftermath of September 11, public criticism of Islamism has become much more outspoken. Many commentators have spoken of the need for a reformation in the Muslim world. I'm reminded of the way non-communist socialists used to distance themselves from the tyrannous "actually existing" socialism of the Soviets; nevertheless, the first stirrings of this counter- project are of great significance. If Islam is to be reconciled with modernity, these voices must be encouraged until they swell into a roar. Many of them speak of another Islam - their personal, private faith - and the restoration of religion to the sphere of the personal - its depoliticisation - is the nettle that all Muslim societies must grasp in order to become modern. The only aspect of modernity in which the terrorists are interested is technology, which they see as a weapon that can be turned against its makers. If terrorism is to be defeated, the world of Islam must take on board the secularist-humanist principles on which the modern is based, and without which their countries' freedom will remain a distant dream.

~~~

Visit a Site for Recent Slaughter of Coptic Christians under this Religion of Peace.

http://www.copts.net/flash/movie4english.html

~~~

The following letter to the editor appeared in the Washington Post yesterday. It's exactly correct: there *is* something wrong with the Moslem religion.

Latter-Day Barbarians

Saturday, October 27, 2001; Page A25

In reference to "The Crusaders' Giant Footprints: After a Millennium, Their Mark Remains," by Ken Ringle [Style, Oct. 23]: You folks really need to get beyond the convenient propaganda message that Islam is all about peace and tolerance. That may or may not be true of Islam the religion. It certainly isn't true of Islam the civilization, which tolerates other faiths only if they are completely subordinated to a dominant Muslim society.

The inability of many Middle Eastern cultures to distinguish historical time does much to keep them inescapably locked in vicious internal blood feuds, but that's a cultural feature that needs to be changed, not respected. I'm particularly puzzled why the hostility between Islam and the West must be attributed to the violence of the crusaders. If "crusade" is such a dirty word, why do we keep hearing about jihad?

Bloody as they were, the Crusades were hardly an unprovoked act of aggression by the West but rather a counterattack -- one must ask, after all, how the "holy land" came to be in the possession of Islam in the first place. The answer, of course, is that the Arabs conquered it through violent military action. Indeed, for most of the past 1,400 years, it has been the West that was under assault by Islam, not the other way around. The European counterattack against Muslim armies began on the territory of France, and it took centuries to retake Spain. As late as 1689, Turkish Muslim armies were laying siege to Vienna, in the very heart of Europe. It took two more centuries after that to free central Europe, the Balkans and Greece from foreign Muslim domination.

When considering the balance of barbarities, one should consider examples such as what happened in 1571 to the defeated European commander of Cyprus, who -- after being guaranteed safe passage -- was skinned alive, the skin then being stuffed with straw and put on parade. And, of course, one should remember that it wasn't the West that put an end to Arab glory -- it was the Turks who turned the Arabs into second-class citizens within Islam.

The West, and its dominant religion, Christianity, have certainly been guilty of all sorts of barbarism over the years, but we aren't barbarians now. Can the same be said of our current enemies?

-- Chris Bassford

~~~

Koran quotes:

sura 9:123 Fight those of the disbelievers who are near to you, and let them find harsness in you.

sura 9:5 Slay the idolaters wherever you find them, and take them captive, and besiege them and lie in wait for them in every ambush. ' ~~~

International Campaign for Defence of Women's Rights in Iran (International Campaign for Defence of Women's Rights , 08 March 2000)

Imagine! What would you do If somebody told you that starting today, the following were the rules and laws governing the society? ? Women are stoned to death for engaging in voluntary sexual relations. ? Women do not have the right to choose their clothing. "Hejab", is mandatory in all public places for all women, regardless of citizenship, religion or choice. Those in contravention of the dress code are subject to punishment including lashes. ? Women are segregated from men in every aspect of public life. ? Women are barred from taking employment in a large number of occupations simply because these jobs would compromise their chastity. A married woman can only be employed if she has the consent of her husband. ? Women are not free to choose their own academic or vocational field of study. In all, 169 fields of study are prohibited to women. ? The legal age of marriage for girls is 9 years old. ? Women do not have equal rights to divorce. Only under extreme conditions, such as insanity of their spouse, can they file for divorce. In the event of divorce, the father has legal custody of boys after the age of two and girls after the age of seven. The mother loses this minimum right as soon as she remarries. ? Women do not have the right to acquire a passport and travel without the written permission of their husbands/fathers. You would first say it must be a joke, and when you find out that these are in fact the rules of the society, you would certainly get angry and defy them. This is exactly what is happening in Iran. Women's protest movement in Iran is gaining momentum daily. Women try to educate themselves, find work, defy Islamic code of dressing and protest against sexual apartheid and oppression. Contrary to the picture portrayed by the international mass media and statesmen, the Islamic Republic of Iran does not want to, and can not be the ruling power to grant equality and freedom to women. No window-dressing by the agents of this regime abroad, no elaborate report on our TV screens about "the election of the moderates", "Iran on the road to democracy" can conceal the horrific extent of suppression of millions of women, who are bereft of their integrity and dignity each day as they are treated as second-class citizens, in the eyes of the law and Islamic authorities and institutions. The reality is that people in Iran and women in particular have no illusions about the suppressive and anti-woman nature of Islam and the Islamic Republic. Women are one of the main radical forces in the Iranian politics today and can not be ignored by any propaganda. They have clear demands. Would these not be your demands too? 1- The overthrow of the Islamic Republic of Iran. 2- Separation of religion from the state. 3- An end to sexual apartheid. 4- Freedom, equality, universal rights for women in Iran now. ____________________________________________________ International Campaign for Defence of Women's Rights in Iran 1st March 2000 PO Box 636 Wembley, HA9 9GQ, UK Tel. +44 - 0771 - 4399493

