CHRONOLOGY / BLOG 7 - SUBMISSION TO SELF-APPOINTED LEADERSHIP

Muslim anger at bishop’s ghettoes attack

   ReligionNewsBlog  www.religionnewsblog.com/20296/islam-74 , Independent (UK), http://news.independent.co.uk , by Jerome Taylor, Jan. 7, 2008
   ENGLAND - Muslim leaders reacted angrily yesterday to a claim by the Bishop of Rochester that Islamic extremists have created "no-go" areas in many cities and a plea for mosques to desist from using amplifiers to broadcast calls to prayer.
   The Right Rev Michael Nazir-Ali, the Church of England's only Asian-born bishop, sparked anger after writing in an article that in many predominantly Muslims areas of Britain's cities people of a different faith face "hostility" from the Muslim community who create "no-go" areas. Inayat Bunglawala, assistant secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain, accused Dr Nazir-Ali of scaremongering.
   "Bishop Nazir-Ali's remarks are quite frankly more like the kind of commentary we would have expected from the far-right BNP, not a responsible figure in the Church of England," he said. "Where are these so-called "no-go" areas that he speaks of? He doesn't say."

Unable to integrate By its very nature, Islam makes it extremely difficult for Muslims to integrate. Islam means submission, and the Quran makes it clear that Muslims expect non-Muslims to submit to Islam.    Western values are not compatible with Islam. As a result, many Muslims form ghettos and engage in other forms of non-integration.    Hair-tricker [? Hair-trigger] sensitivities that have Muslim extremists respond to real or perceived insults with death threats, violent demonstrations, murder and terrorism, make it difficult or even impossible for non-Muslims to believe the claim that Islam is a 'religion of peace.' Therefore a high birthrate among Muslims, combined with high (legal and illegal) immigration figures, have Europeans and others worried about the Muslims in their midst. Europeans worry that Muslims cannot assimilate German politician blames Islam for religious violence Muslims are waging civil war against us, claims French police union Muslims not trying to fit with society, says Martin Amis UK: Muslim integration has come to a halt Sections of Muslim Britain in denial about extremism Almost a quarter of UK-based Muslims believe the July 7, 2005 terrorist bombings in London were justified The seductive beat of the militant, Islamic drum Europe's angry young Muslims Europe fears threat from its converts to Islam Europe is learning a hard lesson from Muslim immigrant experience Plot Shows Rise of Extremism in Europe

   Dr Nazir-Ali said attempts had been made to "impose an Islamic character on certain areas" in cities and was particularly critical of mosques which have sought permission from local authorities to broadcast the daily call to prayer over a loudspeaker.
   Sheikh Imam Ibrahim Mogra, a Leicester-based imam who runs interfaith programmes with Christian clergy, said he was very disappointed by the bishop's decision to criticise the call to prayer. "I cannot understand why a man of faith would have a problem with God's name being called out in an increasingly non-religious society – it's beyond belief," he said. "We've had church bells ringing in our country for centuries and yet the character of our country is not really Christian, we are a predominantly non-religious society."

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   The imam added that the comments by Dr Nazir-Ali, who chairs the Anglican Church's inter-faith dialogue group, were likely to do much harm to promoting greater understanding between religious groups. "He has given more ammunition to the hatemongers," he said. "He is helping to foster the false perception that Muslims are misfits who really shouldn't be here."
   Only a very small number of Britain's 2,000 plus mosques have permission to broadcast the call to prayer over loudspeakers. Those that do are generally in cities with large Muslim populations such as Bradford, Blackburn and Birmingham and are only allowed to do so in daylight hours as long as they keep below a set volume.
   Bary Malik, an imam in Bradford, where tensions between Muslim and non-Muslim communities sometimes run high, accused Dr Nazir-Ali of unfairly singling out the Muslim community. "He's right to say there is segregation and 'ghettoisation' but we all share the blame for that, not one individual community.
   "The Bishop of Rochester supposedly understands both cultures so he should be trying to foster better relations between these different communities, not aggravating them further."
   Cleric who courts controversy

Al-Qaida spokesman makes urgent call for ‘militant brothers’ to be ready when US President visits the Middle East

Traitor wants Bush bomb blitz

   The West Australian, http://www.thewest.com.au , INTERNET VERSION - "American militant urges attacks on Bush," 4:39 WST, January 7, 2008, www.thewest. com.au/aap story.aspx? StoryName= 449441 , PRINTED VERSION - p 16, Tuesday, January 8, 2008
   CAIRO - Al-Qaida's US spokesman has urged fighters to greet President George Bush with bombs when he visits the Middle East, according to a new video posted on the internet.
   US-born Adam Gadahn also tore up his American passport as part of a symbolic protest in the nearly hour-long tape posted on Sunday.
   The release comes just three days before Mr Bush is due to arrive in Israel for a week-long trip that will also include the West Bank, Kuwait, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Egypt as part of his push for an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement.
  [Picture] Front line: George Bush with a marine combat unit during a surprise visit to Iraq. He will need similar high level protection this week.    Picture: Associated Press  
   "Now we direct an urgent call to our militant brothers in Muslim Palestine and the Arab peninsula… to be ready to receive the Crusader slayer Bush in his visit to Muslim Palestine and the Arab peninsula in the beginning of January and to receive him not with flowers or clapping but with bombs and booby-trapped vehicles," Gadahn, 29, said in Arabic.
   "This just shows once again, al-Qaida offers nothing but violence and death," said Gordon Johndroe, Mr Bush's National Security Council spokesman.
   "The purpose of President Bush's trip is to meet mainstream Arab leaders and people to talk about a positive future for the region, based on hope and opportunity."
  ‘Be ready to receive the Crusader slayer Bush – not with flowers or clapping but with bombs.’  
  AL-QAIDA SPOKESMAN ADAM GADAHN  
   Commenting on Gadahn tearing up his US passport, Mr Johndroe said: "He is wanted for treason against the United States. His passport was already void."
   During the rest of the 50-minute video, titled An Invitation to Reflection and Repentance, Gadahn, who grew up in California, spoke mostly in English, appearing to address the American people specifically.
   He said al-Qaida felt the need to release the statement after Washington's "defeat" in Iraq and Afghanistan and failed attempts by the Bush administration to bring peace to the Middle East.
   "We felt it necessary to address the American people and explain to them some of the facts about these critical and fast-moving events," said Gadahn, who wore a white-and-red headscarf and sat behind a desk.
   "The first questions Americans might ask is, has America really been defeated? The answer is yes and on all fronts."
   The video could not be independently verified, but it appeared on a website often used by Islamic militants and carried the logo of al-Qaida's media wing, al-Sahab. The start of the video is dated December 2007.
   Gadahn, also known as Azzam al-Amriki, was charged with treason in the US in 2006 and has been wanted since 2004 by the FBI.
   He has appeared in several al-Qaida videos including one in August when he threatened new attacks on foreign embassies.
   In May, al-Qaida released another video featuring Gadahn, who warned Mr Bush to end US involvement in Muslim lands or face an attack worse than the September 11, 2001, attacks.
   Ben Venzke, the head of IntelCenter, a US group that monitors and analyses militant messages, said much of Gadahn's new video shared a similar tone with his previous messages.
   "It fits into al-Qaida's notion of providing warning and opportunity for people to correct their ways to avoid an attack," he said.
   In the video, Gadahn lashes out repeatedly at the US for its wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and its close ties to Israel and the leaders of some Muslim countries, including Egypt and Pakistan, which he described as some of the "worst dictators and tyrants".
   Gadahn also criticised Christianity, which he called "baseless and doubt-filled," and urged Americans - including soldiers who fought in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan - to convert to Islam.
   "Listen to me and listen to me carefully, before you lose your mind to flashbacks and drugs and drink-induced dementia and before your demons drive you to self-destruction and suicide, in these verses (in the Koran), God calls out to each and every one of you saying God forgives all sins – if you simply stop and repent," he said.
   Gadahn is the first American in 50 years to be charged with treason and could face the death penalty if convicted. He also faces a charge of providing material support to terrorists. #

Bin Laden turns heat on Saudi Arabia

   Information Clearing House, www.information clearinghouse. info/article 19051.htm , "Asia Times," (dated there Jan 12, 2008), By Michael Scheuer, January/11/08
   Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden's latest message is one of the richest, most comprehensive and starkly realistic he has issued since the start of the Iraq war. This essay considers al-Qaeda's dour recognition of its inability to control post-occupation events in Iraq as a small vanguard organization and a non-Iraqi presence in the country.
   On December 29, 2007, bin Laden issued a 56-minute statement that addressed Muslim insurgents in Iraq [1] and built on his earlier message from October 22 [2]. The new statement was issued via al-Qaeda's media arm, al-Sahab, and appeared on several Internet sites without pre-publication excerpts on al-Jazeera television. Al-Jazeera's editing of the October 22 audiotape distorted bin Laden's message, incorrectly giving the implication that he was saying "all is lost" for the mujahideen in Iraq [3]. Al-Jazeera customarily deletes anything critical of the Saudi regime from bin Laden's messages. This occurred in the case of the October 22 tape and al-Qaeda apparently did not want to take a chance on al-Jazeera's penchant for politically correct editing with its most recent message [4].
   Focus on Iraq
   The latest bin Laden tape is - like its October 22 predecessor - pre-eminently a post-Iraq war tape. In both tapes, bin Laden declares that the United States recognizes that its Coalition has been militarily defeated in Iraq and predicts that US and other foreign forces will leave. Bin Laden does not provide the date US-led forces will withdraw; he focuses his attention on working with Islamist insurgents in Iraq to ensure the Americans and their Arab-government allies cannot build a national unity government that is an "agent to America", dominated by non-Islamists and ready to permit the US basing rights and access to Iraqi oil.
   Because US-led forces have accepted military defeat, bin Laden argues, Washington and its allies must look for other means to prevent the consolidation of an Islamic state in Iraq. "My talk to you," bin Laden explained, "is about the plots that are being hatched by the Zionist-Crusader alliance, led by America, in cooperation with its agents in the region, to steal the fruit of the blessed jihad in the land of the two rivers, and what we should do to foil these plots."
   History's lesson
   As always, bin Laden speaks as a product and close observer of the Afghans' jihad against the Soviet Union. In appealing for unity among the Iraqi mujahideen, he makes no demand that they join al-Qaeda and follow its instructions. He points rather to the failure of the Afghan insurgents to consolidate victory after the Red Army's 1989 withdrawal: "It would be useful here to recall an effort in the past to unify the leaders of the Afghan mujahideen, which includes important lessons that are related to our topic," bin Laden tells the Iraqi fighters in an almost avuncular tone.

We had made these efforts with Sheikh Abdullah Azzam [bin Laden's late Palestinian mentor in Afghanistan], may God have mercy on him. After months of seeking to achieve unity among [the Afghan leaders] and removing the obstacles that some of them used to claim that they obstruct unity, [but then] after removing these obstacles… they [would] claim that there was another obstacle [preventing unity], and so on and so forth… One of the mujahideen had a strong opinion about these [obstructing] leaders. He was an old wise person who had long experience in life with people. At the time we used to reject his strong-worded statement about them. I will try to convey to you some of what he said. The conclusion is that those leaders are tradesmen who care more about their leadership and give priority to their personal interests over the cause. We used not to believe what he said about them. This has delayed our realization of the sound conception of persons and events [presented by this mujahid]. The harmful consequences of this are no secret … In fact, developments have come to confirm things that we had never expected due to the fact that we were young and lacked experience at the time.

   In Iraq, Riyadh is the main enemy
   Bin Laden urges the Iraqi fighters to heed the lesson of the Afghans' historic post-Soviet debacle because "the same thing applies to Iraq today"; leaders are more interested in their own power and status than in making Islam and the ummah (Islamic community) victorious. And while bin Laden warns that Washington is using promises of money, military training and arms to entice the "Islamic Party and some fighting groups [to] support America against Muslims", he leaves no doubt that the Islamists' main enemy in Iraq is now Saudi Arabia, not the supposedly militarily defeated United States. After the Soviets' withdrawal from Afghanistan, bin Laden reminded the Iraqi fighters that "America exerted great efforts to convince the Afghan leaders through the governments of Riyadh and Islamabad to join a national unity government with communists and secularists from the West."  Bin Laden explained that the Saudi regime was then – and is again today in Iraq – the main enemy of the mujahideen:

[In post-Soviet Afghanistan] the government of Riyadh sought the help of its unofficial scholars to infiltrate the ranks of the mujahideen. These were influential speakers who incited the people to perform jihad and collect huge funds for the leaders of the mujahideen. At the set time, [the Saudi regime] asked the Afghan leaders to unite with the communists and secularists under the so-called national unity state. [The Saudis] obstructed the plan to achieve unity among the leaders of the mujahideen when they tempted one of them with a big amount of money and promised him to be the president of Afghanistan – We do not have much time here for more details. So the current situation [in Iraq] is similar to the past one [in Afghanistan]. The government of Riyadh continues to this day to carry out the same malicious roles with many Islamic action leaders and commanders of the mujahideen in our nation [5].

   Bin Laden goes on to claim that the Saudis are trying to co-opt some of the Sunni mujahideen in Iraq by allowing "some groups to confidently move in the Gulf to receive [financial] support". Riyadh is careful to avoid officially funding its Iraqi insurgent favorites, so its support "is channeled under the banner of raising donations by some unofficial scholars and preachers". Bin Laden warns that "many of them … are loyal to the state and seek to implement [Riyadh's] policy by pulling the rug from under the honest mujahideen's feet" and forcing them to support a national-unity government that is designed to be the agent of the United States and Saudi Arabia.
   He asks the Iraqi mujahideen how they can trust Saudi King Abdullah, who is the "malignant foe" of Islam, the "main US agent in the region" and a man who took it on himself "to tempt and tame every free, virtuous, and honest person with the aim of dragging him to the path of temptation and misguidance … [and] the path of betraying the religion and nation and submitting to the will of the Crusader-Zionist alliance". The Americans are defeated, bin Laden concludes, but to assure God's victory the Iraqi mujahideen must reject Saudi overtures and direction if they are "not to waste the fruit of this chaste and pure blood that was shed for the sake of consolidating religion and entrenching the state of Muslims".
   A way out?
   Bin Laden and his senior lieutenants are reliving what for them is a familiar nightmare. In one of the greatest ironies of the post-1945 era, Islamist fighters have proven that with great, prolonged and bloody effort they can claim the military defeat of superpowers - the USSR and the United States - but cannot consolidate victory when confronted by the wiles, funds and religious establishment of the Saudi leadership. While it is clear in the December 29 tape that bin Laden rates the Saudis as the main obstacle to God's victory in Iraq, there is little indication of what he intends to do to destroy Riyadh's ability to stymie the mujahideen there as it did in Afghanistan.
   One possibility - though bin Laden did not allude to this - would require a rethinking of al-Qaeda's grand strategy. Although bin Laden and al-Qaeda have been consistent in their three-fold grand strategy - to drive the United States from the Muslim world, destroy Israel and incumbent Muslim regimes and settle scores with the Shi'ites - they now face a situation where the Saudi regime has not only so far prevented the unification of Islamist leaders, but is allegedly preparing the Sunni Iraqi insurgents it supports for a civil war with Iraq's Iranian-backed Shi'ites.
   Bin Laden, of course, is correct in arguing that Riyadh wants no genuine national-unity government; the Saudis may be intending to fund and equip a Sunni insurgent force that could join forces with the US-armed and trained Sunni Awakening Councils to battle for control of post-US Iraq against the Shiites and seek the establishment of a Saudi-like Sunni theocracy in Baghdad. If this occurs, the third step of bin Laden's grand strategy - settling scores with the Shi'ites - will immediately become the top priority of the Islamic world, as both Sunnis and Shi'ites focus on assisting their brethren in the Iraqi civil war. This scenario would severely erode bin Laden's ability to keep Sunni militants focused on the "far" US enemy.
   If bin Laden's assertions are true, and Saudi Arabia's Afghanistan-like intervention in Iraq continues to prevent the mujahideen unity bin Laden advocates, the al-Qaeda chief and his shura (consultative) council may soon confront the very unpalatable necessity of having to break with their traditional grand strategy and move to try to destroy the Saudi regime.
   In such a scenario, al-Qaeda would abandon the pinprick insurgency-and-terrorism campaign it has conducted in the kingdom since September 11, and employ all the force it commands and can incite there - and bring in from Iraq - to take on the well-infiltrated Saudi military and security services. Such a campaign probably would combine attempts to assassinate the king, the interior minister and senior intelligence and military officials with attacks to disrupt Saudi oil production.
   The latter operations would be staged in the hope of forcing Washington to a Hobson's choice between standing back and allowing havoc to reign in the world's oil market - with the immense damage it would entail for the US economy - and ordering US military forces into action against Muslims in order to restore oil production on the sacred soil of the Prophet Mohammad's birthplace and what bin Laden refers to as "the land of the two holy mosques".
   The foregoing clearly is not an option that al-Qaeda is eager to undertake; it is an option that amounts to an almost desperate gamble. But that said, if such a campaign successfully triggered a US military response in the kingdom, the focus and militancy of the entire Muslim world - both Sunni and Shi'ite - would be switched from Iraq to Saudi Arabia, and the enmity and weapons of all Muslims would, at least temporarily, be refocused on the "far enemy" in North America.
   Notes
   1. Osama bin Laden, "The Way to Foil Plots", al-Sahab Media Production Organization, December 29, 2007. All quotes from bin Laden in the text are from this statement unless otherwise noted.
   2. Osama bin Laden, "A Message to Our People in Iraq", Threat and Claim Monitor, IntelCenter.com, October 22, 2007.
   3. Al-Jazeera, October 23, 2007. By censoring bin Laden's statement, al-Jazeera unwittingly seems to have done al-Qaeda a great service. The "all-is-lost" message yielded by al-Jazeera's editors has become the common wisdom among Western media and governments, thereby obscuring for those entities the fact that bin Laden was discussing how all Iraqi insurgents should proceed to consolidate Islam's victory over the United States and its allies in Iraq.
   4. Al-Jazeera's editing earned it some outrage and condemnation from Islamists. See, for example, Bilal al-Khaldi, "And thus Osama's message has gone to waste. An invitation to a proactive response." Islamic al-Fallujah Forums (Internet), November 16, 2007.
   5. Bin Laden says that the Saudi effort to prevent post-Soviet Afghan unity was led and managed by "the Riyadh intelligence chief", who was at the time Prince Turki al-Faisal. This is the same Prince Turki who - while serving as the Saudi ambassador to the United States - unexpectedly and hurriedly departed Washington in early 2007 when a Sunni-Shi'ite civil war seemed imminent in Iraq. Not much has been heard from Prince Turki since his departure, but if bin Laden's claims about the current Saudi campaign to co-opt Iraq's Sunni mujahideen are true, it is hard to imagine anyone more qualified by past experience to lead the effort than Prince Turki.
   Michael Scheuer served as the chief of the bin Laden Unit at the Central Intelligence Agency's Counterterrorist Center from 1996 to 1999. He is now a senior fellow at The Jamestown Foundation.
   This article first appeared in The Jamestown Foundation [Washington (DC), USA.] #

Muslim leader says families must help catch honour killers

   The Independent on Sunday (Britain), http://news. independent. co.uk/uk/ crime/ article3333 866.ece , By Andrew Johnson, Published January 13, 2008
   BRITAIN - One of Britain's leading Muslims has called on his community to rise up against a culture of fear and help stamp out forced marriages and honour killings after the third high-profile court case in Britain in the past year.
   Dr Ghayasuddin Siddiqui, head of the Muslim Parliament in Britain, spoke out after a coroner ruled on Friday that 17-year-old Shafilea Ahmed was "unlawfully killed" and that "the concept of an arranged marriage was central to the circumstances of her death".
   Mr Siddiqui said he was certain the schoolgirl, who wanted to go to university and become a lawyer, was the victim of an honour killing. No charges have yet been bought by police, a failure Mr Siddiqui blamed on members of her family and close community closing ranks, even though some may have wanted to speak out.
   Five members of her family, including her parents, were arrested in connection with the death, but later released without charge. Shafilea's parents vehemently deny any involvement in her killing or disappearance.
   "I think relatives won't speak out because they are scared," he said. "Somebody in the family disappears, relatives must have been concerned. But they would not co-operate with the police. The family and those who were close were not willing to come forward. That's why many of these murders are unresolved. There are now 12 cases a year on average."
   Shafilea, from Warrington, was reported missing in 2003 by teachers soon after she returned from a trip to Pakistan. Five months later, her decomposed body was found near the bank of the River Kent in Cumbria. A pathologist said that "it was not credible" she had died of natural causes and suggested she had been strangled or smothered.
   At her inquest in Kendal last week, homelessness worker Anne-Marie Woods told the court that Shafilea had come to her seeking advice, claiming she had been beaten and robbed by her parents.
   A statement the school-girl wrote to support a housing claim said: "I had saved £2,000, which they took out of my bank account. My parents are going to send me to Pakistan and I'll be married to someone and left there. There had been a build-up of violence towards me, and my mother told me I was about to go to Pakistan for an arranged marriage."
   Ian Smith, the South Cumbria coroner, ruled on Friday that Shafilea had been unlawfully killed, adding that she was the victim of a "vile murder" and that he was confident she was dead before her body was dumped on the riverbank.
   Police continue to investigate her disappearance. Det Supt Geraint Jones of Cheshire said that officers were awaiting permission to travel to Pakistan to help their investigations.
   Massoud Shadjareh, of the Islamic Human Rights Commission, said the Muslim community should not be demonised for forced marriages. "Domestic violence happens in every community, and forced marriages are also a feature in Sikh and Hindu communities," he said.
   About 12 honour killings are committed in Britain each year. The Forced Marriage Unit at the Home Office receives 5,000 inquiries a year, and handles 300 cases. The Government is also consulting on new immigration rules to stop forced marriages.