~~~

Looking for Justice for the blood of our martyrs by Michael Meunier On the eve of the new millennium, close to two years ago, hundreds of Muslims attacked the village of Al-Kosheh, a predominantly Christian village in Upper Egypt. The attacks continued for 3 days with no intervention from the Egyptian police. The attackers slaughtered 21 Christians, including women and children and had ample time to burn and decapitate many of the bodies. Hundreds of Christians were injured and their homes destroyed and shops vandalized. After overwhelming local and international pressure, the Egyptian government arrested 58 Muslim and 38 Copts and charged them with various charges, including murder, rioting and destruction of property. On 2/5/2001, the criminal court of Sohag, Egypt acquitted 92 of the total 96 defendants. The court handed in lenient sentences to 4 criminals for crimes other than murder, a decision that flabbergasted the world and left us wondering whom then killed the 21 Christians in Egypt? The court's decision underscores the great leverage and controls the Muslim fundamentalist have over the judiciary system in Egypt. It also highlighted the well-known fact that the Egyptian government has sacrificed the Christians of Egypt to appease the Muslim fanatics within its ranks. After yet another protest from Christians in Egypt over the court verdict as well as protests from world leaders and lawmakers, the appeal court

rejected the criminal court's decision and had agreed to hear a retrial of the case. On November 3, 2001 the appeal court will begin hearing the case all over again, all while the killers were set free by the first court decision. For decades now, the Copts all over the world, especially those in Egypt, have been asking for justice. From Ottawa to Cairo, Washington to Sydney, and Melbourne to Assiut, millions of Copts have been demanding justice and equality in Egypt, a country which severely discriminates its Coptic Christians minority. It is time now for all of the Copts to raise their voices and make the

Egyptian government aware that we are watching and waiting for the new

verdict. The blood of our martyrs is crying for justice and it is our duty to see to it. Please take the time to write to call or write to your local Egyptian Embassy informing them of your interest in the case. Write a letter to

President Mubarak demanding an end to the abuses that he has encouraged for over twenty years and has promoted through little or no action to protect the Copts or bring their attackers to justice. Finally, make sure you

inform the world of these atrocities committed against our people. Write to your local politicians and human rights organizations. Try to visit your nearest Christian Church and talk to its members about the suffering of Christians in Egypt and the little or no action taken by the Egyptian government to stop its own discriminatory polices against the Christians of Egypt. In the upcoming days, the Coptic Digest will lead the campaign on "Justice in Al-Kosheh". Please make sure to participate.

~~~

There have been massive human rights violations by Sudanese security forces, various government allied militias and armed opposition groups. Those violations are happening in the South of Sudan where the Christians and non Muslims populations have reside. Sudan is a great country in land occupied in the north mainly by Muslim Arabs. The south however, is mostly Christian or Pagan tribes. The government is formed out of the Arab Muslims of the north, despite the fact that the majority of the population are the non Muslim Sudanese of the south. Some of those southern Sudanese civilian are living in oil fields and surrounding areas has been deliberately targeted for massive human rights abuses -- forced displacement, aerial bombardments, strafing villages from helicopter gunshots, unlawful killings, torture including rape and abduction. Government troops reportedly cleared the area using helicopter gunshots, some allegedly piloted by Iraqi soldiers, and aerial cluster bombardment by high-altitude Antonov planes. In addition, government troops on the ground reportedly drove people out of their homes by committing gross human rights violations; male villagers were killed in mass executions; women and children were nailed to trees with iron spikes. Reports from other villages claim that soldiers slit the throats of children and killed male civilians who had been interrogated by hammering nails into their foreheads. Military tactics such as the destruction of harvests, looting of livestock and permanent military occupation of the area, are being used to prevent the return of the displaced population. The risk of famine to displaced civilians is heightening since no harvests can be expected. Mujahedin fighters from Afghanistan and Malaysia have been reportedly used to protect the staff and property of companies involved in building the oil pipeline. Helicopters flown by foreign pilots have been used to ferry armed opposition troops to areas in which fighting was taking place; these troops are alleged to have subsequently carried out atrocities against civilians. Clearly the money that is generated from that oil revenue is used to help the Sudanese government buy tanks and arms from Poland, China and Bulgaria and support their Mujahedin fighters in Afghanistan Malaysia, Algeria .... What a price those poor Sudden Sudanese civilians are paying..... and what a cause it is serving.... Eman Messiha

~~~

In Iran, "The legal age of marriage for girls is 9 years old."

Iran the pedophilic state?

Read of the other discussing things Iran does to its women at: http://www2.womensnet.org.za/news/show.cfm?news_id=367

~~~

> > Sep 30, 2001

> > In Northern Nigeria, Introduction of Islamic Law Tames Crime - but

Prompts > > Bloodletting

> >

> > By Glenn McKenzie

> >

> > Associated Press Writer

> >

> > GUMMI, Nigeria (AP) - Lawali Isa brandishes the stump where his

> > right hand was amputated on the orders of an Islamic court.

> >

> > "This is how justice was done to me," says Isa, who had the penalty

> > administered by hospital surgeons in May after being convicted

> > of stealing two bicycles. "Now I would prefer to die rather than

> > live."

> >

> > In the 20 months since a dozen northern Nigerian states started

> > imposing the strict edicts of Islamic law, or Shariah, one man

> > is appealing a sentence of death by stoning, a handful of petty

> > crooks have had hands amputated and a few accused adulterers,

> > including a 17-year-old girl who said she was raped, have been

> > flogged.

> >

> > There has been a greater, and deadlier, result: Muslim-Christian

> > tensions have exploded in the north of Africa's most populous

> > country, fueling violence that has killed thousands and wrecked

> > neighborhoods, villages and cities. Islam and Christianity had

> > coexisted relatively peacefully for more than a century in Nigeria

> > and other parts of Africa, where fundamentalism is rare and many

> > adherents of both religions mix in elements of animism and ancestor

> > worship.

> >

> > In Nigeria, Muslim women have a liberal interpretation of the

> > Islamic dress code, wearing a vibrantly colored veil that is

> > often draped casually around the hair instead of covering the

> > face. Men wear brightly colored clothes in contrast

> > to the austere customs of Muslims in the Middle East.

> >

> > Shariah's backers here defend the harsh punishments as a deterrent

> > to crime in a dangerous land.

> >

> > Isa, who says he stole car parts and broke into homes for more than

> > 15 years, admits the only reason he "repented my ways" was because

> > his hand was cut off. Now he sells firewood and candy from a tin-roofed

> > mud home that he bought with money donated by people who took pity

> > after the amputation. "I can never steal again without two hands,"

> > he said.

> >

> > Shariah has few detractors in Isa's hometown of Gummi, a dusty

> > farming community in the sweeping savannah emptiness of Zamfara,

> > the northeastern Nigerian state that was the first to impose

> > Islamic law, in January 2000.

> >

> > The sleepy town has welcomed the break from crime that Shariah has

> > brought. But the overwhelming acceptance of Islamic law is due more

> > to the fact that nearly everyone in Gummi - and the rest of

> > Zamfara - is Muslim, with just a handful of

> > Christian merchants who keep a low profile.

> >

> > In northern cities, where there are large Christian populations,

> > Shariah has sporadically pitted young religious zealots against

> > each other in bloodbaths. Strife in the hilltop city of Jos in

> > early September killed 165 people by official count - and probably

> > hundreds more.

> >

> > Supporters of Shariah see it as a path to honesty and justice,

> > fostering Muslim piety while allowing Christians to practice

> > their religion as they wish. Only Muslims are supposed to be

> > tried in Islamic courts, while Christians answer to secular

> > courts.

> >

> > To its opponents, Islamic law is a barbaric mingling of church

> > and state, a fanatical mix that in some cases forbids all women to

> > ride with men on motorcycles or bicycles - the main mode of

> > transportation in the poor region - and prevents social diversions

> > like alcohol and fashion magazines.

> >

> > At a recent gathering of a few dozen Christians in Zamfara's

> > capital, Gusau, the Rev. Linus-Mary Awuhe, priest at Our Lady

> > of Fatima Catholic Church, spoke with angry words of Christian

> > fears of "Muslim supremacy."

> >

> > "Even when nobody is dying on the streets, there is no peace. There

> > is war in the hearts of people. That war waits for its time to break

> > out," Awuhe said. "Christians will not fold their arms and be led

> > to the slaughter like goats." Nigeria's constitution has long

> > permitted states to impose Islamic law on their Muslim citizens.

> > But it was only after President Olusegun Obasanjo won 1999 elections,

> > ending 15 years of military dictatorship, that northern politicians

> > began taking advantage of the provision.

> >

> > Long-standing ethnic enmities between the mainly Muslim Hausas of

> > the north and the southern Yorubas and Igbos, who are Christians

> > and animists, have added to the divide.

> >

> > But some Muslims and Christians believe party politics is behind

> > the implementation of Shariah and the resulting violence.

> >

> > Obasanjo's People's Democratic Party accuses the All People's

> > Party, which governs Zamfara and many other northern state

> > governments, of using Shariah selectively to target political

> > enemies. Christian groups accuse Zamfara's government of using

> > Shariah to favor Muslims in the granting of government

> > contracts and loans.

> >

> > "All of Islam favors Shariah and that includes me," says Alhaji

> > Umar Gwamna, a Muslim opposition leader who is chairman of

> > Obasanjo's party in Gummi. "But this is not Shariah for everyone,

> > it is a corrupt Shariah favoring those who are not

> > friends of the Zamfara state government."

> >

> > Alhaji Umaru Danawu, a local merchant and prominent supporter of

> > the state government, answers that brothels, gambling houses and

> > drinking places have disappeared since Islamic law. Once brazen

> > robberies in the outdoor markets have become a rare occurrence

> > and "dens of vice" have been replaced by Islamic schools and

> > health clinics, he adds.

> >

> > "Anybody who says this is politics does not understand our

> > religion," Danawu says. "This is about following Allah."

~~~

2.1 Islam

2.1.1 What does 'Islam' mean?

The Arabic word 'Islam' simply means 'submission', and derives from a = word meaning 'peace'. In a religious context it means complete = submission to the will of God. 'Allah' is the Arabic name for God, which = is used by Arab Muslims.

2.1.2 Who is Muhammad?

Muhammad is the founder of Islam. Muhammad was born in Makkah in the = year AD 570 into an idol-worshipping Arab tribe. It is probable that he = was a descendant of Ishmael. Since his father died before his birth, and = his mother shortly afterwards, he was raised by his uncle from the = respected tribe of Quraysh. At the age of 25, he married his employer, a = wealthy widow of forty. During his lifetime, he lived with at least 10 = other wives. He practiced and preached polygamy. His followers are = allowed 4 wives. Muhammad was of a deeply religious nature. It became = his habit to meditate from time to time in the Cave of Hira near the = summit of Jaba al-Nur, the 'Mountain of Light' near Makkah.

2.1.3 How did he become a prophet?

When Muhammad was a young man, he met a western Christian missionary, = then he believed the Holy Bible as the Word of God. At the age of 40, he = claimed that he received his first revelation from God through the angel = Gabriel. This revelation, which continued for twenty-three years, is = known as the Qur'an.

As soon as he began to recite the words he heard from Gabriel, and to = preach the truth which God had revealed to him, he and his small group = of followers suffered bitter persecution which grew so fierce that in = the year 622 and therefore they emigrate. This event, the Hijra, = 'migration', in which they left Makkah for the city of Madinah some 260 = miles to the north, marks the beginning of the Muslim calendar.

After several years, the Prophet and his followers were able to return = to Makkah, where they established Islam definitively. Before the Prophet = died at the age of 63, the greater part of Arabia was Muslim, and within = a century of his death Islam had spread to Spain in the West and as far = East as China.

2.1.4 What do Muslims believe?

Muslims (i.e. believers of Islam) believe in One Unique, Incomparable = God; in the Angels created by Him; in the prophets through whom His = revelations were brought to mankind; in the Day of Judgement and = individual accountability for actions; in God's complete authority over = human destiny and in life after death. Muslims believe in a chain of = prophets starting with Adam and including Noah, Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac, = Jacob, Joseph, Job, Moses, Aaron, David, Solomon, Elias, Jonah, John the = Baptist, and Jesus Christ, peace be upon them. But God's final message = to man, a reconfirmation of the eternal message and a summing-up of all = that has gone before was revealed to the Prophet Muhammad through the = angel Gabriel (the same angel as mentioned in Luke 1:19).