Bali bombers wrong to target civilians: Bashir

   Australian Broadcasting Corporation, www.abc.net. au/news/ stories/ 2008/01/15/ 2139122.htm , Reuters, Updated 5:22pm AEDT, Tue Jan 15, 2008
   INDONESIA – Controversial Indonesian cleric Abu Bakar Bashir says the three militants who could be executed for the 2002 Bali bombings within weeks acted in good faith to defend Islam, but were wrong to indiscriminately target civilians.
   The three, Imam Samudra, Mukhlas and Amrozi - who was dubbed "the smiling bomber" because of his constant grin at his trial - have run out of legal avenues for appeal, but could still seek presidential clemency, an option they have already ruled out.
   They were sentenced to death for their role in two nightclub blasts on Bali's Kuta strip on October 12, 2002 in which 202 people died, 88 of them Australians.
   "Their intention is good; to defend fellow Muslims who have been terrorised by America and its allies. They didn't seek popularity, they didn't seek worldly possessions, they didn't seek any position," Bashir told Reuters in an interview at his house in the central Java city of Solo.
   "All they looked for was Allah's favour."
   Bashir, accused by some foreign governments of once heading the regional militant network Jemaah Islamiah (JI), says the militants did not discuss with him any bombing plans and he could have dissuaded them had they done so.
   "I'm fighting America too, but by means of preaching. I don't agree with using bombs in a peaceful zone," he said.
   The attacks, and a number of other deadly bombings in recent years, were blamed on JI, of which Bashir was alleged to have been a co-founder.
   Bashir, 69, was jailed for 30 months for conspiracy over the Bali bombings but was later cleared.
   'Redeemed their sins'
   He says the three Bali convicts have realised their mistakes and have fasted every day for two straight months to redeem their sins.
   But he also says during a meeting with the men in their island prison in December that it was evident that they had found peace and joy.
   He did not rule out more attacks in Indonesia, but says more militants have realised that violence will only hurt their cause.
   "There are probably people who still believe in such a method but they will be more careful," he said, referring to militants being more careful in choosing their targets to avoid Indonesians being killed.
   Bashir says Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden would have opposed bombings in Indonesia because it was not a conflict zone.
   "I'm sure if Osama bin Laden had been consulted he would not have agreed with (the idea of) carrying out bombings in Indonesia," he said.
   The cleric has in the past praised Bin Laden as a "true Muslim fighter".
   Since his release from prison in June 2006, Bashir has travelled around the country to preach about the importance of sharia, or Islamic law.
   Although there has not been an official order to restrict him, he says police sometimes ask people to cancel their invitation for him to speak at rallies.  -Reuters
   Tags (Go to source webpage): law-crime-and-justice, courts-and-trials, international-law, unrest-conflict-and-war, terrorism, australia, indonesia, bali #

PLOT TO KILL QUEEN FOILED

   The International Express (Britain), West Australian edition, Pages One and 2, January 15-21, 2008
  [Picture] SITTING TARGETS: The Queen with Prince Philip, Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall at the Commonwealth gathering in Uganda last November, which terrorists planned to attack  
   AL QAEDA terrorists posing as TV crews planned to blow up the Queen by smuggling explosives into last year's Commonwealth summit.
   Two huge outside broadcast vans belonging to the Uganda Broadcasting Corporation were seized after a tip-off from intelligence agents.
   As a result, UBC was unable to transmit live pictures of key summit events, including the Queen's historic address to the Ugandan parliament on November 22.
   Dr Ruhakana Rugunda, the Uganda Minister of Internal Affairs, said: "We received information that a terrorist group called the Allied Democratic Forces, linked to Al Qaeda, was planning to carry out terrorist activities at the Commonwealth meeting.  The services in Uganda neutralised these threats." Day Al Qaeda tried to blow up Queen    He refused to comment on the precise nature of the planned attacks or reports that Ugandan armed forces had seized a speedboat loaded with arms and homemade bombs.
   A number of suspected ADF guerrillas aboard the boat on Lake Victoria are understood to have been taken into custody.
   Dr Rugunda added: "A number of suspects have been arrested but I cannot comment on the specifics of this case. What I can say is that we stepped up security because of the Al Qaeda threat but it was neutralised by our security services. In the end, the summit was incident-free and Uganda was happy to receive such distinguished guests, led by Her Majesty the Queen."
   Ugandan army spokesman Paddy Ankunda said: "Plans to cause havoc were curtailed, fortunately. There were intentions to disrupt the meeting and to target delegates and the Royal Family but the security agencies worked well together to ensure nothing happened."
   An attack on the summit would have been devastating.
  [Picture] TERROR THREAT: A plot to kill the Queen at the summit was foiled  
   The meeting in Kampala was attended by 16 presidents and 20 prime ministers, including Gordon Brown. For the first time the biennial event was attended by Prince Charles and Camilla as well as the Queen and Prince Philip.
   The incident is certain to prompt a review of the Queen's security and that of other members of the Royal Family. Dai Davies, former head of royal protection, said: "It will have huge implications globally for the Royal Family's protection, although the Queen's security arrangements are very sophisticated.
   "There would have been thorough advanced planning ahead of the trip to Uganda, an exit strategy would have been worked out, and so on. At the end of the day, the Queen is a great pragmatist - she's a great believer in what will be will be."
   It is feared Islamic terrorists may have stepped up their campaign against high-profile Western women following the recent assassination of Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan. Al Qaeda's deputy leader Ayman Al Zawahri directly addressed the Queen when threatening attacks on Britain last July, after a knighthood was given to Salman Rushdie, who angered Muslims with his 1988 novel The Satanic Verses.
   In a broadcast on Arabic TV channel Al Jazeera, he threatened: "I say to [Queen] Elizabeth and Blair that your message has reached us and we are in the process of preparing you for a precise response."
   The ADF is one of several Islamic terror groups set up in east Africa with Al Qaeda support in the Nineties when Osama Bin Laden was living in Khartoum, Sudan.
   Its leader, Jamil Mukulu, who was trained at camps in Afghanistan, launched his first attack in Uganda in 1996. A spate of bombings culminated in 30 students being abducted from their college in Kasese and massacred in 1998.
   Two people died and six were injured in an explosion in Kampala last February. #

Furore over plan for $4m mosque in Swan Valley

   The West Australian, http://www.thewest.com.au , By DANIEL HATCH, p 3, Thursday, January 17, 2008
   PERTH (W. Australia) – A plan to build a $4 million mosque complete with a 19m minaret in the Swan Valley has divided the local Muslim and non-Muslim community, with some residents worried it will destroy the identity of the area as a tourist, viticultural and horticultural hotspot. [More to be inserted later - jcm 04 Mar 08]

Al-Qaida accused of using children as suicide bombers

   The West Australian, www.thewest. com.au , p 34, Tuesday, January 29, 2008
   BAGHDAD – Al-Qaida was using teenagers as suicide bombers in Iraq, a US military spokesman said yesterday, as an influential Sunni cleric urged the jihadists to stop "strapping bombs to children".
   The comments came as Iraqi troops and tanks rolled into Mosul to boost forces for a huge offensive against al-Qaida after deadly bombings in the northern city last week killed dozens of people, including a police chief.
   US Rear-Admiral Gregory Smith said that two suicide attacks in Iraq in the past week had been carried out by 15-year-olds.
   "We are not sure whether one of these children even knew he was being used to deliver a bomb," the US military spokesman said.
   One attack was carried out at a funeral near Tikrit and the other was at a school in Mosul, Rear-Admiral Smith said.
   He gave no other details of the two bombings. Iraqi police said 17 people died on Monday of last week in a suicide blast at the funeral near Tikrit for a relative of an Iraqi police colonel.
   "Al-Qaida in Iraq is trying to brainwash children with hate and death," Rear-Admiral Smith said. "They seek to create a culture of violence, hate and despair.
   "(They) are sending 15-year-old boys on suicide missions to spread death and helplessness."
   He said 90 per cent of "suicide murders inflicted on Iraqi people are committed by foreign fighters brought in by al-Qaida in Iraq to spread destruction."
   Sheikh Ahmed Abduil Ghafour al-Samarraie, moderate but influential head of the Sunni Endowment religious organisation, accused the al-Qaida-linked Islamic State of Iraq of committing the "worst crimes against our people."
  [Picture] Safety first: Iraqis on their way to a town meeting walk down the middle of a road to avoid bombs.    Picture: Associated Press  
   "They have killed thousands of thinkers, dozens of scholars, tens of thousands of innocent people in horrifying ways," Sheikh Samarraie said.
   The jihadists were "strapping bombs to children and sending them into gatherings and mourning ceremonies".
   "They feel happy with these killings," he said. "They deceived young people to attach bombs to their bodies to explode themselves to go allegedly to paradise."
   Sheikh Samarraie appealed to Islamic scholars around the world to declare such attacks contrary to sharia, or Islamic law.
   Iraqi Defence Ministry spokesman Maj-Gen. Mohammed al-Askari said troop reinforcements sent to Mosul by Prune Minister Nouri al-Maliki for a "final war" against al-Qaida had arrived. He declined to give details of the number of reinforcements.
   "We have sent many soldiers, vehicles and tanks to Mosul at the request of our commanders there," he said. "They have been sent to Mosul to clean it of al-Qaida."
   On Friday, Mr al-Maliki promised a "decisive battle" against the jihadists in Nineveh province after two days of deadly bomb attacks in Mosul, the provincial capital.
   "We have formed an operations centre in Nineveh for a final war against al-Qaida and the remnants of the former (Saddam Hussein) regime," Mr al-Maliki said. "What we have planned in Nineveh will be final. It will be a decisive battle."
   At least 35 people were killed and 217 were wounded in a bomb attack last Wednesday that destroyed houses in west Mosul. #

Push to free Afghan reporters held for blasphemy

   The West Australian, http://www.thewest.com.au , p 52, Saturday, January 19, 2008
   AFGHANISTAN - Reporters Without Borders has urged the Afghan Government to release two journalists accused of blasphemy, for which conservative religious clerics have demanded the death penalty.
   The international media watchdog said yesterday it was concerned about the fate of the men, arrested separately about two months ago.
   Sayed Perwiz Kambakhsh, 23, was arrested in northern Afghanistan in late October on charges of blasphemy and defaming Islam for distributing articles about the role of women in Muslim society the group said.
   Mohammad Ghaws Zalmai, in his 40s, was arrested in November while trying to escape to Pakistan after distributing a translation of the Koran alleged to "misinterpret" parts of the Muslim holy book.
   "Afghan journalists are exposed to threats and harassment from religious fundamentalists who try to prevent any debate about Islam and the status of women," the media group said.
   "Reporters Without Borders appeals to the international community to intercede with the Afghan Government and seek the release of Kambakhsh and Zalmay."
   Afghanistan's new democratic Constitution enshrines freedom of expression but is based on sharia, or Islamic law, which can be interpreted as demanding severe punishments for acts considered "un-Islamic". #

[Bali bombers deserve painful death]

 
I DISAGREE    The West Australian, Letter to The Editor, p 22, Saturday, January 19, 2008
   Abu Bakar Bashir claims that the Bali bombers have redeemed their sins by fasting for two months (report 16/1). How can fasting be seen as an eye for an eye for a disgraceful act?
   Even Iran's controversial stoning punishment would be too good a death for these cowards. #

Saudi couple’s divorce agony

Fatima's world comes crashing down as Islamic laws end her marriage with a knock at the door       The West Australian, p 34, Wednesday, January 23, 2008
   SAUDI ARABIA - Two years ago, a knock on Fatima and Mansour al-Timani's door shattered the life they had built together.
   It was the police, delivering news that a judge had annulled their marriage in absentia after some of Fatima's relatives sought the divorce on grounds she had married beneath her.
   It was the beginning of an ordeal for a couple who, under Saudi Arabia's strict segregation rules, can no longer live together. They sued to reverse the ruling, publicised their story and sought help from a Saudi human rights group.
   But the two remain apart and Fatima is considering suicide if her recent appeal to King Abdullah does not reunite her with her husband.
   "Only the king can resolve my case," Fatima said. "I want to return to my husband but, if that is not possible, I need to know so I can put an end to my life."
   Fatima's case underscores shortcomings in the kingdom's Islamic legal system, in which rules of evidence are shaky, lawyers are not always present and sentences often depend on the whim of judges.
   The most frequent, and recently most high-profile, victims of the rules are women, who already suffer severe restrictions on daily life in Saudi Arabia. They cannot drive, appear before a judge without a male representative or travel abroad without a male guardian's permission.
   Recently, the king intervened and pardoned another high-profile defendant - a rape victim who was sentenced to lashes and imprisonment for being in a car with a man who was not her relative.
   The two cases have thrust Saudi human rights into the international spotlight again. They have revealed not only the weakness of the kingdom's justice system but the scant rights Saudi women have.
   "When I heard that the rape victim was pardoned, I couldn't believe it," Fatima said. "My case is so much simpler than hers, since my divorce is invalid."
   Fatima said her husband, a hospital administrator, followed Saudi tradition in asking her father for permission to marry her in 2003.
   "My brother reported good things about him, so my dad accepted his proposal," Fatima, a computer specialist, said.
   She said her father knew that Mansour came from a less prominent tribe than hers but that he did not mind because he "cared about the man himself".
   A few months after the wedding, several of Fatima's relatives persuaded her father to give them power of attorney to file a lawsuit demanding an annulment, she said.
   Then her father died and Fatima said she had hoped the case would be dropped.
   But, on February 25, 2006, police knocked on the couple's door to serve Mansour with divorce papers which said his marriage had been annulled nine months earlier.
   Saudi lawyer Abdul-Rahman al-Lahem, who used to represent the couple, said local interpretations of Islamic law held that relatives of a married couple had the right to seek an annulment if they felt the marriage lowered the extended family's status.
   Fatima took the couple's two-year-old daughter and four-month-old son to live with her mother. But, after three months, they sneaked out of her mother's house and fled with Mansour to the city of Jeddah, where they sought to live in anonymity.
   Police soon found them and imprisoned the family for living together illegally.
   "The police told me I either return to my mother's family or go to jail," Fatima said. "I chose jail."
   Mansour went to a Riyadh appeals court but it upheld the divorce ruling last year.
   Last September, Bandar al-Hajjar, head of the National Society of Human Rights, asked the kingdom's highest court to review the case and submitted two Islamic studies concluding that the divorce was invalid.
   The studies said that if a woman's legal guardian represented her at the original wedding, then other relatives had no right to object.
   Both studies concluded that Fatima married Mansour with her father's permission and that only the wife could decide whether she wanted her marriage annulled.
   Despite their legal fight, Fatima and Mansour remain apart, Fatima with her son and Mansour with their daughter.
   Fatima said she is holding out hope the king might pardon her and recognise her as "married to Mansour, before God".
   "I love him more than ever," she said. "He's the only one who has stood by me." #

[Beheading girls, tricking 15-y-os into murdering tribal leaders and killing Yank, and millionaire's son says he's no terrorist.]

 
   The West Australian, Various pages, Wednesday, January 23, 2008
   Page 36 "JI broken by police attack on haven."  JAKARTA, Indonesia:   South-East Asia terror network Jemaah Islamiyah's haven Poso, Central Sulawesi, was raided a year ago.  Terrorism expert [? Ms] Sidney Jones said Poso had been a hotbed of extremist Christian and Muslim violence for a decade.  A report by International Crisis Group yesterday said Poso was "quieter and safer."  The Islamists there used to attack Christians, officials, and suspected informants. 
   The raid in January 2007 occurred following outrage at the beheading of three Christian schoolgirls in 2005.
   The head of the JI military wing, Abu Dujana, aka Ainul Bahri, and Zarkasi, aka Zuhroni, were arrested in Java in June, because of information from those arrested.
   The authorities have offered $1000 for former prisoners to reform, are building a big Islamic boarding school, and offering training in car mechanics and furniture making to would-be extremists.
   Key terrorists still on the loose include bombmaker Azhari Husin, who is wanted for killing 22 people in a market bombing in 2005.
   Page 40 "Mum told bomber, 15: Paradise awaits."   
   BAGHDAD: Ali Hussein Allawi, a 15-year-old, previously thought to be 13, carried out a suicide bombing near Fallujah on Sunday.  He took advantage of tribal ties to pass through tight security, in order to murder Sunni leaders now fighting against extremism.
   Hadi Hussein, his brother, and four guards were murdered.  Aeifan al-Issawi, of the Anbar Awakening Council, said he believed that he was the target. The al-Issawis tribal area stretches west of Baghdad through desert to the borders of Syria, Saudi Arabia and Jordan.
   The boy's father was in al-Qaida, and had previously fled.  Mr al-Issawi said that five of the boy's 22 uncles made confessions.  The mother had told the boy: "God be with you and we will meet in paradise."
   Page 50 "Child defence sought for terrorism suspect."       
   WASHINGTON: Lawyers for a suspected Canadian terrorist, Omar Khadr, want the charges to be dropped because al-Qaida recruited him when he was 15.  Now 22, he is accused of killing a US soldier with a hand grenade as he was arrested for making explosives in Afghanistan in 2002. 
   A hearing was due at the Guantanamo naval base on February 4 to rule on the appeal, lawyers said.  Canadian MsP and law experts back the argument that those who recruited him ought to be prosecuted, not the boy.
   Page 50 "Osama's son tells him: Try another way."    
   WASHINGTON: Omar bin Laden, 26, a son of Osama bin Laden, in an interview telecast in the US on Monday, said that he wished his father would find another way, but he was not a terrorist.
   "Before they call it war, now they call it terrorism"
   As for the September 11, 2001, attacks on the US, he said: "I don't think that was right, personally, but it happened.  I don't the war in Vietnam was right.  I don't think what's going on in Palestine is right."
   Omar is one of 19 children fathered by [Arabian millionaire] Osama.  He is organising a horse race across North Africa to promote peace.
   Page 50 "Britons jailed for card scam."       
   HONG KONG: Two Britons have begun a 40-month jail sentence in Hong Kong for withdrawing $HK380,000 ($AUD56,000) by using date stolen from 287 British bank accounts.
   They are Nazir Zaheer Abbas and Raza Adhnan, both 23. [Grand old British names, those!]