Islam is a fatalistic religion which presents to its followers a = sovereign God who, without consideration of any redemptive program, = sends men to heaven or hell according to his own whims. If a Muslim is = to have any hope of heaven (beautiful gardens, flowing wines, and lovely = virgins), then his good deeds must outweigh his evil ones. Islam appeals = to human nature of man, promising all kinds of sensual delights in an = after-life. However, those who follow Islam in its purity maintain a = pious life-style, abstaining from liquor and pork.

2.1.5 What is the Qur'an?

Muslims assert that the Qur'an is a record of the last revealed words by = God through the Angel Gabriel to the Prophet Muhammad. It was memorized = by Muhammad and then dictated to his Companions, and written down by = scribes.

Muslims assert that the Jewish people and Christians have tampered with = the original Words of God (i.e. the Holy Bible). That is to say, the God = instructed Muhammad to correct the mistakes which have been deliberately = inserted by the Jews and Christians in the original Holy Bible. Some of = the mistakes are summarized as follows:

Jesus Christ is one of the prophets sent from the God instead of the Son = of God. There is no salvation through Jesus Christ as there is no redemption = work. The Comforter promised by Jesus appeared in the person of Muhammad. Ishmael is the promised son of Abraham instead of Isaac. The Arabs is the God's chosen people instead of Israel and Christian = church. The Qur'an is Islam's "bible." The writings within this book are a = plagiarism from the Old Testament and paganism. The Qur'an recognizes = Christ as a prophet but totally rejects His death and resurrection. In = the teachings of Muhammad, recorded in the Qur'an, are found the = ultimate and uncorrupted revelations of the will of God. God's message = given to mankind through Jesus was adulterated by the Church, especially = the apostle Paul. The truth was restored. Muhammad, therefore, must = eclipse Christ as God's last word; the Qur'an must correct the confused = narratives of the New Testament; the good advice of the Prophet must = replace the good news of the Savior; the crescent must be substituted = for the Cross.

Muslims assert that the Qur'an is the corrected version of the original = Words of God. However, when we compare the Qur'an with the Holy Bible, = we will find that the Qur'an is merely a modification of the Holy Bible. = Please note that both the Old Testament and New Testament have existed = long before the Qur'an. As I have mentioned in Chapter 4, modern = Archaeology proved that the reliability of the Holy Bible is extremely = high. (Note: I strongly recommend the diligent readers to compare the = Holy Bible with Qur'an in order to find out their similarities and = differences.).

2.1.6 What do Muslims think about Jesus Christ?

Muslims think that Muhammad is the last and greatest apostle of God, = they relegate Jesus to the position of the penultimate prophet. He is = honored as the next to last in a series of 28 prophets stretching back = through Alexander the Great and Abraham to Adam. In other words, they = consider Jesus Christ as one of the greatest of God's Messengers to = mankind but deny His deity. Muslims await the Second Coming of Jesus. = The Qur'an confirms his virgin birth (a chapter of the Qur'an is = entitled 'Mary'), and Mary is considered the purest woman in all = creation.

2.1.7 Influence of Islam to the world

Islam is one of the three missionary religions which spread rapidly, = beginning about 630 in Arabia. By 640, Islam had conquered the Middle = East to the borders of India. By the 700s, all of North Africa was in = the hand of Islam as well as Spain. In 732, Charles Martel of France = stopped the Arab invasion of his country.

2.1.8 Idolatry and Islam

Though Muslims assert that they reject idolatry, they carefully guards = the "two hairs of the prophet" in a grotto in the Dome of the Rock at = Jerusalem. They also worship the Black Stone, called the Kaaba, which is = set in the small stone building in the court of the Great Mosque at = Mecca. This "holiest object in Islam" is looked upon as reverently and = is guarded as zealously as any idol in Hinduism or any statue of the = Virgin in Romanism.

2.1.9 Terrorism and Islam

Islam spread by force - through the Jihad, or called 'Holy War' - and it = seemed as if there was no power to check it. In Islam the sword is = considered the key to heaven. If one died fighting for Islam, he had = immediate access to heaven. That's the reason why we have so many = terrorists and bomb attacks in the Middle East as well as in the other = countries. In bomb attacks, Muslims have been killing a lot of innocent = people. In Islam temples, Muslims teach and train their young followers = (including children and women) how to use machine guns and bombs.

2.1.10 Sins and Islam

The sins of Muslims including:

Polygamy. They practice and preach polygamy, their followers are allowed = 4 wives. Idolatry. They worship the "two hairs of the prophet" and the Black = Stone. Terrorism. In bomb attacks, they have been killing a lot of innocent =

~~~

THE HEBREW UNIVERSITY OF JERUSALEM The Middle Eastern Unit and The Faculty of Humanities Chair: Dr. David Satran (Department of Comparative Religion) LECTURE: November 11, 1996 (5:00 pm, Room 104 of the Truman Institute) by BAT YE'OR The Decline of Eastern Christian Communities in the Modern Middle East Ladies and gentlemen: I have been asked to address you today on the decline of Eastern Christian communities in the modern Middle East. This process of Christian demographical declined has, however, been a permanent trend in Islamized lands, sometimes accelerated by specific events, sometimes stabilized. But the process of withering away has always been there from the beginning and, with the passing centuries, Christian populations that formerly constituted majorities dwindled to minorities - even disappearing from certain regions. Here I wish to stress a point: When, in 1983, I coined a new term, "dhimmitude," all those processes by which a society - an ethnic collective group - either managed to survive, defending itself, or was ultimately destroyed. The study of dhimmitude is not the same as the study of the dhimmi condition itself, because dhimmitude concerns the inner politics and inter-relations of a collectivity, which coexists encapsulated within its Islamic environment. A delicate equilibrium evolved during the centuries of resignation to spoliations and humiliations. But, in the Ottoman Empire, during the 19th century Tanzimat period, that equilibrium was suddenly broken by the immense challenges represented by the total modification of the relationship between the umma (the Muslim community) and the dhimmi populations. Because the Islamic state had granted Jews and Christians a protection in the context of jihad, a holy war, their whole legal status was thereby integrated into a warlike ideology linked with religion. We thus find three inter-related and inseparable elements: a legal status; a war; and a theology. In the document section of my latest book in English, The Decline of Eastern Christianity under Islam. From Jihad to Dhimmitude, I have published a text from al-Qayrawani, a Tunisian jurist, who died in 966. A brief passage from him will allow us to understand the traditional position on this question: "Jihad is a precept of Divine institution. Its performance by certain individuals may dispense others from it. We Malikis (one of the four schools of Muslim jurisprudence) maintain that it is preferable not to begin hostilities with the enemy before having invited the latter to embrace the religion of Allah except where the enemy attacks first. They have the alternative of either converting to Islam or paying the poll tax (jizya), short of which, war will be declared against them. " In the 19th century, when the emancipation of the dhimmis was envisaged in the Ottoman Empire, these three elements proved to be unsurmountable obstacles. By the end of the 18th century, the modernization of the empire had became a matter of urgency in order to maintain its territorial integrity against the annexionist ambitions of both Austria and Russia. Already in 1774, by the treaty of Kuchuk-Kainarjdi, Russia had managed to obtain the right to intercede on behalf of all the Orthodox subjects of the Porte. Russia thereby became the champion of the Slavs and of Eastern Orthodoxy in general, while France defended the interests and privileges of Catholicism. This territorial integrity of the Ottoman Empire, first pledged by France, became the pivotal policy of Europe. It is within this context of territorial integrity of the Ottoman Empire that the emancipation of the Christian rayas - or dhimmis -was envisaged by Europe. This policy was based on the hope that equal rights for all Ottoman subjects and the abolition of the oppression of the rayas would check the revolutionary national movements of the Greeks, the Serbs and other Slavic peoples. The principle of equal rights was one of those liberal ideas bequeathed by the American and French revolutions. But in Europe the political context was totally different from that in Islamic lands. First, in Christendom the principle of the separation of powers - political and religious - had allowed the development of secularist and anti-clerical trends. The religious minorities: Protestants in a Catholic majority; Catholics in a Protestant majority; and the Jewish communities, were minorities persecuted on a theological basis. Here, the principle of equal rights was only possible through the elimination of theological pressures on European political and juridical systems. In the Islamic system, however, the situation was exactly the reverse since politics and religion are united. The definition given by the great 14th century historian, Ibn Khaldun, is worth quoting briefly: "In the Muslim community, the holy war is a religious duty, because of the universalism of the (Muslim)

mission and (the obligation) to convert everybody to Islam either by persuasion or by force. Therefore, caliphate and royal authority are united (in Islam), so that the person in charge can devote the available strength to both of them (religion and politics) at the same time". Secondly, the so-called "religious minorities" were still, in some regions, large majorities like the Greeks, the Slavic populations of Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria - and the Armenians in several provinces. But most important, these "religious minorities" in the Ottoman Empire were in fact the remnants of native ethnic majorities. Two firmans were proclaimed by Sultan Abd al-Majid in 1839 and 1856, promising new laws that would abolish religious inequalities. In the Islamic context, the policy of equal rights for all subjects raised many questions. I will mention a few which are still relevant today: 1. The right for Christians to hold freehold property. According to Muslim jurists, the land conquered by jihad should be considered as fay land, a land that in its totality belongs to the umma - the Islamic community - as a wakf, which the imam administers for the benefit of the umma. The scholar Qudama b. Ja'far (d. circa 932) wrote: "If the Imam distributes the lands amongst those who captured them, they become 'ushr lands, and their previous owners become slaves. If he does not distribute the lands but leaves them in whole, as a trust to the Muslims, then the poll-tax lies on the necks of their owners, who are free, while their lands are charged with kharaj tax." This point is stressed in the 1988 Constitution of Hamas (art. 11), where it applies to any land conquered by Islam. In spite of reforms granting non-Muslims the right to buy land in the Ottoman Empire, they could rarely acquire it. In 1860, the British Consul in Sarajevo reported to the British ambassador at Constantinople: "Christians [dhimmis] are now permitted to possess real property, but the obstacles which they meet with, when they attempt to acquire it, are so many and vexatious that very few have as yet dared to brave them" . This situation continued till 1875, although in Egypt and Palestine special privileges were granted to Europeans. 