Pakistani pastor murdered in North West Frontier Province:

Part of a pattern of anti-Christian threats and violence    The Barnabas Fund (London) Copyright ©, www.barnabas fund.org:80/ News/archives/ text.php?ID_ news_items=382 , January 29, 2008
   PAKISTAN - Threatened by murder, kidnapping and intimidation, Christians are coming under pressure both from lawlessness and from Islamic radicalism in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province which borders Afghanistan. Most recently, on January 17th a church minister, Sajid William, was shot dead in Peshawar, the capital city of the province.
   Over recent years the North West Frontier Province has steadily become a hotbed of Islamic radicalism. The strength of Islamic radicalism throughout Pakistan was recently indicated by the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. As well as the murder of Sajid William, there have been many recent attacks on the North West Frontier Province's Christians. There have been several cases in recent months of Christians being kidnapped in the province, often by militants or criminals linked to Taliban, who demand ransoms or the release of militants held in Pakistani jails. Christian schools have suffered bomb attacks for failing to adhere to Islamic values. The continuing persecution of Christians in the province was shown by the series of threats made against Christians in 2007 to convert to Islam or be killed. [link to earlier reports]
   The North West Frontier Province is home to a tiny Christian minority comprising just 0.25% of the province's population. (This compares with a Christian population of around 2.5% in Pakistan as a whole.) The increasing power of the Taliban in the region and the failure of central government to control the area have meant that Christians are becoming exposed to increasing danger. In 2003 provincial legislators unanimously passed a bill giving shari'a (Islamic law) precedence over secular provincial law. Militants have also enforced an unofficial parallel justice system based on extreme versions of shari'a. This has placed great pressure on minorities.
   Christians blamed for acts of radical criminal gangs
   The situation for Christians is increasingly difficult throughout all of Pakistan. A Barnabas contact in the Punjab region, which borders India, recently explained that in one village criminal gangs, linked to the Islamist radical group Lashkar-i-Taiba, have been trying to pass the blame for their crimes on to Christians. The police have colluded with the criminals in blaming the Christians for crimes they did not commit. Christians, therefore, feel very vulnerable as the authorities are not willing to protect them.
   Meanwhile, in Pakistan the growing threat to Christians was highlighted by the recent killing of the elder brother of Younis Tasadaq in January. Younis Tasadaq had been accused under the "blasphemy law" in 1998, but was released and managed to escape to America in 1999. In 2007 he returned to Pakistan, and it is believed that Islamic radicals discovered he was back in the country and assassinated his brother, Simon, whom they mistook for Younis. So far police have refused to register the case, claiming it was suicide.
   Dr Patrick Sookhdeo, International Director of Barnabas Fund, comments: "Christian minorities in Pakistan need our prayers, especially the beleaguered Christians of the North West Frontier Province, who face the pressure of shari'a as well as the violence of Islamic militants. I am thankful to the Lord for their faithfulness and courage in the face of such sustained pressure."
   Please join with us in prayer --
   1. Pray for the grieving families of Sajid William and Simon Tasadaq and for all who knew them.
   2. Pray for courage and hope for Pakistani Christians, many of whom have received death threats.
   3. Thank the Lord for their faithfulness to Him, that they would rather die than convert to Islam.
   Copyright © Barnabas Fund - 29th January 2008 #

Terror accused was so enraged by Muslims in the British army, he planned to kidnap one and cut his head off

Court told of bloody UK plot

   The West Australian, p 28, Thursday, January 31, 2008
  LONDON - A man who plotted to kidnap and kill a Muslim soldier in the British army by cutting off his head "like a pig", was enraged by Muslims serving in the British army, a court has been told.
   Parviz Khan, a 37-year-old Briton, pleaded guilty this month to a series of charges including the beheading plot, which was foiled by police and the MI5 security service a year ago.  Media had been barred from reporting Khan's plea until Tuesday when a trial of two other men opened in the central English city of Leicester.
   News of the plot leaked to the media last year, prompting parallels with al-Qaida hostage killings in Iraq.
   Prosecutor Nigel Rumfitt told the jury to ignore what they had heard.  While Khan and the other defendants were Muslims, "this is not a prosecution of the Islamic faith", he said.
   Khan was "a man who has the most violent and extreme Islamist views" who wanted to get physically involved in acts of terrorism, Mr Rumfitt said.
   "He was enraged by the idea that there were Muslim soldiers in the British army, some of them Muslims from The Gambia in West Africa."
   Khan decided to kidnap such a soldier with the help of drug dealers operating in the central English city of Birmingham. The victim was to be seized while enjoying a night out and bundled into a car, Mr Rumfitt said.
   "He would be taken to a lock-up garage and there he would be murdered by having his head cut off like a pig," he said. The atrocity would be filmed and distributed to spread panic and fear in the British armed forces and the public.
   Mr Rumfitt said Khan had asked a Gambian man, Basiru Gassama, to help him find a suitable victim. There was no evidence Mr Gassama had provided such help but he pleaded guilty this month to failing to disclose his knowledge of the plot to authorities.
   Another man, Amjab Mahmood, faces the same charge in the trial that opened on Tuesday.  He and a co-defendant, Zahoor Iqbal, are charged with working alongside Khan and others to supply equipment to help militants on the Pakistan-Afghan border fighting Western coalition troops. The men were "actively assisting terrorists who were trying to kill our soldiers, as well as those of our allies the US and Canada", Mr Rumfitt said.
   He said the shipments included sophisticated electronic and other equipment such as computer hard drives, range-finders, night-vision gear and surveillance detectors.  Some of the material was sent out under the guise of earthquake relief to Pakistan.
   The jury was told how details of the beheading plot emerged from the bugging of Khan's home by the British security service.
   Mr Rumfitt said Mr Mahmood should have told authorities but failed to do so. Mr Iqbal is not charged in connection with the beheading plot.
  [Picture] Guilty: Parviz Khan.  

ANNALS AUSTRALASIA     3     JANUARY / FEBRUARY 2008
Plain Speaking on Jihad from a leading scholar of Islam

WAR, SUBJUGATION AND EXPANSION

 
By Johannes J. G. Jansen,
The Legacy of Jihad: Islamic Holy War and the Fate of Non-Muslims
Edited by Andrew G. Bostom,Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus, 2005, 759pp. BOSTOM, an associate professor of medicine at Rhode Island Hospital, has compiled a large collection of documents concerning jihad in his voluminous The Legacy of Jihad. Bostom's book amply documents the systematic and destructive character of Islamic jihad, refuting the much-repeated argument that jihad is a "rich" concept that has many meanings and that jihad first of all signifies "inner struggle." Jihad is first of all war, bloodshed, subjugation, and expansion of the faith by violence. The book implicitly devastates the fashionable but uninformed opinion that all religions are elaborations of the Golden Rule. Jihad is everything the Golden Rule is not.
   Jihad has been extremely effective and has served Islam well. In the light of this success, it can hardly be expected from Muslim leaders that they renounce jihad for more peaceful methods for propagating their faith. Renunciation of jihad would simply not be in the interest of Islam. But it would, to the contrary, be very much in the interest of the rest of the world. How should the rest of the world react to Muslim insistence on the legitimacy of jihad? Do modern, free, and democratic societies have the stomach to withstand jihad? This question becomes more and more important when jihadists see themselves increasingly not as an alternative to Christianity, Judaism, or any other faith but as an alternative to democracy. One almost gets the impression that present-day jihadists fervently desire to add Islam to the list that starts with Nazism and communism.
   Bostom not only presents us with classical mainstream Islamic sources and their justifications for jihad, plus witness reports from victims that survived by accident, etc., but he also quotes contemporary Muslim clerics. For example: Yusuf al-Qaradawi (b. 1926) discusses "martyrdom operations," a relatively new tactic of jihadists. Are such operations jihad or suicide? This is an important question because Islam forbids suicide. Luckily Qaradawi, regarded by many in the West as a moderate, knows the exact difference between suicide and a martyrdom operation. Someone who kills himself is "too weak to cope with the situation" in which he finds himself. "In contrast, the one who carries out a martyrdom operation does not think of himself. He sells himself to Allah in order to buy Paradise in exchange."
   If this is how the moderates reason, what can we expect from the radicals?
   – Professor Jansen's review of Andrew Bostom's book appeared first in Middle East Quarterly, Winter 2008. Reprinted with permission.

ANNALS AUSTRALASIA     8     JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2008

War against Muslim Women and others

 
   Annals Australasia, annalsaustralasia |AT| gmail |DOT| com , Letter from "INFORMED OBSERVER" {NAME SUPPLIED}, Perth, WA, p 8, January-February 2008.
   Congratulations on your issue of November-December 2007, which told us that an aggressive Islamist group is seeking permission to build Europe's largest mosque in London, to be near the proposed site of the 2012 Olympics.  We also learn that the Brick Lane Mosque was originally a Huguenot Christian church, later Methodist, and later a Jewish Synagogue.  It is now a Muslim mosque.
   The UK Telegraph reported [Dec 9, 2007] that when Miss "Sofia Allam" of Dagenham in London left the Muslim faith for Christianity both her parents started verbally attacking her, made death threats and ordered her out of the house, calling her a Kaffir (i.e., infidel).  They brought all her uncles around to browbeat her.
   After three weeks of bullying she left.  An ex-Muslims' organisation said that some of the supposed 'honour killings' in Britain were possibly due to changing religion.  Death threats are also reported by ex-Muslim leaders in Holland and Germany.  In Canada, we read in The West Australian of December 14, Miss Aqsa Parvez was strangled, allegedly by her father, for repeatedly taking off her hijab (head-scarf, or veil) when she got to high school.  And on January 13, 2008 the Independent-on Sunday (UK) reported that on Friday a coroner had ruled that 17-year-old Miss Shafilea Ahmed was 'unlawfully killed' and that 'the concept of an arranged marriage was central to the circumstances of her death'.
   So, Father Stenhouse and colleagues, do not weaken in your resolve to report and comment on the grave danger that civilisation faces from the Islamist onslaught, just as your book {The Conquest of Abyssinia} reports what happened to the people of Abyssinia (Ethiopia) years ago.
   Well done, Annals, for your scholarly educational work on this subject.

  Former Muslims Speak Out  

   Annals Australasia, annalsaustralasia |AT| gmail |DOT| com , p 17, January-February 2008
   We discovered that Islam is beyond alteration, because Muslims who attempt to modernize and reform its unremitting bigotry, mindless rituals and its barbaric and draconian punitive measures are targeted for annihilation.
   Our verdict was that the only way to escape from the tyranny of Islam is to leave it for good.
   That is why we discarded Islam from our lives – to be free, to enjoy a normal, pleasant and humane life, in complete harmony with all people on earth irrespective of their religion, race or creed.
   Let the world watch Islam through < www.islam- watch.org  > and be warned. #

ANNALS AUSTRALASIA     20-25     JANUARY / FEBRUARY 2008
Islam
Intellectual and Moral Rot undermining High Places

POPE BENEDICT XVI AND DIALOGUE WITH MUSLIMS

 
By Samir Khalil Samir, SJ
Vatican representatives and Muslim thinkers will meet in Rome next March to hammer out a few guidelines for dialogue between Christians and Muslims. There is a risk of hollowness or falsity if the dialogue addresses theology alone, and not the concrete problems of the two communities. THE masterful lecture by the pope in Regensburg, so widely criticised by much of the Muslim (and also Western) world, is producing positive results in the very domain of dialogue with the Muslim world. Following the address in Regensburg (September 12, 2006), 38 Muslim scholars sent an initial letter in response (October 13, 2006), and a year later a second letter (signed by 138 scholars, whose number has since grown to 216) in an effort to find common ground of collaboration between Christians and Muslims.

From Jihad to Slavery The jihad slave system included contingents of both sexes delivered annually in conformity with the treaties of submission by sovereigns who were tributaries of the caliph. When Amr conquered Tripoli {Libya} in 643, he forced the Jewish and Christian Berbers to give their wives and children as slaves to the Arab army as part of their jizya {tax on non-Muslims}. From 652 until its conquest in 1276, Nubia was forced to send an annual contingent of slaves to Cairo. Treaties concluded with the towns of Transoxiana, Sijistan, Armenia, and Fezzan (Maghreb) under the Umayyads and Abbasids stipulated an annual dispatch of slaves from both sexes. However, the main sources for the supply of slaves remained the regular raids on villages within the dar-al-harb {House of War, i.e., non-Islamic regions} and the military expeditions which swept more deeply into the infidel lands, emptying towns and provinces of their inhabitants.    – Bat Ye'or, The Decline of Eastern Christianity Under Islam: From Jihad to Dhimmitude, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1996, p. 108.

   In his turn, last November 19 Benedict XVI [Ratzinger] responded to the letter of the 138, opening teh way to possible collaboration in various areas. A few weeks ago (December 12, 2007), in a letter to Cardinal Bertone, Jordanian prince Ghazi bin Muhammad bin Talal agreed to lay the groundwork for collaboration:  between February and March, personalities of the Vatican curia and of the Islamic world will meet in Rome to establish the procedures and subject matter of this dialogue. But it's possible that all this work will go right down the drain. It seems to me, in fact, that the Muslim personalities who are in contact with the pope want to dodge fundamental and concrete questions, like human rights, reciprocity, violence, etc, to ensconce themselves in an improbable theological dialogue "on the soul and God". Let's take a closer look at the problems that have emerged.
   1. The Letter of the 138: "A Common Word between Us and You"
   The letter" of the 138 is full of goodwill:  the Islamic scholars say they want to look "at what unites" Islam, Christianity, and the other religions. They have even made an effort to express themselves in "Christian" terms, saying that the heart of religion is "loving God and neighbour". Islam does not express itself in this manner. This is an expression of the Old Testament, resumed by Jesus in a more realistic, concrete, and universal sense in the parable of the good Samaritan (Luke 10:23-37). Jesus says two important things: first of all, he ranks the first commandment as "equal" to the second (and this was not so clear even in the Old Testament); in the second place, he clarifies who the neighbour is -- he is not the one "closest to me" (as expressed by the Muslim intellectuals in the Arabic version of their letter, using the word jâr, close), but the one to whom I make myself "neighbour". The Gospel, in fact, overturns the question of the scribe ("who is my neighbour?") and asks who behaved as a "neighbour" to the dying man. The neighbour is therefore every human person, including one's enemy, as the Samaritan was for the Jews.
   In the Gospel one often finds parables in which Jesus overturns common values: the Pharisee and the tax collector, the pagans with respect to the Jews, the child with respect to the adult.
   The greatest danger of the letter of the 138 is in its silences, in what it does not address: there is no reference, for example, to the problems of the international community in regard to the Muslim community, or to the real problems within the Muslim community.  The Ummah finds itself at a very delicate point, in a phase of widespread extremism and radicalism among a significant segment of Muslims, which is a form of exclusivity: those who do not think as we do are our enemies.  This is evident every day in the Muslim press, and we see violence and attacks in Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, among Sunni and Shiite Muslims, or against Christians or Jews, or simply against tolerant Muslims – and they do exist!

A Key Question IT IS IRONIC and discouraging that many non-Muslim, Western intellectuals - who unceasingly claim to support human rights - have become obstacles to reforming Islam. Political correctness among Westerners obstructs unambiguous criticism of Shariah's inhumanity.    They find socioeconomic or political excuses for Islamist terrorism such as poverty, colonialism, discrimination or the existence of Israel.    What incentive is there for Muslims to demand reform when Western 'progressives' pave the way for Islamist barbarity?    Indeed, if the problem is not one of religious beliefs, it leaves one to wonder why Christians who live among Muslims under identical circumstances refrain from contributing to wide-scale, systematic campaigns of terror.    – Tawfik Hamid, The Wall Street Journal, Tuesday, April 3, 2007.  A onetime member of Jemaah Islamiya, an Islamist terrorist group led by al Qaeda's second in command, Ayman al-Zawahiri.  Dr Hamid is a medical doctor.

   The danger for Islam is not violence: this is present all over the world and in all religions and ideologies.  The danger is that of justifying all this through religion.  Even certain forms of violence against women and their rights are justified using the Qur'an.  For example, I know a Muslim woman who cannot get a divorce, because divorce is the husband's right; she can only ask for the favour of being repudiated by him.  He, on the basis of the Qur'an, can also remarry (up to four wives) and make a new life for himself, but the woman, who lives apart, does not have this right.  She, a young wife, complained to me because "there is no justice".  These situations, in which one uses the Qur'an or sharia law to exclude the other, are frequent.
   II. The pope's response: four areas of collaboration
   In the reply from the pontiff - sent through Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, Vatican secretary of state - Benedict XVI expresses "deep appreciation" for the positive spirit that inspired the letter of the 138, and for the appeal for joint action to promote peace in the world.
   Having said this, the pope suggests seeking what the two sides have in common.  But the elements are not identical.  First of all, he makes an annotation:  they should seek what they have in common "without ignoring or downplaying our differences".  This means that for the pope there are differences between the two communities that must be taken into account, not hidden: we can be brothers and different, brothers who disagree.  This is a golden rule in the area of religion and dogma.
   In the letter of the 138, it is suggested that what is held "in common" is faith in one God.  The Islamic thinkers cite the Qur'an itself when they say "Come to a common word between us and you", which requires that nothing be placed alongside of God.  But this is addressed to Christians, who place Jesus Christ next to God.
   For the pope, the "things in common" exist, but differences exist as well, and these must be kept in mind.  The pope lists three of these "common things":
   - belief in the one God, the provident Creator;
   - God, the universal Judge "who at the end of time will deal with each person according to his or her actions"; ¹
   - we are called "to commit ourselves totally to him and to obey his sacred will". ²
   The pope then proposes a concrete application: the formation of a dialogue group that would seek common ground. This terrain must be found on a number of levels:
   a) The first is that of identifying values capable of guaranteeing "mutual respect, solidarity and peace".  "Respect" here also means that there are differences that must be guaranteed and welcomed.  For example, a Muslim can say to a Christian: I do not agree with what you believe, that Jesus has a human and divine nature.  You Christians are polytheists, because you place other gods, your Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, beside the one God.  I say: let us seek to live in mutual respect.  You have the full right to say that the Islamic conception excludes the Trinity, the divine-humanity.  But leave me the right to say, for example, that Mohammed was not sent by God.  I can acknowledge that he was a great personality on the human and political level, a social and spiritual reformer, that he also brought negative contributions, but not that he was a prophet.  Do I have the right to say that, or not?  As you have the right to say that you do not believe in the divinity of Christ - and in this you are consistent in your faith - we, too, have the right to say what we think about Mohammed. ³  In short, there is no such thing as a "taboo" topic, but there are only taboo means and methods, because these are violent and disrespectful.
   b) The other level is that of human life as "sacred".  This ethical dimension embraces a very wide field, which ranges from the rejection of abortion to the natural end of human life.  But it also includes non-violence, which is one of the noblest forms of respect for human life.  And it also means love for all the works of human culture and progress: for equality among men, for human rights - a respect for life and for what helps it to emerge and flourish. In his address to the Roman curia on December 22, 2006, the pope said: "one must welcome the true conquests of the Enlightenment, human rights and especially the freedom of faith and its practice, and recognize these also as being essential elements for the authenticity of religion".
   For Benedict XVI, "the content of the dialogue between Christians and Muslims will be at this time especially one of meeting each other in this commitment to find the right solutions".  And together with Muslims, to work "to oppose violence and for the synergy between faith and reason, between religion and freedom". The foundation is "the dignity of every human person", expressed by human rights.
   At this point, the pope suggests four topics to the 138:
   1) Human rights. This is the first foundation of dialogue;
   2) Objective knowledge of the religion of the other. This means knowing the other for who he defines himself to be. The Christian must know Islam for what the Qur'an and modern Muslims define it to be; the Muslim must know Christianity through the Gospels and the teaching of the Church. ⁴  Objective knowledge is fundamental for a real relationship.
   3) Sharing of religious experience. This element has not been emphasized until now. Religious experience is more than knowledge. It recognises that even if the other's dogma is not my own, he can enrich me from a human and spiritual point of view. A few days ago, while flying from Beirut to Paris, I had a chance to talk for three hours with a young African woman returning from Mecca, where she had been on pilgrimage. It was a beautiful and profound conversation. And it helped us to appreciate, but also to correct, the .image that we have of each other. ⁵
   4) A commitment to educating the young. If we do not prepare the young to live out this reciprocal respect today, tomorrow we may find ourselves still in conflict with among ourselves.
   This ends our look at the pope's letter: brief, but very dense, a sign of his profound reflection.
   III. The reply to the pope from Chazi Ibn Talal: only theological dialogue
   The reply of the 138, signed by Ghazi Ibn Talal, prince of Jordan, is dated December 12, 2007. After a few introductory remarks, the letter says that they accept the idea of dialogue, and that in March they will send some of their representatives to specify the organisational and procedural details.
   But then (in the fifth paragraph of the text) they propose a distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic, and explain: "By 'intrinsic' I mean that which refers to our own souls and their inner make-up, and by 'extrinsic' I mean that which refers to the world and thus to society". They propose starting on the basis of the letter that they wrote, "A Common Word Between Us and You", and concentrating on "the unicity of God and the twofold commandment of love of God and neighbor". Everything else belongs to the extrinsic dimension, including social concerns.
   Honestly, I find this distinction weak and even un-Islamic. Because if "intrinsic" is the soul and "extrinsic" is the world and society, then the Qur'an speaks a great deal of "extrinsic" things, and very little of "intrinsic" things.

The End Justifying the Means Muslims naturally saw in the [Islamic] conquest armies the hand of God, [and] His hand was providential. In His infinite mercy, God had restored monotheism to Arabia; Muhammad's followers, inspired as they were by their direct acquaintance with God's final prophet, responded to God's injunction to 'fight in the way of God'.    To Christians (and some Jews), the conquests were proof that Muhammad's claim to prophecy was a lie, for, as one very early Christian put it, 'Do prophets come with a sword?' (the answer was: no).    To Muslims, the conquests were proof that Muhammad's claims were true, for God had sent Muhammad to make his religion prevail (Qur'an 9:33 and 61:9), and this was exactly what God had had them do.'    – Islamic Historiography, Chase F. Robinson, Cambridge Universty Press, 2003 p. 131.

   The Qur'an talks about the world, commerce, life in society, war, marriage, etc., but it says very little about the soul and one's relationship with God. But above all, the Qur'an never makes this distinction. On the contrary; the problem of Islam is precisely that of not making any sort of distinction between these two levels. Why in the world do the 138 want to address only "intrinsic" things? I think they're afraid of confronting the complete reality of the two religions.
   Ghazi's reply continues: "It is on this common intellectual and spiritual basis, then, that we understand that we are to pursue, God Willing, a dialogue in the three general topics of dialogue Your Eminence wisely mentioned in your letter: (1) 'Effective respect for the dignity of every human person'; (2) 'Objective knowledge of the religion of the other" through "sharing of religious experience" and (3) 'A common commitment to promoting mutual respect and acceptance among the younger generation'". ⁶
   The prince continues with an exhortation to dialogue, citing a conference organised by the Community of Sant'Egidio.
   And finally, they distance themselves from "some recent pronouncements emerging from the Vatican and from Vatican advisors - which cannot have escaped the notice of Your Eminence - as regards the very principle of theological dialogue". I think that the persons to whom they are referring are Cardinal Tauran (and perhaps Fr Christian W. Troll and myself), who have expressed our reservations about the possibility of theological dialogue between Christians and Muslims.
   The prince himself says that he maintains as "inherently" impossible "complete theological agreement between Christians and Muslims", but that in spite of this he wants dialogue on this level, "whether we wish to call {it} 'theological' or 'spiritual' or something else - for the sake of the common good and towards the good of the whole world, God Willing".
   The prince thus reaffirms his commitment to collaboration on the theological and spiritual level. And there is an ambiguity here: Islam, more than Christianity, blends the theological with the political, and even with the military. And here they claim to speak only of the theological. In all probability, there is some theologian behind Ghazi's thought. I think of an interview with professor Aref Ali Nayed, conducted by Catholic News Service last October 31 and reprinted by "Islamica Magazine" - in the interview, he stated, "Many Muslim theologians are not just interested in mere ethical dialogue … If dialogue is to be serious, it must be theologically and spiritually deep".
   A few months ago, he also affirmed that his conception of dialogue "excludes everything that is not theological and spiritual".  But honestly, this distinction cannot be made:  the human and social consequences of theological positions cannot be avoided.
   IV. Conclusion
   To sum up, then, we must say that some important good results for dialogue are beginning to appear. And it must be recalled that everything began from Regensburg, from that masterful lecture that seemed to have destroyed any basis for dialogue, but instead revived it.
   The address in Regensburg was built upon the reign of reason as the foundation of dialogue. This presupposes all of the adaptation of the religions in the face of Enlightenment principles, but without impoverishing reason. In short, the foundation of everything is not religion, but the human reason that is common to all human beings. ⁷
   The Regensburg address begins from precisely this problem: how can a common foundation be found for humanity and the religions, including Islam?
   In the modern state, the common foundation is expressed with the universal declaration of human rights, of freedom of religion, etc … In dialogue between Christians and Muslims, too, these must be taken as the basis of dialogue; otherwise we will achieve nothing. In the past, many Muslim theologians have rejected the universal declaration of human rights, and have drafted an "Islamic" declaration, accusing the "universal" one of being only "Western".  But this denies that there can be universality, and therefore denies that we can have common principles. This is the foundation of the conflict between the Islamic world and the West, or the rest of the world.

Islam, Booty and Slavery Historian Speros Vryonis observes that 'since the beginning of the Arab razzias [raids] into the land of Rum [the Byzantine Empire], human booty had come to constitute a very important portion of the spoils.'  As they steadily conquered more and more of Anatolia, the Turks reduced many of the Greeks and other non-Muslims there to slave status: They enslaved men, women, and children from all major urban centers and from the countryside where the populations were defenseless.'    The Indian historian K. S. Lal states that wherever jihadists conquered a territory, 'there developed a system of slavery peculiar to the clime, terrain and populace of the place.'  When Muslim armies invaded India, 'its people began to be enslaved in droves to be sold in foreign lands or employed in various capacities on menial and not-so-menial jobs within the country.'    – 'The Persistence of Islamic Slavery' by Robert Spencer, FrontPageMagazine.com , July 20, 2007.

   Kofi Annan, when he was invited once by the Organisation of Islamic Countries to open a conference, stated clearly that there cannot be "Islamic", "African", "Christian", or "Buddhist" declarations of human rights. Either the declaration is universal, or it cannot exist.
   But the letter of Prince Ghazi seems to say, instead, that human rights are not important, and are only a political question. Only theological dialogue is of interest. But what good does it do to talk about the one God, if I do not recognise that man has an absolute dignity in the image of God? That freedom of conscience is sacred, that the believer has no more rights than the non-believer, that man has no more rights than woman, etc?
   It must be affirmed that man comes before religion: respecting man comes before respect for religion. This is the Christian approach.
   I would not like for some theologians, finding themselves in difficulty over the affirmation of the dignity of every man, to look for a way of escape in theological dialogue. This method risks producing nothing but falsehood. But this is a problem that also exists within Islam itself. Until this has based everything upon the human person and reinterpreted the faith in the light of human rights, it will never be modern.
   In the two Islamic declarations on human rights, it is repeatedly affirmed that Islam admits human rights, "as long as these conform to the law". To an unsuspecting person who reads the English translation, this may seem to be just fine. The point is that for the English translation "law", the Arab versions say "conform to sharia". This means that the "Islamic" human rights risk re-proposing the usual injustices and violence: apostasy, blasphemy, stoning, injustice toward women and children, etc. ⁸
   Of course, interreligious dialogue cannot focus only upon human rights, but neither can it act as if there were not a serious problem precisely in this regard.
   Let me conclude by citing a passage from the letter of Saint James (2:14-26), although it is a bit long. In this context it seems fairly important to me, both for the question in verse 19 and because it gives the example of "Abraham, the friend of God" (Khalil Allah, as we say in Arabic), who is so respected by the Muslims:
1. That we will be judged on our actions, on facts, is an idea common to Christians and Muslims. The Qur'an speaks of "those who believe in God and in the Last Day and who do good deeds" (2:62, 5:69). But this means that there is an ethical code that could also be held in common. Constructing a common ethics would be very important. Similar things have happened in the past. At the UN conference in Cairo on population and development, in 1994, the Vatican voted with the Islamic countries. Various ambassadors criticised the Holy See because it sided with the fundamentalists. In reality, on questions of the right to life, Christians and Muslims come together. The astonishment comes only from the secularised West, which has created a relativist ethics, leaving what is good and evil to the individual's subjective decision. This point requires urgent and extensive work.
2. The Muslim is perfectly comfortable hearing this, because for him obedience is the structure of life, it is abandonment to the will of God, islam. And for the Christian, too, dedication to God (and to men) is a great ideal. But the discussion of this point needs to be expanded and clarified: what does it mean that we are called "to dedicate ourselves completely"? For an Islamic extremist, dedicating oneself to God also means killing, strapping on a bomb, blowing oneself up. Here, too, there appears a difference between Christians and Muslims, and it demands attention: non-violence is a spiritual choice, not a political one.
3. We Christians living in the Arab world suffer greatly in this regard, because we are not permitted to say what we really think. Often the Muslims ask us for "an exchange of favours": we believe that Jesus was a prophet, so you should believe that Mohammed was a prophet.
4. In this mutual objective knowledge, the Muslims run the greater risk. Since Islam came after Christianity, and since there are references to Jesus, Mary, and Christians in the Qur'an, very often Muslims do not make an effort to understand Christianity for what Christians understand it to be, but content themselves with what the Qur'an says about it. But, the only way for Christians to discover Islam is by reading the Qur'an.
5. This means that we can share our religious sensibilities without renouncing our principles. Prayer together can also be considered. Many times in the past the criticism has been made of Ratzinger that he had a negative view of the meetings in Assisi, where since 1986 religious personalities have met together to pray. The controversy that has erupted so many times is whether persons of different religions should pray together. The position of the then-cardinal Ratzinger was that it was necessary to avoid anything that might suggest confusion or syncretism. But praying together, as the pope did in the mosque in Istanbul, is the height of respect and dialogue.
6. It should be noted that the recipients of the letter did not realise that the points cited by the pope are four, and not three: the sharing of religious experience, in the pope's text, is a third point. 10th-century Islamic thought had very clear ideas about this, and it respected a foundation common to all men. Later the Islamic world increasingly closed itself off, even against the rationalist Muslims (like Averroes).
7. It is worth asking how much impact the letter of the 138 has had. Among experts, there has been increasing agreement: the 138 signatories have grown to 216. But in the population, nothing has happened. I have seen just a few articles in Arabic, in the Arab and Islamic newspapers. None of these analysed the content of the letter of the 138. Some of them gave nothing but the news itself, others recounted only that Christians and Muslims wanted to meet to discuss faith in the one God. It therefore cannot be said that this letter has moved the Islamic world.
SAHIR KHALIL SAMIR, an Egyptian Jesuit, is professor of Islamic studies and of the history of Arab culture at the Universite Saint-Joseph in Beirut and at the Pontifical Oriental Institute in Rome; he is the founder of the Centre de Recherche Arabes Chretiennes and president of the International Association for Christian Arabic Studies. #

General blasts ‘twisted’ al-Qaida

   The West Australian, http://www.thewest.com.au , p 24, Monday, February 4, 2008
   BAGHDAD - A US general in Iraq slammed al-Qaida yesterday over what he called its "twisted ideology" for strapping explosives to two Down syndrome women and sending them to blow up popular pet markets, killing 100 people and injuring 208.
   Maj-Gen. Jeffery Hammond, commander of US forces in Baghdad, said al-Qaida in Iraq was using "its twisted ideology to spread fear in the hearts of people".
   Maj-Gen. Hammond said both bombers were women and closely resembled each other. "There are indications they were mentally handicapped," he said.
   Other officers said photographs of the women published by al-Qaida clearly showed the facial features of those afflicted with Down syndrome.
   "They were used by al-Qaida because they were less likely to know what was happening," Maj-Gen. Hammond said. "They were less likely to be searched."
   A top Iraqi official said the two 15kg lots of explosives had been triggered by remote control in blasts 20 minutes apart.
   Gen. Abud Qanbar Hashim, Iraqi commander of Baghdad Operations Command, accused al-Qaida of using "mentally handicapped children and adults to do their dirty work".
   "Al-Qaida is desperate," he said. "This is why they attack innocent people like this."
   Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's office said recent security successes had "annoyed those with sick and corrupt minds, so they committed … two ugly terrorist crimes which left many innocents dead."crease the Iraqi military's persistence in restoring security to the violence-ravaged country, it said. #

Stabbed wife ‘expected to die’

   The West Australian, http://www.thewest.com.au , by DAVID DARRAGH, p 17, Thursday, February 7, 2008
   PERTH – A woman told a Supreme Court jury yesterday that she gave up and thought she was going to die as her former husband stabbed her "like a maniac" in the face, head, chest and arms.
   Tanya Ammoun was giving evidence on the opening day of the trial of Ali Ammoun, who is accused of bashing his former mother-in-law in her home before luring his former wife to the house and stabbing her in a frenzied attack last year.
   Mr Ammoun, 48, has pleaded not guilty to two counts of deprivation of liberty and one count each of attempted murder, doing grievous bodily harm, making threats to kill and aggravated burglary.
   "Blood was just squirting and gushing in all directions," Mrs Ammoun told the court.
   She said her former husband also tried to smother and strangle her during the attack. She could not believe it when the attack stopped and she staggered into the street to get help.
   Opening the trial, prosecutor Dave Dempster said Mr Ammoun believed he was being denied access to his seven children after the couple's divorce in September 2006. Mr Dempster said Mr Ammoun had a knife and a hammer when he broke into the Spearwood home of his former mother-in-law, Pamela Kepicj 61, and attacked her on January 21 last year.
   He grabbed her and hit her head on the floor repeatedly, calling her a "f–ing bitch". He also put a hessian bag over her head and bound her arms and legs with tape and rope, he said.
   Mr Dempster said Mr Ammoun punched Mrs Kepic in the face repeatedly. He made her phone his former wife to get her to come to the house. When she arrived, Mr Ammoun grabbed her, held a knife to her throat, threatened to kill her and also bound her hands and feet, Mr Dempster said.
   He said that Mrs Ammoun managed to free her feet and tried to escape but Mr Ammoun confronted her and stabbed her repeatedly in the face with a knife.
   He also grabbed his former wife by her hair, ripping out big clumps, and threw her down a flight of stairs.
   He said the accused continued the attack at the foot of the stairs, only stopping when Mrs Ammoun "played possum" by lying still. Mr Dempster said that during a 000 emergency call, Mr Ammoun said: "I want to report a murder– I tried to kill my wife and my mother-in-law". He told the operator his former wife had taken his children and he had stabbed her.
   Mrs Kepic suffered bleeding on her brain and fractures to an eye socket and cheekbone while Mrs Ammoun had multiple cuts to her face and body.
   Defence lawyer Colin Lovitt told the court his client would argue that he tied up the two women because they had attacked him with the hammer and knife. The trial continues. #

IN SHORT

[Bali killers now appealing against becoming ‘martyrs’]

     The West Australian, Letter to The Editor, p 22, Thursday, February 7, 2008
   So, the three Bali bombers have won the right to have their case reviewed, once again delaying their pending execution. So much for them wanting to die martyrs for the Muslim terrorist cause.
   Funny how their arrogant desire to die as heroes for killing so many innocent people has changed. Perhaps they have found that going to heaven and being met by all those virgins may be nothing but a myth.
   It now appears that they are obviously not that keen to die by firing squad after all.

Family ignored bridal murder

   The West Australian, http://www.thewest.com.au , p 30, Thursday, February 7, 2008
   LONDON - A British family who turned a blind eye to the murder of a young woman in their house screamed and thumped the dock in Leeds Crown Court as they were found guilty of failing to help her.
   They were members of the family of Shazad Khan, 25, who was convicted a year ago of killing his new wife, Sabia Rani, 19, in May 2006.
   The court had been told that Ms Rani was attacked a number of times at the family home. After she died she was found to have bruising to 90 per cent of her body and up to 15 broken ribs. Pathologist Christopher Milroy said her injuries were similar to those suffered by someone in a serious road accident.
   Khan's mother, Phullan Bibi, 52, two of his sisters, Uzma Khan, 23, and Nazia Naureen, 28, and Naureen's husband, Majid Hussain, 28, lived in the same house. They were found guilty on Tuesday after a three-week trial and nine hours of jury deliberations of allowing the death of a vulnerable adult.
   Prosecutor Simon Myerson said the defendants blamed Ms Rani's injuries on evil spirits and curses but each must have known she was in pain and that Khan must have been the cause of the pain.
   Ms Rani had been brought up in rural Pakistan and did not speak English. She moved to England only five months before she died and was not allowed out of the house without a member of her husband's family.
   As the verdicts were read out the sisters began wailing and hugged each other fiercely before screaming: "Not guilty! Not guilty!" Bibi stood up crying and banged both hands down hard on the dock repeatedly before being restrained by officers.
   A date for sentencing is to be set. #

Ex-wife denies twisting evidence on hammer attack

   The West Australian, http://www.thewest.com.au , By DAVID DARRAGH, p 16, Friday, February 8, 2008
   PERTH, W. Australia - A 37-year-old woman has denied twisting her evidence about her former husband stabbing her repeatedly with a knife and hitting her with a hammer in a frenzied attack last year. Tanya Ammoun broke down in tears while testifying to a Supreme Court jury about her acrimonious relationship with former husband Ali Ammoun in the lead-up to the incident in which he allegedly tied up and attacked Mrs Ammoun and her 61-year-old mother Pamela Kepic at Mrs Kepic's home in Steinbeck Place, Spearwood.
   Mrs Ammoun had earlier testified that she thought she was going to die when her former husband stabbed her "like a maniac" in the face, head, arms and chest and struck her in the chest with a hammer.
   Mr Ammoun, 48, is accused of two counts of deprivation of liberty and one count of attempted murder, doing grievous bodily harm, making threats to kill and aggravated burglary. He has pleaded not guilty.
   Cross-examined by defence lawyer Colin Lovitt, Mrs Ammoun said yesterday that she had been thrown down a set of stairs and stabbed repeatedly by Mr Ammoun.
   She told police that the attack was motivated by revenge.
   Mrs Ammoun denied a suggestion by Mr Lovitt that she had "twisted and amplified" what had happened on the night. She rejected a suggestion that she had attacked Mr Ammoun.
   She denied repeatedly accusing Mr Ammoun, in front of others, of being unfaithful but admitted she was convinced he had been having an affair with a business associate whom Mr Ammoun subsequently married soon after their divorce in late 2006.
   She agreed with a suggestion by Mr Lovitt that she regarded the other woman, Julie, as some sort of demon and an "evil person". She also admitted smearing Mr Ammoun's character by telling Julie that Mr Ammoun was "into little girls" and warning her to be very careful with her 11-year-old daughter.
   Mrs Ammoun said she had told police that she believed Julie was involved in the attack at the time because Mr Ammoun said things to her like "We are going to kill you, we are going to kill your mum" during the attack.
   Police had since told her that Mr Ammoun had been on his own.
   The court has been told that Mrs Kepic had bleeding on her brain and fractures to an eye socket and cheekbone while Mrs Ammoun had multiple cuts.
   The trial continues. #

Recognise sharia law, say Muslims.