2. The second point was the abolition of the Koranic tax, the jizya, which was paid in exchange for "protection" under the dhimma. Thus, the suppression of the jizya was considered as tantamount to the suppression of the protection itself, which left the dhimmis defenceless. According to the Shafi'i jurist al-Mawardi (d. 1058): "The refusal of tributaries to pay the poll tax constitutes a violation of the treaty that was conceded to them. " According to the 8th century jurist Abu Yusuf: "(...) their lives and possessions are spared only on account of the poll tax. " At a time of great changes when foreign laws and customs imported from the West were contradicting the shari'a, questions were raised about the source of the law's legitimacy. Today, this question is still a burning issue for islamists: the choice between the Law of Allah - the shari'a - and the principle of secular, man-made, laws. Of course, for Muslim judges the shari'a law always prevails over any other law and therefore the system of dhimmitude was perfect and had to be maintained. Here, we should take a closer look at the principle of "rights" in general. From whom does a person's "rights" emanate? The rules of jihad state that the infidel who does not submit has no rights at all. The rights of Jews and Christians are only granted, and protected, if they have submitted to Islamic law. According to an-Nawawi, a 13th century jurist: "One is not responsible for having mortally wounded an infidel who is not subjected to a Muslim authority, or of an apostate, even when either one of them recants of his errors before dying. " In other words, it is the Islamic ruler who guarantees, and is the source of legitimacy regarding the rights of Jews and Christians. This is clearly in contradiction with Western conceptions of Human Rights, which declare that everyone is born free and equal in dignity and in rights. In this respect, too, article 31 of the Hamas Charter stresses the Islamic source of "rights" for Jews and Christians. President Sadat also confirmed this Muslim point in Washington in 1980. Shocked by the wide publicity given by American Copts to the persecutions of Copts in Egypt, he declared: "Islam is the best guaranty of security for the Copts in Egypt". Thus, it is Islam which is the source of rights - not the person's inherent rights. Equality of rights for all would challenge the Islamic order that stressed the superiority of Muslims over infidels. Should a non-Muslim give orders to a Muslim? A 1993 fatwa, published in Saudi Arabia, dealt precisely with this problem. In a recent booklet, The Road to Victory, published by members of the London-based Hizb ut-Tahrir, one reads: "In its doctrine, Islam forbids the submission to unbelievers and to their rule." The question remains open: Should "ideas" be borrowed from Infidels? Should Muslims become friends with the People of the Book? 3. Testimony in court. According to Islamic law, when there is a conflict between a Muslim and a non-Muslim it has to be judged by a shari'a court, which automatically refuses the testimony of a non-Muslim. In 1875, civil courts were specially created in the Ottoman Empire where such cases might receive the testimony of Christians or Jews. But from the reports of British consuls in the Balkans, and in Syria and Palestine, we find even those courts refusing such testimony. 4. The problem of building new churches and synagogues, or repairing any part of them still applies today in certain Muslim countries. This concept of equal rights was like a thunder-bolt that would shake and destroy the whole social and legal structure of Islamic society based on the shari'a. And Christians were to suffer from many brutal reprisals because of this evolution. Moreover, the 19th century was a century of genocidal massacres caused by many national uprisings against Ottoman rule in the Balkans. Those Christian revolts led to continual wars and reprisals - with tremendous sufferings on all sides, vast refugee problems, and an upsurge of much religious hatred. During the Greek war of liberation in 1821, Sultan Mahmud II wrote to his vassal, Muhammad Ali of Egypt, that in the war against the Greeks he had to conform to the rules of jihad: "the slaying of the rebels and the plunder of their goods, and slavery for their wives and children." But three years later, a firman confirmed the aman, or protection, to the rebels who had submitted and forbade Muslims to attack them. In Lebanon, Anglo-French rivalries in the context of the emancipation of the Christians provoked massacres of Christians in both Lebanon and Syria in 1841, 1842, 1845, and especially in 1860. More than 20.000 of them were killed, leaving 10,000 orphans, and 75,000 refugees, and 3.000 women were taken as slaves, not to mention forced conversions. This led to a European intervention and the creation of an autonomous Lebanese Ottoman province with a Christian Governor-General. Toward the close of the 19th century, the sultan's Christian subjects had the choice between two different paths if they wished to liberate themself from dhimmitude: 1) Autonomy, leading to eventual independance when possible; 2) Integration, within the concept of a secular Arab nation. The Armenians chose autonomy. They requested that where they were numerous in their ancient provinces, the reforms announced at the Congress of Berlin in 1878 should be applied: a wider representivity in the communal and provincial administration and the permission to build schools and use their own language. In 1892-1894 they suffered massacres that claimed 250.000 victimes; about 30,000 in 1909; and, then, the great genocide of 1915-1917 in the First World War. At that fateful period, many Jacobites, who were living alongside the Armenians in some regions, were also killed. At the end of the war, the Armenians requested an autonomous region which was refused by the Allied Powers. The Assyrians, who asked for a small autonomous territory where they could feel safe, were also refused; they too suffered massacres in 1933, and again in 1937, in the Jazira region of Iraq. The Lebanese Christians obtained independance through an elarged French mandate. Those Christians who chose integration were often from the refugee populations living in Syria, Lebanon and Palestine. They thought that Arab nationalism or Syrian nationalism would help them to integrate into a secular Islamic society. But there was also another aspect of Arab nationalism: this was the opposition to Zionism - the Jewish movement of national liberation - by a future Arab Empire comprising Lebanon, Syria and Palestine. As the American King-Crane Report argued in 1922: Arab nationalism would create a tremendous bond between Muslims and Christians by uniting them against Zionism. The same struggle, and the same hatred against Zionist Jews, would be the best means for the Christians to fully integrate into their Muslim environment. On 28 March 1921, the 3rd Palestinian Congress took