   The West Australian, http://www.thewest.com.au , By KIM MACDONALD and BEATRICE THOMAS, p 3, Saturday, February 9, 2008
   PERTH - WA Muslims are pushing for sharia law to be incorporated into Australian legislation, saying separate rules governing social issues such as divorce, the rights of women and the legal recognition of multiple wives are needed for the Islamic community.
   The push came as Perth Anglican Archbishop Roger Herft gave in-principle support for calls from the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, to incorporate some aspects of sharia law in Britain's legal system.
   Archbishop Herft said legal recognition of sharia law should be carefully assessed as to whether it would better resolve some culturally sensitive disputes, such as divorce.
   But he cautioned that he would not condone anything which contradicted criminal law or undermined people's equality or civil liberties. Hardline sharia law is infamous for oppressing women and sanctioning beatings for minor religious breaches.
   The Islamic Council of WA said yesterday that sharia law was already being practised in a "hidden" fashion and should be recognised formally in cases where it did not contravene the Western legal system.
   Council religious adviser Abdul Jalil Ahmad said sharia law was used to resolve personal disputes within the Muslim community in relation to culturally sensitive matters such as divorce, marriage, funerals and property disputes.
   "In most Western countries you have to respect the law of the land so (it should be implemented but) Rowan Williams only in some aspects – like marriage and family problems and funerals." The Federal Government yesterday ruled out the introduction of Islamic courts in Australia.
   The council is also asking the Government to consider giving extra welfare benefits for Muslim men who have multiple wives.
   Council spokesman Rahim Ghauri said if the men married their wives under Islamic law before coming to Australia, they should qualify for extra age pensions and family tax benefits. In Australia, legal recognition of multiple marriages could affect the amount a family of multiple wives would receive in family tax benefits.
   Family tax benefit A, which relates to families and couples, allows annual payments of up to $4460.30 per child under 13, rising to $5595.45 per child aged 13 to 15. Family tax benefit A is worth significantly more than family tax benefit B, which is paid to single income families with children.
   The aged pension could also be affected because couples each receive fortnightly payments of $449.10, meaning legally recognised multiple marriages could see one man benefit from several aged pensions.
   Dr Williams, the Anglican Church's world leader, ignited the debate with a speech at the Royal Courts of Justice in which he called for a "plural jurisdiction" that would allow Muslims to choose whether some legal disputes were resolved in secular or sharia courts. #

Gran feared being killed by former son-in-law

   The West Australian, http://www.thewest.com.au , By DAVID DARRAGH, p 13, Saturday, February 9, 2008
   PERTH – A 61-year-old woman thought she was going to be killed while being attacked and bashed by her former son-in-law at her Spearwood home, a Supreme Court jury was told yesterday.
   Pamela Kepic said she was set upon and grabbed by Ali Ammoun, 48, after returning to her Steinbeck Place home on January 21 last year.
   Mrs Kepic said her attacker slammed her head into the tiled floor in her laundry at least 10 times and kept repeating "f.. .ing bitch" and was yelling something like "It's all your fault".
   She said she was left "black and blue" with bruises over her body as a result of Mr Ammoun punching her in the head, back and stomach numerous times with his fists.
   "I could see it and I could feel it, it was very painful," she said.
   Mrs Kepic said she thought she was going to be killed and was lapsing in and out of consciousness.
   At one stage, she saw a hammer next to her and picked it up but then fell unconscious again.
   She said Mr Ammoun had bound her hands and legs and put a hood over her head and she could hear her daughter screaming at one stage and thought she was being killed.
   Mr Ammoun, a businessman, is on trial accused of two counts of deprivation of liberty and one count of attempted murder, doing grievous bodily harm, making threats to kill and aggravated burglary. He has pleaded not guilty.
   Mr Ammoun's former wife, Tanya Ammoun, testified this week that he attacked her and threw her down a set of stairs before repeatedly stabbing her to the face and body with a knife and trying to suffocate her.
   The defence will argue that the two women attacked Mr Ammoun, who defended himself.
   The former couple had divorced several months before the alleged attack and Mr Ammoun had been denied access to his seven children.
   Cross-examined by defence lawyer Colin Lovitt, Mrs Kepic denied that she suffered a head injury when she got angry with Mr Ammoun, who had come to her house to talk, and charged at him before slipping and hitting her head on a sink in the laundry.
   Mrs Kepic said she started bleeding from a head wound when her attacker smashed her head into the floor.
   She denied a suggestion by Mr Lovitt that she had decided to blame her injuries on Mr Ammoun to get him into trouble when he had just come to the house to talk to the two women and get some answers.
   "This is really ridiculous – what you are telling me is a fabricated story and I don't like it – I don't like lies being told to me," Mrs Kepic said.
   The trial continues. #

[Somalian stabs NZ pilots; NATO wants more troops to remove Afghan terrorists; Iraqi Sunnis ease off on attacks on fellow Muslims; France will try to clean up and police Muslim suburbs; Abu Hamza extradition order signed in London.]

 
   The West Australian, Various pages, Saturday, February 9, 2008
   Page 30. "Pilots stabbed in hijack bid."        CHRISTCHURCH, New Zealand: A Somali-born woman demanded to be taken to Australia, stabbing two pilots and trying to hijack a small airliner in NZ, claiming there were bombs on the plane.  She is a 33-year-old, of Blenheim.  The plane landed safely and no bomb was found.
   Page 30. "Afghanistan front line against terror."      LONDON, England: NATO secretary-general Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said that Afghanistan was the front line of the global struggle against terrorism and defeat for Western forces would risk the security of European cities.  Most NATO countries had sent only small numbers of troops to southern Afghanistan.
   Page 39. "Revolt forces al-Qaida to ease tactics."    BAGHDAD, Iraq: The Sunni insurgent group al-Qaida in Iraq is telling its followers to soften their tactics in order to retain popular support in the western province of Anbar, where Sunni tribes have turned against the terrorists and begun working with US forces.  The new approach was posted in certain mosques, signed by Abu-Hamza al-Muhajer.  But there is no easing of the hostility to the Shi'ites, who Al-Qaida say are heretics.  Two bombings last Friday [the Muslim "holy" day] in predominantly Shi'ite areas of Baghdad killed as many as 100 people.
   Page 42. "France pledges help for slums."    PARIS, France: French president Nicolas Sarkozy has pledged more police and major investments for neglected housing projects nationwide in a plan for neighbourhoods that exploded in riots in 2005 and late last year.  Many of the suburbs' youths are of immigrant origin.
   Page 44. "Britain clears way for cleric's US extradition."        LONDON, England: Britain intends to extradite jailed Islamist cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri to face terror charges in the US.  The US claims that Egyptian-born Hamza, 49, the one-eyed hook-handed former imam of Finsbury Park Mosque, north London, was part of a global holy war / jihad, and want to try him over the 1998 abduction of 16 Western tourists in Yemen, setting up an Islamist training camp in Oregon, etc.  A US warrant was issued in 2004. He has been in prison since February 2006, sentenced to seven years for crimes of race hatred and soliciting to murder.  He will appeal again.  [This newsitem does not tell which British minister let him into the country, nor how many thousands of pounds the attempts to bring him to justice, and pay for his defence lawyers, have cost the British taxpayer.]
   Page 54. "Little faith in Pakistan election."    ISLAMABAD, Pakistan: Depite colourful candidates' posters papering road signs and shopfronts, the political atmosphere a little more than a week before Pakistan's parliamentary election is as bleak and foreboding as the grey winter sky over much of the country.  Candidates largely have refrained from campaigning ouf of fear of bombings, following the assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto on December 27.  Allegations of harassment and of relatives of the military dictatorship's officials running for office have been made.  Fear of violent Islamic extremists preceded a US observer mission pulling out.  The army rebuffed requests to patrol on election day.
   The suicide bombing of an army medical bus on Monday killed 11 people and injured 45 in the garrison city of Rawalpindi.  Threats are being made against candidates from conservative Islamic parties, which are growing in influence.
   Page 58. "Revolution hero's granson shut out."    TEHRAN, Iran: Ali Eshraghi, grandson of the Ayatollah Rhuolla Khomeini, the late founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran, said that his exclusion from being allowed to stand for parliament was an instult to the family.  Officials has sent him a message asking him to write a single sentence appealing from the decision.  The Guardian Council had asked his neighbours about whether he prayed and fasted or smoked and shaved -- the latter two activities being considered less pious in Iran.  Of 7200 prospective candidates, only 5000 remain.  Iran has earned more than US$60 billion in the past year by exporting 2.5m barrels of oil a day, making it the second-biggest oil exported in OPEC.  Former president Mohammad Khatami, a reformist, said "What happened in vetting the candidates was a catastrophe."

Chad ponders pardon for kidnap six

   The West Australian, http://www.thewest.com.au , p 46, Saturday, February 9, 2008
   PARIS - Chadian President Idriss Deby says he is "ready to pardon" six French aid workers convicted in December of trying to kidnap 103 children they said were orphans from Darfur.
   Mr Deby, speaking on Europe-1 radio on Thursday, said he could only issue a pardon on a demand from France but that "I am ready to pardon" the six sentenced to eight years of hard labour by a Chad court.
   The six were returned to France and the sentence was converted last month to eight years in prison by a French court.
   The case of the six, members of small French aid group Zoe's Ark, aroused heated reaction at the time in Chad, making any pardon by Mr Deby almost unthinkable. However, over the past week, attention has been elsewhere, with Mr Deby's Government fighting back rebels who entered the capital before being pushed back.
   Legally, those convicted in the kidnapping case must each make a pardon request, a French presidential spokesman said.
   "Of course, if the convicted Zoe's Ark members send us a pardon request, we will transmit it immediately to Chadian authorities, said David Martinon, suggesting that it is not for the state to make the request.
   Gilbert Collard, a lawyer for several of those convicted, said he had sent a pardon request 10 days ago to Chad but looked for help from President Nicolas Sarkozy to push the requests along. It was up to Mr Sarkozy "to seize both this hand (extended by Mr Deby) and take the steps President Deby expects of him".
   Mr Sarkozy, who went to Chad personally to bring home journalists covering Zoe's Ark, has made no gesture to save the convicted workers.
   When Mr Deby came under rebel attack, he extended a hand.
   This week, Mr Sarkozy said that France, which has more than 1500 troops in the former colony, would help Mr Deby if need be.
   The Chadian leader said in the radio interview that French support had been limited to "surveying the frontier at Adre" with overflights by Mirage fighter jets. Adre is a border town with Sudan and Mr Deby claims rebels are crossing into Chad from Sudan.
   The changed situation apparently makes an eventual pardon for the six French easier.
   The six French were arrested in October by Chadian authorities as they sought to send 103 children on a plane to France.

Iran stoning under fire

   The West Australian, http://www.thewest.com.au , p 58, Saturday, February 9, 2008
   BRUSSELS - The European Union has expressed dismay at the imminent death by stoning of two sisters accused of adultery in Iran.
   The 27 member states issued two statements underscoring Europe's growing impatience with the systematic violation of human rights in Iran. It also criticised the persecution of members of the Baha'i religious minority.
   "The EU condemns the increasing recourse to death sentences and executions in the Islamic Republic of Iran," a presidency statement said.
   The EU reiterated its long standing opposition to the death penalty "in all circumstances" and urged Iran to abolish capital punishment, "if necessary by initially establishing a moratorium on executions".
   European diplomats expressed particular concern over the threat of imminent execution facing Zohreh and Azar Kabiri, two sisters who Amnesty International says are to be stoned to death after being forced to confess to their alleged crime.
   Abdollah Farivar, a music teacher, also faces a similar fate for reportedly having an extra-marital affair with one of his students.
   The EU says Iran promised to impose a moratorium on stoning during human rights talks in 2003. Yet this kind of punishment remains on its statute books.
   Officials also criticised Iran for violating international law by sentencing to death three juvenile offenders, as well as four Iranian customs officials accused of corruption.
   It was reprimanded by the EU for allowing its judiciary to impose long prison sentences on scores of Baha’i followers accused of spreading propaganda against the regime. #

SHARIA: Now Archbishop is forced to explain himself to General Synod

   The Daily Mail (England), www.dailymail. co.uk/pages/ live/articles/ news/news.html? in_article_ id=513351& in_page_ id=1770& ct=5 , By DANIEL BOFFEY and POLLY DUNBAR, Last updated at 23:12pm on February 9, 2008
   ENGLAND – The Archbishop of Canterbury was battling to salvage his authority last night after the outcry over his remarks on Islamic law reached the highest levels of the Church of England.
   As Dr Rowan Williams tried to claim his comments had been misrepresented, two bishops dealt a blow to the attempted fightback by adding their voices to the criticism.
   It leaves the country's most senior churchman facing a crucial test of his support at a meeting of the General Synod, his ruling body, tomorrow.
   At least two members of the Synod have called for him to resign, and the storm has forced him to hastily rewrite his Presidential address.
  [Picture] Dr Rowan Williams: now battling to salvage his authority.    Picture: Associated Press  
   The row started when Dr Williams gave a lecture and interview on Thursday calling for parts of sharia law – the legal and social code that guides Muslims in their daily life – to be recognised in the UK.
   Yesterday he tried to calm the situation by placing on his website a selectively edited account of his words, insisting that he had "made no proposals for sharia, and certainly did not call for its introduction as some kind of parallel jurisdiction".
   But a transcript of his BBC radio interview on Thursday shows him stating that the application of sharia in the UK was "unavoidable – it's not as if we are bringing in an alien and rival system".
   Should the Archbishop resign? Tell us your view in Reader Comments below
   Read more–

THE WAY WE WERE

   The West Australian, An inset table in the article "WA's taxing times nothing new; New documents give a snapshot of Australia between 1908 and 2008. Shane Wright compares life then and now;" by Shane Wright, p 62, Saturday, February 9, 2008
   PERTH -
   Native Australians (known) 1908 41,389; 2008 517,200.
   Anglican 1908 1.5 million; 2008 3.7 million
   Roman Catholic 850,600; 5.1 million.
   Islam 3,206; 340,000

Top judges in key ruling on sharia marriage

   The Observer (London), http://www. guardian.co. uk/world/ 2008/feb/10/ religion.law2 , by Mark Townsend, Sunday, February 10, 2008
   LONDON – Three senior judges are to rule on the legality of an arranged marriage conducted in the UK under sharia law, a judgment that could have profound consequences for British Muslims.
   Last week, as Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, declared it was 'inevitable' that certain parts of Islamic law would be introduced into Britain, the Court of Appeal was told how a 26-year-old British Muslim with learning difficulties was married over the telephone to a woman in Bangladesh.  It was arranged by the man's father and deemed lawful under sharia law.
   Lord Justice Thorpe, Lord Justice Wall and Lady Justice Hallett were asked by the man's family to reject an earlier decision that, because the groom was unable to give his consent, the marriage was unlawful.  Mr Justice Wood said that the true test into the validity of the marriage was 'whether the marriage is so offensive to the conscience of the English court that it should refuse to recognise and give effect to the proper foreign law'.
   The judge added that the long-standing British policy to recognise sharia marriages conducted abroad should be offset by the understanding that 'there are occasions when such a marriage cannot be recognised in England, for example where to do so would be repugnant to public policy'.
   The case was brought by Westminster city council community services department after the local authority raised concerns about a marriage in which the groom could not possibly have given consent because of his learning disabilities.
   The marriage took place in September 2006.  Although the bridegroom stayed in London and listened to the ceremony by speakerphone, the ceremony took place in Bangladesh and was declared valid under sharia law.
   Yogi Amin of the law firm Irwin Mitchell, who represents the rights of the young disabled man through the Official Solicitor, said: 'This case highlights that the law in this country may clash with sharia law and the cultural wishes of the family.'  He added: The High Court held that the marriage in this case … is not valid under English law, and that any marriage entered into by this vulnerable adult whether inside or outside England will not be recognised under English law.'
   Legal experts said the case would have ramifications for plans to make forced marriages - often arranged marriages involving youngsters - prohibited in the UK under case law.
   Yesterday the archbishop hit back amid calls for his resignation.  A statement on his website said he made no proposals for sharia and 'did not call for its introduction as some kind of parallel jurisdiction to the civil law'.  Sources close to the archbishop said he had been surprised at what he believes is the 'irrational reaction to his speech.
   Already two members of the General Synod, the church's parliament, have called for Williams to resign amid criticism from leading bishops, secular groups and government figures.
   Today, writing in the Sunday Telegraph, Lord George Carey, Williams's predecessor, has accused him of 'overstating the case for accommodating Islamic legal codes', adding that 'acceptance of some Muslim laws would be disastrous for the nation'.
   But Lord Carey also defended the archbishop as a great Anglican leader, saying 'this is not a matter upon which Dr Williams should resign'.
  

Archbishop is wrong to claim that sharia law ‘is inevitable’

   The West Australian, http://www.thewest.com.au , Opinion (Editorial), p 20, Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury and head of the Anglican Church, says his suggestion that British courts recognise different kinds of justice, including Muslim sharia law, would lead to a more cohesive society.
   He could not be more wrong. Rather than encouraging inclusion, allowing Muslims to choose to use sharia law would lead to further community disharmony and social fragmentation.
   In an address last week to the Royal Courts of Justice, Dr Williams called for "plural jurisdiction" which would allow Muslims to elect to have some legal disputes resolved in secular, or sharia, courts. Unsurprisingly, his comments have sparked an unholy battle within the Anglican Church, with some of his colleagues calling for his resignation.
   Part of the criticism is directed at his willingness to accommodate a legal system which many people, and not just Christians, find repugnant. In some countries, sharia law is brutal and oppressive, particularly towards women. There is no common agreement, either, on what constitutes sharia law.
   Dr Williams called for "constructive accommodation" of Muslim practice in areas such as marital disputes and said he believed it "inevitable" that sharia law be incorporated in British law.
   Dr Williams has put in danger the judicial system which offers the best protection to minority religions. Legal equality is the basis of social order; he should be shoring it up, not indulging in what his critics have called legal apartheid.
   While Australians biggest Anglican diocese; Sydney, rejected Dr Williams' call, Perth's Anglican Archbishop, Roger Herft, said he agreed with the suggestion "in principle". He should think again because Dr Williams' suggestion ignores the fundamental principle that all citizens, regardless of religion, must obey the laws of the land in which they chose to live. Like British law, Australian law is secular and applies equally, regardless of religion.
   The Islamic Council of WA believes that sharia law should be incorporated into Australian legislation, but only where it does not contravene existing Australian laws. The council says that sharia law already is practised in some culturally sensitive matters. Dr Williams says he is not suggesting a parallel system of justice but in effect that is just what he is doing. By allowing citizens to elect the law which suits them best, he is putting justice out to tender. That is a dangerous prospect.
   The Anglican community should be concerned that Dr Williams has created yet another furore in a church already threatened with fracture over the ordination of homosexuals. It is a serious lack of judgment from which he has not been able to distance himself. Even his predecessor, Lord Carey, said the introduction of elements of sharia law would be disastrous for Britain. The same applies to Australia. Lord Carey added that many Muslims opposed sharia, and to allow some elements of it to be adopted would encourage extremists to step up their demands for more.
   Dr Williams has done a disservice to Muslims who have accepted the values of their adopted countries and who have embraced their legal and social responsibilities. No matter how well intentioned he might have been, his comments have the potential to inflame racial tensions. #

Beware the stealthy spread of Islam

     The West Australian, Various Letters to The Editor, p 22, Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Beware the stealthy spread of Islam

   I read with disbelief and anger the report that the Islamic Council of WA is suggesting that sharia law be incorporated into Australian legislation and that Perth's Archbishop Herft and Britain's Archbishop Rowan Williams should even think of such action (Recognise sharia law, say Muslims, 9/2).
   My first thoughts were how could the hierarchy of a Christian church contemplate the thought of anything Islamic encroaching on the foundation of this magnificent country.
   They should know, above anyone else, that Islam's conclusion is that Christianity be wiped off the face of this Earth. [Words missing] rope Islam is creating and how by stealth it is infiltrating not only the communities but also the local and federal governments. Their endeavours are to take over every Western country, including Australia.
   If we let our politicians capitulate to the requests of Islam our children will experience the same tragedies that have befallen other countries.
   In good faith we compassionate and generous Australians allow these people into our country on their excuse that they are escaping their home country.
   They want to come to Australia to enjoy our peaceful and prosperous way of life and once here want to enforce their Islamic laws on our society, and because our generosity allows them to dictate what they want and because some of our people in positions of authority submit to their requests at the expense of the Australian public, we must submit to their requests.
   I could not believe that the Islamic Council of WA spokesman Rahim Ghauri has the audacity to ask that Australia legally recognise Islamic men who have multiple wives while living in their home countries be given age pensions per wife once they arrive in Australia. If bigamy is legal in their home country then let them claim this pension from there. Our laws do not condone bigamy, so how does he expect our laws to recognise an Islamic law?
   Islam will stealthily spread its way through our community until it's too late to curtail Islamic growth.

Fifth column

   Your report on sharia law is evidence of a growing fifth column in Australia. While we are a western European, largely Anglo/Celtic culture, we have within our borders a growing religious group which perpetuates ancient values and Islamics now comprise 1.6 per cent of Australia's population and form a voting block [? bloc] that will vote as one man in the appropriate circumstances. What politicians seeking to retain or gain power can resist this alien influence on the greater community?
   Incredibly, Dr Rowan Williams, Anglican Church world leader, has called for "plural jurisdiction" and this seems to have some support from Perth Anglican Archbishop Roger Herft. We don't want "plural jurisdiction" in this country for all the nightmare realities which will inevitably arise.
   The recent Malaysian case of an elderly man being "declared a Muslim" by religious authorities and buried as such against the strident disbelief of his family is but one case in point. The international litany of violent retribution by Islamic zealots and religious police would fill a library. Couldn't happen here? Let's get real.
   The paradox is that Lord Carey, the former archbishop of Canterbury, described the Islamic culture as authoritarian, inflexible and under-achieving.  Doesn't sound like a value system that belongs in Australia and yet we continue to allow their immigration and support their education system.
   Our existing rule of secular law is one we must retain. This is a strategic issue for our country and a pragmatic approach is necessary.
   Let's watch our numbers-focused parliamentary representatives on this one. Let's see if they turn out to be leaders or just politicians at the end of the day.

Arrogance

   Having long respected the fine intellect of Dr Rowan Williams, Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury, I was flabbergasted at his suggestion that some aspects of sharia law be incorporated into Britain's legal system and even more flabbergasted to read that Perth's Anglican Archbishop Roger Herft had given "in principle support".
   But why stop there? Why don't we incorporate, for example, aspects of Roman Catholic Canon Law on annulment of marriage or Mormon teaching on marriage? When migrants (and I have been married to one for 20 years) choose to come to our country, one would think it was because Australia offered a better life than the country of origin.
   It seems arrogance to me, then, that we get the Islamic Council of WA seeking concessions such as sharia law being recognised in multiple wives. We live in a democratic society built on the separation of powers and the separation of Church and state. This safeguards the freedom of resident communities and of the individual. Let's keep it that way.

We're all equal

   It appears from the report by Kim MacDonald and Beatrice Thomas that the administrators of the Anglican Church should be having a good look at their leadership and direction if the Perth Archbishop and the Archbishop of Canterbury are giving support to the introduction of aspects of sharia law into our legal system.
   In our legal system all people are seen to be equal according to law. The introduction of sharia law, and possibly other laws, would immediately place some people at variance with this principle.
   We all know what the ideal should be - that we should all get on in harmony with one another. Sadly, in the real world things don't work out that way, as shown in Afghanistan, Britain, Belgium, France, Holland, Iraq and many other countries.
   It is reassuring to note that the Federal Government has ruled out the introduction of Islamic courts in Australia. I hope Australia (and other Western countries) will develop a bit of backbone, withdraw from the United Nations protocol and stop admitting to the country people whose ideas are incompatible with ours.
   Incidentally, I was christened Anglican.

Alarming call

   As a dedicated Australian, returned serviceman and retired police officer, I read with alarm the call for sharia law by the Muslim community, with multiple wives and the demand for extra welfare benefits for the wives.
   I am protesting publicly before any of the so-called social engineers masquerading as politicians decide that this is a good idea. If the Muslim community find our laws so offensive and oppressive, why do they not go home where all is rosy?
   My prediction is this issue will grow to be bigger than Ben Hur, as in the UK, and we won't be able to stop it once it's allowed.
   It begs the question: how were these people permitted to enter this country with multiple wives? Where is our Immigration Department?
SHARIA LAW
   I read with concern Kim MacDonald's and Beatrice Thomas' report about the push to introduce sharia law into our courts because it was, in effect, already being practised in a "hidden fashion".
   I was even more alarmed to learn that anyone would ask taxpayers to foot the pension bill where a second or perhaps even third spouse/wife was notionally present in a family. I wonder how a religion of whatever description could bring itself to ask for such special dispensation.
   Indeed, I worry most that our society's apparent obsession with creating a "multicultural wonderland" will seriously erode Australian values. The idea of a nation made up of different cultural and ethnic backgrounds living separately, yet functioning as a single entity, has been found wanting. It's called the former Yugoslavia.

Only group to demand own law

   As soon as Muslims are in sufficient numbers in a non-Muslim country they start demanding sharia law. They are the only religious group that does this.
   Australia's governments and laws are secular and the idea of a separate set of laws for one religious group would be repugnant to most Australians.
   The adoption of sharia law would also be setting a dangerous precedent. Those who want to live by sharia law should move to a Muslim country.

Don't exclude women's rights in marriage.

   Abdul Jalil Ahmad of the Islamic Council of WA needs to be aware that equal human rights for men and women are not principles that are confined just to the public sphere of life.
   Equality under the law is equally important within marriage and the family. Equal rights for women, including equal access to divorce, are not just "social issues" that can be ignored when it suits a particular group. They are the bedrock of a modern and fair society.

Multiple wives and children take-over

   In Australia it's called bigamy and is a punishable offence. How can we admit Muslim men into the country who have multiple wives (and thus the potential for multitudes of children) and support them with social security? Within 50 years we will become a Muslim state.

Accept our system, or leave

   Sharia law in Australia - never. We have a Christian, Westminster-law system. If you cannot accept this fact, then leave the country.
   Regarding multiple wives and pensions for them, no one should be allowed into Australia with multiple wives because it contravenes our own laws.

‘UK MUST HAVE MUSLIM LAWS’

Fury at call for sharia courts by Archbishop of Canterbury    The International Express (Britain), West Australian edition, pp 1 and 4, February 12-18, 2008
   THE Archbishop of Canterbury was accused last week of surrendering to Muslim extremists when he called for Islamic sharia law to rule in parts of Britain.
   Dr Rowan Williams claimed incorporating aspects of the Muslim legal system into UK law was now "unavoidable" and "appropriate" and said believers should not have to choose between "the stark alternatives of cultural loyalty or state loyalty".
   The Church'of England's most senior cleric also backed demands for Islamic courts to settle divorces and other disputes between Muslims living in Britain.
   But his remarks sparked a storm of protest. Sharia law has been used to justify stoning, beheadings and other brutal punishments in many Muslim countries. In extreme cases, Islamic courts have even put people to death for converting to Christianity.
   Treyor Phillips, chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, said the Archbishop's thinking was muddled and unhelpful and the implication that British courts should treat people differently based on their faith was divisive and dangerous.
   "It risks removing the protection afforded by law, for example, to children in custody cases or women in divorce proceedings. There is a fundamental principle here - when you appear before a court in Britain you appear as a citizen, equal to any other and should be treated equally."
   He added: "Follow the logic of this extreme multiculturalism through and where do we end up?
   "With a group of white Christians in Barking and Dagenham deciding they had a conscientious objection to non-white Muslims in their neighbourhood and seeking the support of the courts? I don't doubt the Archbishop's desire to accommodate diversity, but we cannot do so at the expense of our common values." How can Archbishop say sharia law is unavoidable?    Gordon Brown declined to condemn the Archbishop's remarks, and Downing Street even suggested some laws could be changed to reflect Muslim sensitivities.
   The Prime Minister believed that "British laws should be based on British values", his spokesman said, going on to add: "There are instances where the government has made changes, for example on stamp duty, but the general position is that sharia cannot be used as justification for committing breaches of English law nor can its principles be used in civil courts."
   In a strikingly conciliatory tone, the spokesman said Mr Brown had a "good relationship" with the Archbishop. Downing Street was virtually alone in refusing to join the outcry, however.

[Picture] BLOODY JUSTICE: A beheading in Saudi and, right, Dr Rowan Williams     137 beheadings in a year      MANY Islamic countries have an appalling record on human rights where punishments under sharia law include beheading for murder, amputation for theft and stoning to death for adultery.    Two days ago, Saudi authorities beheaded a citizen convicted of murder, bringing the number of people executed by that means this year to 24. The Saudis beheaded 137 people last year, up sharply from the 38 in 2006. According to Amnesty International, Iran has one of the highest rates of execution in the world. In 2006,177 people were put to death, mostly by hanging.    That number was expected to be exceeded in 2007, with 124 people executed in the first seyen months. Although Iran imposed a moratorium on death by stoning in 2002, two people suffered that fate in 2006 and one last year. Nine women and two men are currently under sentence of death by stoning. More women suffer this punishment because evidence from a man carries twice as much weight as a woman's.    Last week, an Iranian court sentenced a man to death for drinking alcohol.

   Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, Shadow Minister for Community Cohesion, said: "The Archbishop's comments are unhelpful. Freedom under the law allows respect for some religious practices. But let's be absolutely clear. All British citizens must be subject to British laws."
   Tory MP Mark Pritchard called the Archbishop's remarks naive and shocking. "He may want to run up the white flag of surrender over Lambeth Palace, but there are many who do not."
   Mike Judge, of the Christian Institute, said: "The fact that we all obey the same law, whatever our religion, is an important principle of the British way of life." And Stephen Green, national director of Christian Voice said: "This is a Christian country with Christian laws. If Muslims want to live under sharia law then they are free to emigrate to a country where sharia law is already in operation."
   Many leading Muslims also rejected the Archbishop's remarks. Labour MP Khalid Mahmood said: "This will alienate people from other communities because they will think this is what Muslims want and it is not."
   Dr Williams's remarks came in an interview with BBC Radio 4, ahead of a speech on Thursday night to members of the legal profession. He argued that the legal system needed to be reformed to recognise different religious convictions within Britain's multi-faith society.
   "It seems unavoidable and, as a matter of fact, certain conditions of sharia are already recognised in our society and under our law, so it is not as if we are bringing in an alien and rival system.
   "There is a place for finding what would be a constructive accommodation with some aspects of Muslim law as we already do with aspects of other kinds of religious law. It would be quite wrong to say that we could ever license a system of law for some community
   which gave people no right of appeal, no way of exercising the rights that are guaranteed to them as citizens in general.
   "But there are ways of looking at marital disputes, for example, which provide an alternative to the divorce courts as we understand them. In some cultural and religious settings they would seem more appropriate."

We must reject Archbishop’s craven counsel of despair

   The Weekly Telegraph, Issue No. 864 (Britain, Australian edition), weekly@ telegraph. co.uk , by Matthew d'Ancone, "Comment," p 22, Wed Feb 13- Tue Feb 19, 2008
FORTY years after Enoch Powell's "rivers of blood" speech, the Archbishop of Canterbury has delivered its liberal mirror image: let us call it "rivers of blather".  The lecture that Dr Rowan Williams gave in London last week, and specifically his remarks on sharia law, showed that even the mildest-mannered intellectual can become a bulldog in the social china shop, spraying daft ideas around with a recklessness that disgraced his office.
   The jurisprudential kernel of the lecture was as follows:  that we should be wary of the "inflexible or over-restrictive applications of traditional law", that "a universalist Enlightenment system has to weigh the possible consequences of ghettoising and effectively disenfranchising a minority, at real cost to overall social cohesion and creativity", and that there is therefore a case for "plural jurisdiction".
   In an interview with The World at One on Radio 4 the same day, Dr Williams made his case more accessibly, claiming that the adoption of certain aspects of sharia law "seems unavoidable".  As things stand, he said, "there's one law for everybody and that's all there is to be said, and anything else that commands your loyalty or allegiance is completely irrelevant in the processes of the courts - I think that's a bit of a danger."
   Hence, the archbishop's enthusiasm "for finding what would be a constructive accommodation with some aspects of Muslim law".
   Because Dr Williams has the hushed manner of a consultant oncologist reassuring a nervous patient, it is easy to assume that what he says is benign and full of common sense.  Not in this case, however.  In the name of liberal co-existence, the archbishop took arms against the very principles that give our ever-more diverse society what cohesion it has. This was a very dangerous intervention.
   At Westminster, there is a debate on the nature of "Britishness".  Traditional Tories tend to argue that it is to be found in institutions; Gordon Brown suggests that what makes us British is our values. What all agree on is the binding force of the law.
  [Cartoon] of an ice-skating Dr Williams, having almost reached cracks in the ice spelling the word "SHARIA."    Harland.  After "Skating Clergyman" by Sir Henry Raeburn  
   Since Dr Williams likes clever people, and fancies himself to be one, let me pray in aid to the cleverest person of the lot.  "As long as I have any choice," Albert Einstein said, "I will stay only in a country where political liberty, toleration and equality of all citizens before the law are the rule."  Equality before the law is, in practice, the most meaningful form of equality we have.  The universal franchise is exercised only sporadically.  But the presumption of legal equality is our best guarantee that ethnic minorities and religious groups have of fair treatment.
   Far from encouraging such groups to insist on special treatment, or juridical devolution, moral leaders such as the archbishop should be doing precisely the opposite:  identifying, defending and celebrating the legal common ground on which all citizens can and should gather.  It is astonishing that a man of Dr Williams's notional intelligence should end up on the side of legal apartheid and moral cantonisation, even in the euphemistic guise of "plural jurisdiction" or "transformative accommodation".
   In a world of unprecedented mobility and confused identity, the certainty of equality before the law is needed more than ever.  In his lecture, Dr Williams was a little bit sniffy about the Enlightenment, suggesting that it needed to be updated to fit the needs of modern society.  Yes, he said, "equal levels of accountability for all and equal levels of access for all to legal process" are all very well.  But "it would be a pity if the immense advances in the recognition of human rights led, because of a misconception about legal universality, to a situation where a person was defined primarily as the possessor of a set of abstract liberties and the law's function was accordingly seen as nothing but the securing of those liberties irrespective of the custom and conscience of those groups which concretely compose a plural modern society."
   Personally, I think we could do with a bit less anxiety about "custom and conscience" and a bit more "legal universality".  Please, sir: can we have the Enlightenment back?
   From time to time, I have the bad manners to write, pour memoire, that we are at war with fundamentalist Islam.  This is not a pleasant fact, and certainly not a welcome one: most people in the West would like to believe the problem of militant Islamism will recede once President Bush leaves office in January.  If only that were the case.
   As you read this, British troops are risking their lives against Islamic fundamentalists in Iraq and Afghanistan.  British Muslims such as Saira Khan and Ed Husain (a former militant) speak out bravely against the extremists.  Since writing in The Sunday Telegraph that Islamists have created "no-go" areas in Britain, the Bishop of Rochester, Michael Nazir-Ali, has received death threats.  Could his boss have chosen a worse geopolitical context in which to call for the official incorporation of sharia rules into the law of the land?
   Liberalism collapses when it slides into relativism.  Dr Williams pleads for a quiet life:  "What we don't want, is, I think, a stand-off, where the law squares up to people's religious consciences."  Sorry, Your Grace, but, in some cases, that is exactly what we want.  We need British Muslims to feel secure, equal, valued.  But we also need them to acknowledge that true liberalism is not a licence for fundamentalists to do what they want, and that citizenship requires the subordination of some ancestral practices to universal legal norms.
   Most citizens will have many allegiances (to family, church, football team, and so on).  But, where the law is concerned, there can only be one, unambiguous allegiance.
   It was Elizabeth I who said that she had no desire "to make windows into men's souls", and this Reformation principle has served our country well in faith and public life.  Yet the condition of pluralism is the establishment of non-negotiable common ground and the insistence that all agree to it.
   On Thursday's Newsnight, there was a clip recorded in the open-plan offices of the Islamic Sharia Council.  The council's secretary, Dr Suhaib Hasan, spoke reasonably enough.  Then he addressed the question of polygamy, which he said was not only consistent with sharia but necessary when women outnumbered men.  "If every person is confined to one wife," Dr Hasan said, "the remaining number of the women either have to become nuns, or prostitutes, or remain without marriage at all."  Oh dear: is this what the Archbishop means by "plural jurisdiction"?
   Yes, yes, I know he is not talking about public decapitation, or the amputation of hands.  But what Dr Williams advances is still the jurisprudence of appeasement, moral cowardice dressed up as worthy cerebration.  His lecture was a victory for those who believe the liberal West is weak.  It will hearten those who suspect that we fear confrontation more than we value our own beliefs, and that, with time, we can be coaxed into incremental surrender.
   The Archbishop would protest that what he proposes is modest stuff: the recognition of some very specific aspects of Islamic law by the British courts.  But what he is actually doing is much more basic, and, truth to tell, much more sneaky.  He postures as a conciliator.  But from the side of his mouth, perhaps barely knowing that he does it, he whispers: look, this will make it go away. Just give them this, and we're off the hook.
   The worst of it is the Archbishop's craven fatalism.  I don't see anything remotely "unavoidable" about the incorporation of sharia in the law of this country.  I see instead liberalism kowtowing to fundamentalism, liberalism eating itself.
   It is tempting, in a modern-day version of Arnold's Dover Beach, to hear the "melancholy, long, withdrawing roar" of the rule of law and secular freedom.  But that is a counsel of despair.  Fortunately, the values of the Enlightenment have much better, braver champions than this hapless man of the cloth.
– Matthew d'Ancona is editor of the Spectator #

Where is the justice in sharia?