place in Haifa. It was constituted mainly by Palestinian Christians. On meeting Winston Churchill, the Colonial Secretary, they gave him a memorandum with arguments from The Protocoles of the Elders of Zion. At the end of the 20th century, the instability in the Arab Muslim world; the catastrophic economic situation in so many regions; the general radicalisation of Islam; the failure of those Christian dreams for their autonomy, or for secularisation; and the fact that Europe abandoned them, has led to constant emigration. Moreover, the strong and proud Lebanese Christian community, after first being attacked by the PLO, disintegrated in the civil conflict that opposed those of them who were partisans of an independent Lebanon, to their coreligionists who had fought against a Christian political power. One of the reasons for the indifference concerning the Eastern Christians was that in Europe their tragedy was replaced by that of the "Palestinian cause" - thanks to Christian mobilization for it. For the past thirty years and more, the "Palestinian cause", strongly backed by the Vatican, by various Churches, and by influential politians in Europe became the daily preoccupation of the media, and of governments. This cause served as a screen to hide the permanent deterioration of the situation of the Christians themselves in the Middle East and elsewhere: that of the Copts in Egypt; the jihad against Christians and Animists in Sudan; the tragic clashes between Christians and Muslims in Nigeria, the Philippines, East Timor, and other regions. This strange silence was integrated into a deliberate obfuscation of Eastern Christianity's dhimmi history. This history was replaced by the myth of a marvellous Islamic-Christian symbiosis that had existed for centuries before the advent of Zionism. And - it was suggested - since Israel was the cause of such evils, its demise would revive that Middle East "Golden Age". This attitude was well expressed 20 years ago by Robert Brenton Betts in the conclusion to his book, Christians in the Arab East: "For Israel itself, a successful Christian-Muslim experiment makes Lebanon the most dangerous of all enemies to Zionist survival, for it is a living example of the kind of society the Palestinians have lately advocated in place of the narrowly nationalistic and ethnically based state that is Israel today. (...) The success or failure of the Lebanese Christian communities in perpetuating and restructuring their national society in the coming decades will irrevocably be shared by all Arabic-speaking Christians throughout the Middle East, and will in large part determine the outcome of their centuries-old striving to achieve a truly integrated and egalitarian Arab nation." Muslim and Christian writers, priests and politicians again and again repeated this point on the sybiosis. Hence, the importance of "concealing" history - what the late Jacques Ellul called "carefully concealing" ; and what a Syriac scholar, Prof. Ben Segal, called "a conspiracy of silence" by Western academics. Jean-Marie Fiey, a Jesuit scholar, did however write in one of his books on Syriac history that, "as it is not prohibited", he will neverless say that Assyria is like a big Christian cemetary; and Father Michel Hayek declared in 1967: "Why not admit clearly - so as to break a taboo and a political proscription - what is so resented in the flesh and in the Christian conscience: that Islam has been the most dreadful torment that ever befell the Church. Christian sensibility has remained traumatized to this day." And, thus, this "Palestinian cause", which was an euphemism for the eventual destruction of Israel, prevented a correct historical analysis of religious, political and sociological realities. But the years, and the decades, went by and Israel did not disappear, whereas the Eastern Christian communities crumbled away through a "conspiracy of silence". Now, if we examine quickly the 19th and 20th century struggles of the dhimmi peoples against their condition of dhimmitude in the Balkans and the Middle East, we see that those populations who chose territorial autonomy or independence were always opposed by jihad. They include the Greeks and the Slav peoples in the European dar al-Islam, and the Armenians, the Assyrians, the Israelis and the Lebanese. The others who chose integration, and an egalitarian Arab nation through Arabism, are today faced with the re-Islamization of Muslim society. During this century, those Christians Arab nationalists tried by every means to assimilate into their Islamic environment. They fought bravely to retain their political power in Lebanon, and they fought with determination for secularization. Actually, Arab Christian nationalists didn't defend their own rights as Christians, but as Arabs - and, of course, to be an Arab is synonymous with being a Muslim for traditionalist Muslims. The secularist Christians and Muslims now feel threatened by declarations such as that by the late Egyptian Sheikh Muhammad Ghazali in 1992: "Anyone resisting the imposition of the shari'a was an apostate, who deserved death by the state, or by the hand of a devout Muslim." I think that Israel has much to learn from the sad experience of Eastern Christianity, because for centuries Jews shared with Christians the dehumanizing condition of dhimmis. Secondly, Israelis should reflect on Europe's conscious abandonment of the Lebanese Christians, and of its cynical choice between moral principles, on the one hand, and oil and Arab markets on the other. Israelis might reflect on how easily foreign states can provoke internecine strife when wishing to destroy a country. And moderate Muslims, who rarely bother to fight for the defence of the "rights" of their Jewish and Christian persecuted countrymen, are now being aggressed by the same forces of extremist obscurantism that previously targeted the dhimmis - as in Egypt, Algeria, and other Islamic lands. One can only hope that the ongoing Middle East Peace Process between Israel and the Palestinians, and with the neighbouring Arab states, will benefit all the peoples of the region, although that will depend on the final peace conditions. If the Palestinian Christians - about 2% of the population in all the autonomous territories, though playing internationally a political role disproportionate to their numbers - continue, as in the past, to seek Israel's demise, they will only encourage the most radical anti-Christian Islamists. And the same can be said about the basic anti-Zionist policy of some European states. But if, as a result of peace with Israel, the Muslims peoples will renounce the ideology of jihad; if they will acknowledge the long history of dhimmitude - and especially the fact that Jews and Christians are their equals in rights and dignity - then a future Middle East, built on peace and reconciliation, will indeed have been built on solid foundations. Real peace, to endure, must rest on a total change of mentalities on all sides, and a refusal of jihad ideologies that debase the human being. This is the challenge of the future, which should unite everyone today: Jews, Christians and Muslims. (END)