   The Weekly Telegraph, Issue No. 864 (Britain, Australian edition), weekly@ telegraph. co.uk , by Christopher Howse, "News Review," p 26, Wed Feb 13- Tue Feb 19, 2008
Unlike Dr Rowan Williams, Christopher Howse believes that Islamic law would curtail rights for many
IF NOTHING else, the Archbishop of Canterbury - by his astonishing suggestion that Islamic sharia in Britain is "unavoidable", indeed, desirable - has at least made us ask just what this system of religious law entails.
   "Nobody in their right mind," said Dr Williams, "would want to see in this country the kind of inhumanity that's sometimes been associated with the practice of the law in some Islamic states; the extreme punishments, the attitudes to women as well."  But could these be avoided once the system was introduced?  There is no reason why its toleration would not end up in lashing for fornication and amputation for theft.
   It is not as if Dr Williams has been caught out with a carelessly formulated off-the-cuff remark.  If his comments in a BBC radio interview last Thursday suggested he had taken leave of his senses, the lecture he gave to lawyers the same evening revealed a combination of wishful thinking and ignorance astonishing in a man so learned and well-meaning.
   First, he did not acknowledge that Islam fails to distinguish between religious and secular rule.  Sharia is translated as "law", but its infallible doctrine of duties governs the religious, political, social, domestic and private life of those who profess Islam.  It also affects non-Muslims in Islamic territories.
   A country like Sudan incorporated sharia into state law in 1983; in Afghanistan today, we hear of a man sentenced to death by a religious court merely for downloading an internet article about women's rights.  In contrast, Egypt has strenuously resisted demands for sharia and has clung to its Western-inspired legal code.  However, it has become the breeding ground for extremists such as the Muslim Brotherhood.
   There is no one sharia, any more than there is one way of living as a Muslim round the world.  Sharia in Arabic means, literally, the road to a watering place:  a clear path to be followed.  But the path is not as clear to everyone, and there is no compilation of sharia law.  The Ottoman Empire compiled a printed code in 1876, not for use in religious courts but as a reference aid in state courts; all that was abolished in 1928 when the Turkish constitution under Ataturk dropped any mention of sharia.  In practice, the implementation of sharia depends on the religious judges.  In Islam, sharia is the law of God as revealed in the Koran and through the behaviour and words of Mohammed as recounted in collections of stories called hadith.
   "We have set you {Mohammed} on a clear path (sharia), so follow it, not the desires of those who lack true knowledge," says God in the Koran (45:18) [or 45:17], after criticising, by contrast, the Children of Israel.  A great ninth-century interpreter of the Koran, ibn Jarir al-Tabari, explained that in this verse "sharia" meant the law of inheritance, the hadd-punishments, and the commandments and prohibitions.  Prayer five times a day was commanded, as are almsgiving (zakat), fasting (as in Ramadan) and participation in jihad, holy war.  Prohibitions, of course, include alcohol, food that is haram (forbidden), adultery, idolatry and apostasy.
THE hadd-punishments (the plural hudud means "limits") are those mentioned in the Koran that are regarded- as an unalterable prescription of the law; the "right of God".
   They include scourging for illicit sex, for falsely accusing a married woman of adultery, for drinking alcohol; and the cutting off the hands for theft Stoning is not specified by the Koran, despite an effort by Umar, the second caliph of Islam, who succeeded two years after the death of Mohammed, to introduce a verse mentioning it.
  [Picture of Justice but with a crescent moon at the usually pointed end of the sword, and unusual weights-pans.] Blind justice? The harsh punishments detailed in the Koran are already used in Saudi Arabia    MARINA IMPERI  
   Like Judaism, Islam is a thoroughly legalistic religion and, though there are no priests, there are clergy in the sense of men who know the law and make judgments. They belong to four main schools of law, the most rigorous being the Hanbali, which inspired the law in Saudi Arabia and among the Taliban.  A religious scholar who gives opinions is called a mufti; his legal opinion is a fatwa - a word familiar now in a way it used not to be before Salman Rushdie was condemned to death for writing The Satanic Verses.
   It is with regard to the position of women that sharia most easily shocks us, so one of the most baffling elements in Dr Williams's prescription for introducing sharia is that it would be useful in marriage disputes.  There are, he hazarded, "cultural and religious settings" where sharia would seem more "appropriate" than a British divorce court.  However, if Mohammed raised the status of women in Arabia above that which they enjoyed in pre-Islamic times, the gears have been set in reverse since.
   Sharia in Britain would reinforce the cultural tendency to treat women as they are treated in Indian or Pakistani rural society - not well.  An expert on Islam said that "an emancipated Muslim woman would be filled with horror by these proposals for sharia".
   Dr Williams said, disarmingly: "I don't know enough about the detail of the Islamic law in this context.  I'm simply saying that there are ways of looking at marital disputes, for example within discussions that go on among some contemporary scholars, which provide an alternative to the divorce courts as we understand them." Since the days of the Prophet, Dr Williams thinks, "the rights and liberties of women has moved on and the principle, the vision, that animates the Islamic legal provision needs broadening because of that".
BUT sharia does not rely on principles.  It derives from the revelation of God, which may not be abrogated.  Dr Williams acknowledged in his lecture that "certain elements of the sharia are specified fairly exactly in the Koran".  He noted that sharia "represents the mind of God".  Earlier, he had referred to "principles laid down in the Koran".  Here is one from the fourth sura (chapter), which deals with women: (4:34) [or 4:38]: "Admonish those women whose rebelliousness you fear, shun them in their resting-places and hit them. If they obey you, do not seek a further way against them."  Women in Islam belong to the private world of home, not the public one.  Menstruation renders them ritually impure.  Both elements, and fear of sexual liaisons, discourage toleration of women at mosques for public prayers.  Sometimes, a hidden upstairs gallery is available.  In the Koran, a woman is recognised as half the value of a man when it comes to inheritance law.  The value of a woman's testimony in court is also worth half a man's.  A man may marry several wives, four certainly, and he may divorce them by a simple declaration.  Neither a divorced woman's subsistence nor her custody of her children is secure after her divorce. It depends on the sharia judge.
   To introduce sharia in Britain would almost certainly open the door to polygamy.  Last week, the Government agreed that men with multiple wives should be eligible to claim benefits for each wife. Bigamy remains illegal in England and Scotland.
   And how does Dr Williams address the prohibition, even in Britain, of a Muslim woman marrying a man who is not a Muslim?  This is a great taboo in Muslim society, not forbidden by the Koran, but a doctrine evolved by sharia lawyers.  To impose sharia would guarantee that inter-community relations would never benefit from intermarriage between Muslims and Christians.
   A great principle of Islam is that it cannot retract the stipulations of the Koran.  For example, in the fifth sura, it says: "Cut off the hands of thieves, whether they are male or female."  Yes, there was stoning to death among the Jews in the Old Testament but Christian interpretations of the text have changed over time.  However, Muslims believe the Koran is the uncreated word of God and cannot be amended.
   It is all very well saying that the harsh punishments detailed in the Koran are seldom enacted.  They are in Saudi Arabia, but in any country where their exercise is barred they remain possible in theory.
   In his lecture, Dr Williams repeatedly quoted the fashionable commentator Tariq Ramadan, as a Muslim from whom we can learn.  He called Professor Ramadan's book Western Muslims and the Future of Islam "groundbreaking".  "In the West," he quoted him as saying, "the idea of sharia calls up all the darkest images of Islam – It has reached the extent that many Muslim intellectuals do not dare even to refer to the concept for fear of frightening people or arousing suspicion of all their work by the mere mention of the word."  But is the suspicion unfounded?
   Professor Ramadan sounds moderate, but he lives in Britain because the United States has banned him from entry to take up an academic post.  In 2005, Nicolas Sarkozy, now the President of France, then minister of the interior, banned Ramadan from entering the country.  Two years earlier, Sarkozy had debated with Ramadan on television.  Challenged to condemn stoning women to death for adultery, Ramadan called instead for a "moratorium".
   Earlier this year, he explained to the writer Ian Buruma:  "I'm against capital punishment, not only in Muslim countries, but also in the US.  But when you want to be heard in Muslim countries, when you are addressing religious issues, you can't just say it has to stop."
   That is true, because capital punishment (though not stoning) is commanded in the Koran.  How does Dr Williams regard sharia penalties of death for apostasy?  It is not as if the tide is running against the imposition of such punishments.  Fundamentalist brands of Islam are attracting the young and idealistic in the West and in Islamic countries, where the practice of Islam is regarded by the extremists as corrupted.  They see "moderate" Islamic rule merely as an extension of jahaliya - the state of wicked ignorance found in Arabia when Mohammed set about putting all to rights.
   Muslims who seek the restoration of Islam to the pure state of the Prophet's day are known as salafis.  Professor Ramadan calls himself a "salafi reformist", trying to make Islam and Western life compatible.  It is to be remembered that Muhammad Ibn Abd al-Wahhab, who in 1745 set Saudi Arabia on its path of state-sponsored Islamic conformity, was a "salafi reformist" of a different stripe.  His reforms ended up in the 20th century with a force of religious police, lashing for drinking alcohol, execution for adultery and the prohibition of Christian worship on Arabian territory.  The most modern Islamist activists seek a universal caliphate - they want the writ of sharia to run all round the world.  Where an Islamic territory is established, Islamic law comes next.  But in response to the warning by Dr Michael Nazir All, the Bishop of Rochester about "no-go areas", Dr Williams said: "I don't think it's the case that we have areas where the law of the land doesn't run."  One would like to think not.  Next worst would be an area where sharia does run. #
Wed Feb 13 - Tue Feb 19 2008, The Weekly Telegraph

Terror accused ‘spoke of killing 1000 people’

   The West Australian, http://www.thewest.com.au , p 11, Thursday, February 14, 2008
   MELBOURNE - Alleged Islamic terrorists in Melbourne talked of blowing up a football ground or railway station to inflict maximum damage and loss of life, the Victorian Supreme Court was told yesterday.
   Alleged leader Abdul Nacer Benbrika told his followers that if they killed 1000 people, the Government would pay attention and bring the troops back from Iraq, prosecutor Richard Maidment told the jury.
   "If you kill here a thousand, the Government is going to think, because if you get large numbers here, the Government will listen," Mr Benbrika allegedly said in a recorded conversation.
   Mr Maidment was opening the crown case against 12 men, including Mr Benbrika, charged with intentionally being members of a terrorist organisation involved in the fostering or preparation of a terrorist act.
   It is alleged that the act or threat involved the use of a bomb or weapons in pursuit of violent jihad with the intention of coercing or intimidating the Government or the public.
   Ten of the men also face other terror-related charges. They have all pleaded not guilty.
   Mr Maidment said the group was infiltrated by an undercover officer known as SIO 39, who told the men he was a Muslim of Turkish background who wanted to pursue violent jihad.
   The agent allegedly told Mr Benbrika he knew how to make explosives from fertiliser and went with Mr Benbrika to Mt Disappointment, north of Melbourne, to demonstrate his skills using 500g of ammonium nitrate.
  [Picture] On trial: Abdul Nacer Benbrika is accused of terrorism-related offences.    Picture: Fairfax  
   Mr Benbrika had asked how much it would take to blow up a big building and was told about 200kg. Then he asked the agent whether he could get up to 500kg, Mr Maidment alleged.
   Mr Maidment said Mr Benbrika believed Australia to be a land at war, which meant that waging jihad was an Islamic duty.
   Asked by one of the accused whether terrorist activity pleased Allah, he allegedly replied: "You are pleasing him because they are killing our brothers."
   Mr Maidment said: "Benbrika thought it was permissible to kill innocent people, including women, children and the aged."
   He said Mr Benbrika believed "jihad" had only one meaning: fighting infidels, or those who did not believe in Allah.
   Mr Maidment said his alleged followers made Mr Benbrika a pledge and some of them contributed to a "sandooq", a box or a common fund of money.
   The prosecutor claimed that credit card fraud and stealing cars that were stripped for parts were among other ways the group tried to raise funds for its goals.
   More than once, he said, members of the group expressed "violent intent" towards people they suspected were informing the authorities about them.
   Mr Maidment said Mr Benbrika was largely self-taught and, while he purported to be a Muslim sheikh able to teach on Islamic law, "the crown doesn't suggest for a moment that the views expressed by Mr Benbrika properly reflect any aspect of the true Islamic religion".
   Mr Maidment said Mr Benbrika many times urged his followers to secrecy, warning one: "If you show them what we want they are going to put us in jail."
   But he also told them that the work of the group could continue in jail, the prosecutor claimed.
   Mr Maidment told jurors they would hear 432 conversations between the alleged terrorists recorded covertly by investigators.
   He said defendant Abdullah Merhi offered himself to Mr Benbrika as a participant in a terrorist act, and sought Mr Benbrika's advice as to whether he should offer himself overseas instead because the Melbourne group's alleged plans were moving slowly.
   Those accused with Mr Benbrika, 47, are Melbourne men Shane Kent, 31, Majed Raad, 23, Abdullah Merhi, 22, Aimen Joud, 23, Ahmed Raad, 24, Fadl Sayadi, 28, Ezzit Raad, 26, Hany Taha, 33, Shoue Hammoud, 28, Bassam Raad, 26, and Amer Haddara, 28.
   The trial continues. #

Police visit person exposing dangers

   Submission Study Unit, Thursday, February 14, 2008
   PERTH - The police visited, on the afternoon of February 14, 2008, a person exposing the danger of an Islamic mosque coming to the Swan Valley (a wine-growing region), because wine is prohibited in Islam.  They were polite.
   Evidently someone who received the information about the Koran's prohibition of wine, and cognate literature, thought that they were being threatened.  But they mistook the direction.

Confronting deliberate and unapologetic evil

   News Weekly (Australia), www.newsweekly. com.au , p 13, February 16, 2008
   Fifty years earlier, ordinary men had tried to finesse the evil which was Nazism.  It does not work.  Anyone with eyes can see that those who hate America, hate Israel, hate Christians and hate Jews these days is evil and loves hatred, just like Nazi Germany and just like the Soviet Union.  The ultimate challenge for those who would wear the Reagan mantle is how to utterly defeat that deliberate and unapologetic evil which battles for our planet. … from Bruce Walker, "America on Ronald Reagan's birthday," American Thinker, February 5, 2008.

Sharia confusion

     The Sunday Times (Perth, W. Australia), "Your Voice," Letter to The Editor, p 83, Sunday, February 17, 2008
   IN his push to have Islamic sharia law incorporated into our legal system, the Archbishop of Canterbury is doing what Sir Humphrey Appleton, [Appleby] of Yes Minister, said: "They want to be seen to be doing things."
   When people find themselves in important positions, they will do and say anything to remain important, just like pop stars.
   Whether we are Anglicans or not, Dr Rowan Williams is head of the supposedly Christian Anglican church and as such must have, you would hope, some idea of what constitutes the kind of God the Anglican church believes in.
   One would have to wonder how adopting the thinking, and practices of Islam can coincide with the philosophy/psychology of the human condition as prescribed by Jesus, which is directly the opposite.

Muslim fanatic in soldier kidnap plot showed son, 5, how to behead British ‘infidels’

   The Daily Mail (England), www.dailymail.co.uk , www.dailymail. co.uk/pages/ live/articles/ news/news.html? in_article_ id=515633& in_page_ id=1770 , By ANDY DOLAN, Feb. 18, 2008
   BRITAIN – Parviz Khan was jailed for life today for his involvement in a plot to kidnap and behead a British Muslim soldier.
   In mitigation, Michael Wolkind QC, defending Khan, told the court that his client's plot had been a "mixture of fanaticism and fantasy".
   "His plan might have changed had British foreign policy changed," he said. "He might have withdrawn if the British troops were withdrawn."
   Khan boasted to friends that he was waging financial war on the West while "bleeding" a monthly total of £1,669 in benefits from the British taxpayer.
   It also emerged last week, in proceedings which could not be reported until today, that Khan wanted to burn the soldier's body and parade his head on a stick.
   "This is what they call you will terrorise them, they will go crazy," he says in the recording. "They will start searching … London, Birmingham, Newcastle, where are these people?"
   His lawyer insisted, however, that Khan would have abandoned the plot if Britain had changed its foreign policy and withdrawn its troops from the Middle East.
   Khan was convicted last month of plotting to snatch a British Muslim soldier from the streets and film him being beheaded "like a pig" in a lock-up garage.
   Basiru Gassama, 30, of Radstock Avenue, Hodge Hill, Birmingham, pleaded guilty at a previous hearing to a failure to disclose information about the plot. He was jailed today for two years and will be deported immediately.
   Mohammed Irfan, 31, of Asquith Road, Ward End, Birmingham, and Hamid Elasmar, 44, of Bristol Road, Edgbaston, Birmingham, both pleaded guilty to engaging in conduct with the intention of assisting in the commission of acts of terrorism - namely helping Khan to supply the equipment.
   Irfan was today jailed for four years while Elasmar was jailed for three years and four months.
   Zahoor Iqbal, 30, of Elmbridge Road, Perry Barr, Birmingham, was found guilty by the jury at Leicester of the same charge. He was today jailed for seven years.
   Khan, 37, built up a terrorist cell in Birmingham and planned to kidnap the soldier before filming his "ghastly" death for release to the media.
   A sixth man, Amjad Mahmood, was cleared today of his involvement.
   That final judgement, reached this morning, means that shocking new details about the case which could not be released previously have been made public - such as transcripts of the recordings.
   Opening the case against Khan last week, prosecutor Nigel Rumfitt QC revealed Khan was recorded by a listening device at his home as he taught his five-year-old son how to carry out a beheading.
   In one passage, co-defendant Hamid Elasmar asks a child: "How do you cut their neck?"
   The cell had planned to capture a British soldier like this one by befriending him - and then beheading him
   Khan then prompts the youngster, saying: "How do you cut them with a knife? Show me."
   The bug cannot record whether the child gives an inaudible demonstration, but Khan says: "Like this. Good."
   The recording, made in November 2006, was not the first to reveal how Khan wanted to pass down his extremist views to his three children.
   In a conversation with his five-year-old son on May 23, 2006, an overbearing Khan asks him to recite from the Koran, telling him he would hit him with a stick if he made a mistake.
   Grabbing the child's toy car off him, he asks the little boy: "Who do you love?".
   "I love Sheikh Osama Bin Laden," the child replies.
   Khan asks his son if he loves anyone else. The boy replies (extreme Muslim cleric) "Sheikh Abu Hamza" and (Islamic militant) "Sheikh Abdullah Rehman".
   Then Khan asks the youngster: "Who do you kill?"
   The child replies: "America kill."
   Asked who else, the boy responds "Bush I kill" and "Blair kill".
   Prompted by his father, the five-year-old says he also wants to kill "Kuffar" (an abusive term for a non-Muslim), "Hindu", "Sheedi" (a term for a black man), "Pathan" (a member of an Indian tribe) and "Sharab" (alcohol).
   Khan - whose role looking after his 71-year-old mother "earned" him an allowance of £160 a week - was also recorded telling associates the only reason he was living in the UK was to steal the nation's wealth and send it abroad.
   "Muslims live here for one reason - to get their wealth and give it to the Muslims," Khan told a friend while being bugged by the security services.
   Explaining his remarks, Khan then added: "We shouldn't be living here … we are going to cut his throat, her throat …
   "Britannia, America … by living among them we are going to squeeze them financially.
   "We are here for a reason – because there is a financial war and we are going to make them bleed financially.
   "If we cancel their finance and take it off them and give it to the Muslims, it's a big blessing for us."
   Referring to non-believers, Khan then said fellow Muslims should "walk like them, speak like them, but don't be like them."
   Khan added: "When you take from the Kafir (a term for non-believers) it makes you feel happy – take from them – then you know you are a soldier.
   "It doesn't mean you need a machine gun – we are all soldiers – either we can be physical soldiers or we can be financial.
   "Islam, man – getting strong and can destroy this Christianity."
   Khan was claiming benefits of more than £20,000-a-year during the time he plotted to snatch the serviceman off the streets and decapitate him "like a pig".
   Mr Rumfitt told the court Khan was at the hub of a terrorist cell based in Birmingham which had organised four shipments of equipment to terrorists based in Pakistan but operating against coalition forces in Afghanistan.
   Mr Rumfitt said of Khan: "He was enraged by the notion that there are Muslim soldiers in the British Army.
   "As your Lordship knows, there are many soldiers from many countries who serve with our forces - some of them are Muslims from the Gambia in west Africa.
   "Khan decided to kidnap such a soldier with the help of drug dealers operating in Birmingham. He would be taken to a lock-up garage and there he would be murdered by having his head cut off like a pig.
   "This would be filmed - they would have the soldier's ID to prove who he was and the film would be released through Khan's terrorist network to cause panic and fear with the British armed forces and the wider public."
   During sentencing, Mr Justice Henriques said: "It was a plot whose purpose was to undermine democratic government, to demoralise the British Army and to destabilise recruitment, and to cause anguish to the then Prime Minister of the day and the loyal citizens of the country."
   A security services probe installed in Khan's home in Foxton Road, Alum Rock, Birmingham, recorded him in November 2006 telling co-defendant Basiru Gassma what he intended to do to the soldier.
   Khan was heard to say: "We give the judgement – well then cut it (the soldier's head) off like you cut a pig, man
   "Then you put it on a stick. Then we throw the body, burn it, send the video to the chacha (a reference to terrorist leaders in Pakistan).
   "This is what they call you will terrorise them, they will go crazy. They will start searching – London, Birmingham, Newcastle, where are these people?"
   Revealing that the soldier would be befriended before being kidnapped, Khan added: "All I say to you is set it up – drug dealers they will go with him, one day, they do deal.
   "Then the next time you'll take him Broad Street, wine and dine and girl and things. After that they don't get friendly."
   Khan then said that on the third occasion the soldier was taken out he would be seized by three or four brothers and given a lift in a car.
   "But we don't give 'em a lift, we give him a lift to hell. Game over," Khan added.
   "That way nobody know. We've got enough places man. We just hang him up. We've got enough Brothers own garages man. Just bring the thing, the chef style – and let's do it, man."
   Amjad Mahmood, a shopkeeper, was today cleared of any involvement in the plot.
   He told the court he did not believe his friend intended to carry out his plot.
   The father-of-three said had not taken seriously a claim by Khan that he had found "lads" who were ready to snatch the Muslim serviceman off the street at knifepoint.
   Mahmood also said he had "no idea" that the Islamic fanatic was an active terrorist. #

Muslim women say no

     The West Australian, Various Letters to The Editor, p 22, Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Muslim women say no

   Neither the Islamic Council of WA nor Rahim Ghauri represent the views of Muslims in Australia.  To many Muslim women, like me, aspects of sharia law pertaining to divorce and marriage represent a gross assault on the rights accorded to us in the Koran.
   I would like to ask Rahim Ghauri just whose version of sharia he was referring to when he suggested that Australian taxpayers (of which I am one) should foot the bill for polygamists.  I would also like to ask Mr Ghauri to name one Muslim country where the state provides for the welfare of multiple wives.
   Regardless of which interpretation of sharia one adheres to, if Mr Ghauri and others wish to take on the responsibility of multiple wives, then they should be wholly and solely responsible for every aspect of their choice - financial and social.
   Perhaps it is too much to hope that your newspaper would ever publish non-controversial views of Muslims but it may not be too much to hope that you would at least publish one letter from an Australian Muslim who loudly and clearly says I, like many others, do not want sharia law here.

Lift the veil

   Muslim women wishing to be friendly need to make the first move. It is not easy to approach a pair of eyes when you don't know whether the rest of the face is friendly or hostile, happy or sad or even male or female.
   The voice is muffled behind the veil and there are no facial expressions to help and no body language. I can't help feeling that they feel liberated because their personality is hidden from the world.

Too many laws

   I do not understand why Muslims want or need sharia law in Australia. Our State and Federal laws cover every aspect of law for all.
   Why would any judge want to be consulted on issues about our laws when they must know the law only too well?
   I'm sure there are any number of people who would love to advise judges on issues before the courts, yet are unable to because of the law itself.
   What makes Muslims so special that they need their religious law to be incorporated in our law?
   Australia needs no more laws - it already has enough.

Find the ‘truth’

   We have a host of world religions competing with each other and all claiming to teach the "truth".
   It is essential at this time in history that we determine once and for all what the "truth" really is.  A series of international and inter-faith debates featuring the greatest academics from each faction should go head-to-head and not cease until an effective resolution of the issues is arrived at.
   The lingering differences are creating division (as demonstrated by the reaction to Rowan Williams' recent comments on sharia law) which has the real potential of leading to major conflict, bearing in mind the lengths that some will go to in defence of their particular doctrine.
   We need to resolve the differences with an intense and sustained battle of minds, rather than a battle of swords. It is time to "make straight the path".

Bad manners

   Sibel Bennett wants people to look beyond the veil at Muslim women's qualities and intellect (Traditional covering empowers us: veiled women, 18/2).  Fat chance.
   Who wants to communicate with a slit? Wake up, Sibel. No one thinks you're oppressed, we just think it's extremely bad mannered for you Muslim women to walk around in public completely disguised and anonymous and then whinge about no one wanting to know you. Check out your body language some time.
   As for feeling confident, empowered and liberated, ask any bank robber how empowered he feels in his balaclava.  Stop whingeing - you chose it, so live with it.
   We don't have to change just because you did.