~~~

Circumcision (female), form of mutilation of the female genital organs for religious/ritual purposes, often as part of an initiation rite. Also known as clitoridectomy, female circumcision involves the surgical removal of parts of the clitoris, labia minora, and labia majora. Also sometimes performed is infibulation, in which the labia are sewn up, allowing a small opening through which urine and menstrual fluid may pass.

The clitoris is extremely sensitive and plays a central role in female sexual stimulation. Hence despite other religious or cultural reasons for performing clitoridectomy, an underlying function is clearly the prevention of unwanted female sexual desire, thereby controlling extramarital sex, and keeping women passive.

Intercourse and childbirth for circumcised women are very painful and there are various associated medical risks: operations are often performed in unhygienic conditions by unqualified midwives, and patients may be at risk of contracting infections such as tetanus. Infibulation can lead to a buildup of menstrual fluid. Death often results from the operation.

Female circumcision is practised in many indigenous and non-Western cultures. It has recently been brought to the West by immigrants from certain areas. Human rights organizations view female circumcision as mutilation and have campaigned for its abolition. Feminists have seen it as a means of controlling women and perpetuating their subjugation. However, it is often women who wish for their daughters to be circumcised.

Ethical questions have been raised as to how far Western campaigners should go in interfering with the practices of other cultures.

~~~

The tradition of female genital mutilation

by Allison Lampert ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- the Link MONTREAL (CUP) - The excision of the clitoris from a healthy female was legitimized as a requirement of Islam two years ago by Sheik Ali Gad al-Hag, head of the Islamic Egyptian university al-Azhar, who gave a religious ruling, or fatwa, on the procedure.

Since al-Hag's statement became public, Egyptian doctors feel free to practice the 5,000 year-old ritual, which is considered perfectly legal in the country.

"Female circumcision is purely Islamic, like male circumcision - this is the word of our high religious authorities," Dr. Saeed Mohammed Ahmad Thabet at Cairo University told the Toronto Star, despite the fact that 80 per cent of Muslim countries do not practice the ritual.

In the same year, Justice Minister Alan Rock introduced a new provision into the criminal code, citing the act as a crime which cannot be justified by a "cultural defense."

This same issue evoked very different emotions within these two countries. While many North Americans denounced Egypt's ruling on circumcision as cruel, numerous Egyptians in Canada have labeled Rock's legislation as "ethnocentric."

In reality, there are as many traditions associated with female circumcision (also known as clitoridectomy) as there are cultures who perform the procedure.

Yet whether the procedure is performed in Africa, Asia, Russia, or Latin America, and is justified through Islam, Christianity, or native religions, many feel that circumcision is based on a tradition of male dominance and societal control over female sexuality.

"Yes it's a tradition," said anti-circumcision lecturer Saundra Anierobi, "but it's torture."

Female circumcision is the mildest form of what the World Health Organization calls Female Genital Mutilation (FGM). Circumcision involves the severing of the prepuce, or hood of the clitoris.

Excision, a more brutal form of FGM, involves excising the entire clitoris and all or part of the labia minora, which are the vaginal lips. Infibulation, the most severe of these practices, involves excising the clitoris, both the inner and the outer lips, and stitching the vulva with catgut, thorns, or silk sutures.

Infibulation results in the formation of scar tissue, leaving only a small open hole for menstrual blood and urine.

Anesthesia and hygienic instruments are used on only a small percentage of the 114 million women worldwide who are reported to be mutilated, according to a report by the International Federation of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.

Each of the girls who endure FGM experience the act at different ages, in different rituals, and through the justification of different faiths.

FGM is most widely practiced in Northern Africa, where the tradition is believed to originate. Sudan, a country in Northwest Africa, is considered to be the country where the largest number of women are infibulated.

"The tradition," says Elobaid, a Sudanese lawyer now living in Montreal, "is practiced by an estimated 70 per cent of Muslims, five per cent of Christians, and 20 per cent who follow traditional beliefs in Sudan. Most women who are circumcised, Elobaid adds, endure the procedure "before seven years of age." In Sudan, FGM is only a part of a larger ritual, which identifies the girl as being "good," and "pure."

According to Elobaid, one traditional Sudanese group called the Khitan (circumcisers) "creates a big bash, including a meal and some dancing and music," turning the ritual into a village-wide celebration.

"The ritual is made attractive," said Anierobi. "(Those who get it)

receive a lot of attention."

Anierobi, who has made extensive studies of Nigeria, an area where excision is largely performed, agrees that regional traditions encourage FGM among all Nigerians. "It's not just a tradition. It's the life," she said. "It's done and you don't question it."

Anierobi describes the ritual in Nigeria as involving young girls.

"There is a midwife within each village who does it. The mother is not allowed to be there, since they are afraid that the screams of the baby will make her suffer as well."

In Ethiopia, says Concordia African Student Union member Semra Asefa, the ritual is very hidden. The milder circumcision is usually performed on the infant when she is only "seven days to a few months old," said Asefa.

"Many people don't realize that it exists," she added, "Even though about 80 per cent of the country practices it."

Clitoridectomies are performed commonly in Malaysia on Muslim girls.

"The practice in Malaysia is symbolic," says Saby Hussein, a Muslim student at Concordia University.

She adds that the operation is far less severe than in African countries. "It's just the tip of the clitoris. I saw my niece having it done and there was no blood. She wasn't even crying."

Office worker Hendoa Tahir believes that the practice is changing in Malaysia, though the older generation is putting up far more resistance. "I've got three girls and I wouldn't do it (circumcision)," she said. "My mother wanted it to be done on my girls, but I objected."

Several researchers argue that many African traditions twist Islam's emphasis on chastity both before and during marriage, and its legitimization of polygamy, to justify FGM.

Although reporter Geraldine Brooks estimates that one in five Muslim women are mutilated, there is no mention of circumcision in either the Koran, or the prophet Mohammad's commands.

The practice of a man having several wives is a possible factor in the tradition, explains Anierobi.

"When a man has several wives, each wife can only have limited relations with her husband. It's not natural for a woman to go weeks and weeks without sex." To prevent the woman from enjoying sex is one way that men can ensure their wives' fidelity.

But the tradition behind FGM extends beyond Islam. "My husband's family," said Anierobi about her Nigerian extended family, "are devout Catholics." Anierobi's husband and his family originally wanted to perform the procedure should she have had daughter.

Asefa agrees that the church in Ethiopia knows circumcision exists but says nothing. "The church accepts it. They do give it implicit approval."

According to sociologist Fran Hosken, the Roman Catholic church accepted the Ethiopians' practice of FGM during the 18th century and the Papacy of the Roman Catholic church officially supported FGM. They believed that the clitoris of the Ethiopian woman was too large.

Beyond Asia and Africa, the ritual of FGM is also rumoured to exist in parts of South America and Russia.

A 1979 article by Gloria Steinem and Robin Morgan indicated that FGM was also practiced in Russia. The Skoptozy (circumcisers), a sect of the Russian Christian church, were said by the writers to practice infibulation on women to preserve their virginity until marriage.

According to missionary Alejo Mantilla, an indigenous Peruvian tribe called the Chipibos once practiced FGM widely. "This culture would perform clitoridectomies on 13-year-old girls," said Mantilla.

"The tribe would have a big party, get the girls drunk, and cut out their clitoris." He adds that the ritual was part of a tradition identifying a girl as a woman.

Although Anierobi acknowledges that "traditions don't die easily," she, Asefa, and Elobaid believe that FGM has decreased tremendously throughout the world. According to Elobaid, increased education and various creative projects by Sudanese women have largely decreased the number of mutilations in Sudan.

FGM will continue to decrease, believes Elobaid, as women realize that the procedure is being used as a tool of subjugation. Anierobi agrees that younger generations now realize the significance behind the ritual. "Culture is the first thing. Tradition is the first thing. Oppressing women is the first thing."

~~~

Finished.

Now it is time to concentrate of Truth in Christ, not the deceit of devils

an Orthodox friend, aus.religion.christian, 6th November 2001