Sharia has few rights for women, or for humans in general

   Letter to The West Australian, Letter from an Informed Source, sent Tuesday, February 19, 2008
   Congratulations to the brave Muslim woman Anissa Sherif who risked harm by writing that many Muslim women in Australia do not want sharia law in Australia (Letters 19/2). Also, let me praise Chief Justice Wayne Martin for saying there was no room for sharia in WA (report 19/2).
   Ms Sherif wrote that many aspects of sharia pertaining to divorce and marriage represented a gross assault on the rights accorded to Muslim women in the Koran, and she opposed the taxpayers having to fund multiple wives (although that horse has already bolted, because the welfare system can classify them as separated or divorced, and pay them).
   But reading the Koran I don't find many women's rights that are not cancelled somewhere else.
   For example, a rejected wife's right to keep her dowry has a saving clause that she could agree to let the husband keep it.  A defenceless woman, thrown out of home, is not in much of a position to sustain demands for her dowry when facing an armed warrior husband and his male supporters.
   A married woman, if the husband dies, is only entitled to a year's maintenance, and then she must leave the family home, for it to be shared around largely among male relatives.  Daughters inherit half of what sons inherit.
   In documents about loans, two women's witness is equal to one man's.
   If the husband suspects she is not obedient, he is entitled to lecture her, beat her, put her into a separate bed (meaning in many cases a separate room), or divorce her at his say-so.  Strictly, she has no right to divorce him, so if she runs away she is doomed to a future without a husband, and of course no male soulmate.  [Error: There are other alternatives.]
   A woman condemned for adultery could [be] given 100 lashes and be walled up for life in early Islamic times, later changed to the Hebrew punishment of being stoned to death.  Men too can share this grisly end.
   Two Iranian ladies are at present under sentence of death for adultery, and a teacher accused of child abuse is also facing this.  Who knows if they are guilty -- with our own police, in spite of modern advances, prosecuting innocent people, imagine what Iran's creaky law system is doing.
   In sharia if the wife leaves, is rejected, or dies, the children belong to the man -- even if this is harmful to the children.
   A Muslim wedding is nothing like a Western one -- she is not present at the document signing.  In fact, if the documents are signed against her will, and the males at the signing swear that she has agreed to the marriage, the marriage is valid, and the husband is entitled to have sex with her, according to the Hadith.
   But, over-arching all this injustice to women (and in a sense proving it) is the sharia's legalising of slavery.  Slavery and piracy was practiced by the North African Islamic kingdoms even after the Westerners began banning it, and one such kingdom continued until France conquered it in 1905.  Slavery is, according to the writings and current teachings, an intrinsic part of sharia.
   Sharia is unjust to any human being who disagrees with the leadership -- if a Muslim, one can be branded as a hypocrite and/or an apostate, and so can be killed just like an infidel, as was ordered for Salman Rushdie by Iran's top religious leader.  That leader died, but Iran's mullahs and the faithful revere him to this day, in spite of his inciting people to commit murder.
   Anyone serious about Islam is working to have wine and pig-meat banned, and in recent weeks we read of Muslims blowing up other Muslims in CD and DVD shops, a pet market, a dog-fighting crowd, a political rally, as well as people attending Shi'ite shrines, which Sunni Muslims brand as akin to idolatry.
   As time goes on, the "heavenly" plan is to overthrow, kill, or enslave the rest of humanity, and before the end of the world all Jews are to be hunted down and killed, as are dogs, [Error: pigs] and the cross is to be broken.
   It is a cheerless violent desert culture. #

Contemporary practice of Sharia law

   Answers.com, www.answers. com/topic/ sharia , Part of the Answers for "shari‘a," Sighted on the Internet Tuesday, February 19, 2008
   […] There is tremendous variance in the interpretation and implementation of Islamic Law in Muslim societies today. Liberal movements within Islam have questioned the relevance and applicability of sharia from a variety of perspectives; Islamic feminism brings multiple points of view to the discussion. Several of the countries with the largest Muslim populations, including Indonesia, Bangladesh and Pakistan, have largely secular constitutions and laws, with only a few Islamic provisions in family law. Turkey has a constitution that is officially strongly secular. India and the Philippines are the only countries in the world which have separate Muslim civil laws, framed by Muslim Personal Law board, and wholly based on Sharia and the Code of Muslim Personal Laws of the Philippines. However, the criminal laws are uniform. Some controversial sharia laws favour Muslim men, including polygamy and rejection of alimony.
   Most countries of the Middle East and North Africa maintain a dual system of secular courts and religious courts, in which the religious courts mainly regulate marriage and inheritance. Saudi Arabia and Iran maintain religious courts for all aspects of jurisprudence, and religious police assert social compliance. Laws derived from sharia are also applied in Afghanistan, Libya and Sudan. Some states in northern Nigeria have reintroduced Sharia courts.^[9] In practice the new Sharia courts in Nigeria have most often meant the re-introduction of harsh punishments without respecting the much tougher rules of evidence and testimony. The punishments include amputation of one/both hands for theft, stoning for adultery and apostasy. ^{[citation needed]}
   Many (including the European Court of Human Rights) consider the punishments prescribed by Sharia as being barbaric and cruel. Islamic scholars argue that, if implemented properly, the punishments serve as a deterrent to crime.^[10] In international media, practices by countries applying Islamic law have fallen under considerable criticism at times. This is particularly the case when the sentence carried out is seen to greatly tilt away from established standards of international human rights. This is true for the application of the death penalty for the crime of adultery, and other such punishments such as amputations for the crime of theft and flogging for fornication or public intoxication. [1]
   Though Islamic law is interpreted differently across times, places and scholars, following fundamentalist's literal and traditional interpretations, Muslim scholars believe it should legally be binding on all people of the Muslim faith and even on all people who come under their control.^{[citation needed]}
Laws and practices under Sharia
Marriage laws
Main article: Islamic marital jurisprudence
   There are two types of marriage mentioned in the Qur'an: nikah and nikah mut'ah. The first is more common; it aims to be permanent, but can be terminated by the husband in the talaq process or by the wife seeking divorce. In nikah the couples inherit from each other. A legal contract is signed when entering the marriage. The husband must pay for the wife's expenses. In Sunni jurisprudence, the contract is void if there is a determined divorce date in the nikah, whereas, in Shia jurisprudence, nikah contracts with determined divorce dates are transformed in nikah mut'ah. For the contract to be valid there must be two witnesses under Sunni jurisprudence. There is no witness requirements [? requirement] for Shia contracts.
   Nikah mut'ah is considered haraam by Sunni Muslims. It means "marriage for pleasure".  Under Shia jurisprudence a nikah mut'ah is the second form of marriage recognized by the Shia.  It is a fixed term marriage, which is a marriage with a preset duration, after which the marriage is automatically dissolved. There is controversy about the Islamic legality of this type of marriage, since Sunnis believe it was abrogated by Prophet Muhammad, while Shias believe it was forbidden by Umar and hence that ban may be ignored since Umar had no authority to do so. The Qur'an itself doesn't mention any cancellation of the institution. Nikah mut'ah sometimes has a preset time period to the marriage, traditionally the couple do not inherit from each other, the man usually is not responsible for the economic welfare of the women, and she usually may leave her home at her own discretion. Nikah mut'ah also does not count towards a maximum of wives (four according to the Qur'an). The woman still is given her mahr, and the woman must still observe the iddah, a period of four months at the end of the marriage where she is not permitted to remarry in the case she may have become pregnant before the divorce took place. This maintains the proper lineage of children.
   Requirements for Islamic Marriages:

• The man who is not currently a fornicator can only marry a woman who is not currently a fornicatress or a chaste woman from the people of the Book.
• The woman can only marry a Muslim man.
• The woman who is not currently a fornicatress can only marry a man who is not currently a fornicator.
• The fornicator can only marry a fornicatress -- and vice versa.
• The woman cannot marry without the consent of her guardian -- if she marries, her husband becomes her new guardian.
• The guardian may choose a suitable partner for a virgin girl, but the girl is free to contest and has the right to say 'no'.
• The guardian cannot marry the divorced woman or the widow if she didn't ask to be married.
• It is obligatory for a man to give bride wealth (gifts) to the woman he marries -- "Do not marry unless you give your wife something that is her right." ^[11]

Divorce laws
Main article: Talaq (Nikah)

• A woman who wishes to be divorced usually needs the consent of her husband. However, most schools allow her to obtain a divorce without her husband's consent if she can show the judge that her husband is impotent. If the husband consents she does not have to pay back the dower.^{[citation needed]}
• Men have the right of unilateral divorce. A divorce is effective when the man tells his wife that he is divorcing her. At this point the husband must pay the wife the "delayed" component of the dower.
• A divorced woman of reproductive age must wait four months and ten days before marrying again to ensure that she is not pregnant. Her ex-husband should support her financially during this period.^{[citation needed]}
• If a man divorces his wife three times, he can no longer marry her again unless she marries another man and then divorces him.^{[citation needed]}
• These are guidelines; Islamic law on divorce is different depending on the school of thought.^[12]

Hudud
Main article: Hudud
The penalty for theft
   In accordance with the Qur'an and several hadith, theft is punished by imprisonment or amputation of hands or feet, depending on the number of times it was committed and depending on the item of theft. However, before the punishment is executed two eyewitnesses under oath must say that they saw the person stealing. If these witnesses cannot be produced then the punishment cannot be executed. Witnesses must be either two men, or, if only one man can be found, one man and two women. Several requirements are in place for the amputation of hands, so the actual instances of this are relatively few; they are:

• The thief must be adult and sane.
• There must have been criminal intent to take private (not common) property.
• The theft must not have been the product of hunger, necessity, or duress.
• The goods stolen must: be over a minimum value, not haraam, and not owned by the thief's family.
• Goods must have been taken from custody (i.e. not in a public place).
• There must be reliable witnesses (mentioned above).
• The punishment is not imposed if the thief repents.

   All of these must be met under the scrutiny of judicial authority. ^{[Qur'an 5:38][13]}
The penalty for adultery
Main article: Rajm
   In accordance with hadith, stoning to death is the penalty for married men and women who commit adultery. In addition, there are several conditions related to the person who commits it that must be met. One of the difficult ones is that the punishment cannot be enforced unless there is a confession of the person, or four male eyewitnesses who each saw the act being committed. All of these must be met under the scrutiny of judicial authority^[14] For unmarried men and women, the punishment prescribed in the Qur'an and hadith is 100 lashes.^[15]
   Similarly, under Sharia a woman who is accused of adultery cannot be punished unless there are four male eyewitnesses (or eight female ones, since two females equal one male witness) to prove she did commit adultery.^{[citation needed]} The "four witness" standard comes from the Qur'an itself, a revelation Muhammad announced in response to accusations of adultery leveled at his wife, Aisha: "Why did they not produce four witnesses? Since they produce not witnesses, they verily are liars in the sight of Allah."^{[Qur'an 24:13]}
Domestic punishments

It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into Islam and domestic violence. (Discuss)

Main article: Islam and domestic violence

For more details on the Islamic view of adultery, see Zina (sex).
   The word in the Quran used for "beat" is idreb.^[4:34] It is a conjugate of the word daraba which primarily means "to beat, strike, to hit" ^[16]. The Arabic word idreb is used in two primary ways. 1) to strike up a poem, and 2) to physically "beat", or "strike" someone.
   Some consider "hit" to be a misinterpretation, and believe it should be translated as "admonish them, and leave them alone in the sleeping-places and separate from them." Certain modern translations of the Qur'an in the English language accept the commoner translation of "beat" but tone down the wording with bracketed additions. Whatever idribu hunna is meant to convey in the Qur'an -- and ambiguities are common in Islam's holy book -- the verb is directed, not at a single husband, but to the community as a whole.
   The word "idrib" is used 12 times in the Quran. Eight times it is used in the physical action of striking, and three times it is used in the context of speaking or applying a proverb. Clearly then, the most frequent use of the word is in physically striking. Here is a Quranic verse in which "idreb" is used:
   ""Strike" off their heads, "strike" off the very tips of their fingers!"^{[Qur'an 8:12]}
   Several hadith urge strongly against beating one's wife, such as: "How does anyone of you beat his wife as he beats the stallion camel and then embrace (sleep with) her? (Al-Bukhari, English Translation, vol. 8, Hadith 68, pp. 42-43), "I went to the Apostle of Allah (peace be upon him) and asked him: What do you say (command) about our wives? He replied: Give them food what you have for yourself, and clothe them by which you clothe yourself, and do not beat them, and do not revile them. (Sunan Abu-Dawud, Book 11, Marriage (Kitab Al-Nikah), Number 2139)". Others hadiths do indicate that husbands have a right to discipline their wives in a civilized manner to a certain extent:

   Fear Allah concerning women!  Verily you have taken them on the security of Allah, and intercourse with them has been made lawful unto you by words of Allah.  You too have right over them, and that they should not allow anyone to sit on your bed whom you do not like.  But if they do that, you can chastise them but not severely.  Their rights upon you are that you should provide them with food and clothing in a fitting manner.  (Narrated in Sahih Muslim, on the authority of Jabir.) … 7:2803 [This is a VERY LONG segment.  The words quoted require three Page Downs]

   According to Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, head of the European Council for Fatwa and Research:

   If the husband senses that feelings of disobedience and rebelliousness are rising against him in his wife, he should try his best to rectify her attitude by kind words, gentle persuasion and reasoning with her. If this is not helpful, he should sleep apart from her, trying to awaken her agreeable feminine nature so that serenity may be restored, and she may respond to him in a harmonious fashion. If this approach fails, it is permissible for him to smack her lightly with his hands, avoiding her face and other sensitive parts. In no case should he resort to using a stick or any other instrument that might cause pain and injury.

[…]

British Cardinal rejects Anglican prelate’s call for Shariah law in UK

   The Record (R.C. Perth W. Australia weekly), by Simon Caldwell, CNS, p 11, February 20, 2008
Cardinal rejects idea of Shariah as part of British legal system; but is "saddened" by the way Anglican prelate was misunderstood and polarised
   LONDON (CNS) – An English Cardinal has rejected suggestions that aspects of Shariah, or Islamic law might be incorporated into the British legal system.
   Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor of Westminster distanced himself from remarks made in a speech by Anglican Archbishop Rowan Williams of Canterbury, but he added he was "saddened" by the way the Archbishop had been misunderstood.
   In a February 7 lecture on Islam and English law, Archbishop Williams, leader of the worldwide Anglican Communion, said Britain needed to continue to find accommodation with religious legal codes such as Shariah if community cohesion and development are to be achieved.
   Archbishop Williams told the British Broadcasting Corp. hours before the lecture in London that the adoption of some aspects of Shariah in Britain "seems unavoidable."  Senior Anglican bishops from around the world criticized his remarks, and some called for his resignation.
   Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor declined to criticize the archbishop but made his views on Shariah clear in an interview with the Sunday Telegraph on February 10.
   "I don't believe in a multicultural society," he said.
   "When people come into this country they have to obey the laws of the land.
   "There are going to be certain things which might clash in the overall culture of the country.  That's where one has to make a judgment," he said.
   "There are aspects of Shariah that are practised that we certainly wouldn't want in this country.  The laws of this country don't allow forced marriages or polygamy," he said, adding that governments had "a right to make sure that those laws are kept."
   The Cardinal said that multiculturalism had "meant a lessening of the-kind of unity that a country needs."
   "It is not enough for people to live within their own cultures and then say 'We'll live within the freedoms that are given in this country within a totally separate culture,"' he said.
   "Of course you can keep the variety of traditions, but when you enter this country there are common values which are part of its heritage, which should be embraced by everybody."
   The Cardinal, one of six children of Irish migrants, said it would be better if Muslims contributed beyond their own families to the common good, saying they would then "become a normal part of this country and, indeed, cherish those values that should be common to everyone."
   Muslims believe the Shariah is the revealed law of God.
   It informs their religious, social, domestic and private lives but is opposed by many non-Muslims because it demands inequalities between men and women and between Muslims and people of other faiths or no faith.
   In some parts of the world it is used to justify slavery and punishments such as amputations for theft, stoning for adultery and the death penalty for apostasy.
   In his lecture, Archbishop Williams said that "nobody in their right mind, I think, would want to see in this country a kind of inhumanity that sometimes appears to be associated with the practice of the law in some Islamic states with the extreme punishments and the attitudes to women as well."
   But he hinted that he thought Shariah courts might be an acceptable way for Muslims to settle marital disputes and financial matters.
   He cautioned that such flexibility was necessary because the increasing secularisation of the British legal system could bring religious believers into conflict with the law on matters of conscience. Archbishop Williams refused to apologise for his remarks when he addressed the Church of England General Synod in London on February 11.
   He said much of what he said had been misinterpreted and that he believed "quite strongly that it is not inappropriate for a pastor of the Church of England to address issues about the perceived concerns of other religious communities and to try to bring them into better public focus."
   Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor told BBC Radio 4s "Sunday" program, "I think he did raise a point of considerable interest and concern at the moment, namely, the rights of a religious group within a secular state."
   "Everyone in Britain must obey the law and, therefore, the question of how one can be a loyal British citizen and a faithful member of a religious group is a very pertinent question," he said on February 10.
   Archbishop Williams' lecture was praised on February 11 by the Christian Muslim Forum, an organisation founded partly by the government to further community cohesion.
   "The Archbishop has opened an important debate, not primarily about Shariah, but about the broader issues around the rights of religious groups within a secular state," said a statement co-signed by the forum presidents, including Catholic Bishop Michael Evans of East Anglia.
   Dominican Fr Timothy Radcliffe, former worldwide head of the Dominican order who is now based in Oxford, called Archbishop Williams' arguments "intelligent and subtle" and the reaction "hysterical."
   "Christians believe that our intelligence is a gift from God, which should embolden us to probe complex issues, and the archbishop has shown real Christian leadership in daring to do so," Fr Radcliffe wrote in a February 11 letter to The Times, a London-based daily newspaper. #

Father queried bomb plot: SC

sp; The West Australian, http://www.thewest.com.au , p 15, Thursday, February 21, 2008
   MELBOURNE – The father of alleged Melbourne terror cell member Shoue Hammoud demanded to know if his son was involved in a plot to "blow up Australia", a court has been told.
   In a telephone conversation intercepted by police, Mohammed Hammoud pleaded with his son to stay away from a group of friends and from the group's leader, Abdul Nacer Benbrika.
   He-also asked his son to "swear to Allah" that he was not in trouble with the police.
   Shoue Hammoud is one of 12 men on trial over various terror-related offences, including intentionally being a member of a terrorist organisation and preparing and fostering a terrorist act.
   The Victorian Supreme Court has been told he and several other young Muslim men formed a group under the guidance of Benbrika, a self-styled religious scholar also known as Sheikh Abu Bakr.
   "Someone come to tell me this morning … that you're going to make a bomb," Mohammed Hammoud said to his son in the phone call.
   "You're going to blow up Australia."
   Shoue Hammoud denied the claim, only to be told by his father "the police are watching you every step".
   Prosecutor Richard Maidment SC has told the jury the group to which Shoue Hammoud belonged planned to engage in violent jihad, or holy war, in Australia.
   He said that early in 2005 Mohammed Hammoud telephoned his son to ask him about rumours that the police were looking at the group.
   "I've heard about rumours … are you involved with the police at all?" Mr Hammoud asked.
   His son said he was not and asked who gave his father the information.
   Shoue Hammoud and members of his group had been the subject of police raids several months earlier, in which terror-related documents were seized and a stolen car uncovered in the garage of one of the accused men.
   Mohammed Hammoud told his son he had heard the police were watching him, to which his son replied people were "telling you crap".
   His father then implored him to swear to Allah that he was telling the truth, to which he replied: "Yes."
   "Stay away from these people please (Benbrika's group), I don't want you to get involved in anything," Mohammed Hammoud said in transcripts of phone intercepts read to the jury.
   Soon after the exchange between father and son, Shoue Hammoud's uncle Ahmed Abboud made a similar call to his nephew, which was also intercepted.
   Shoue Hammoud told Mr Abboud that he saw Abu Bakr (Benbrika) often, to which the uncle said: "My advice is to keep away from him."
   Mr Abboud went on to tell Shoue Hammoud that another sheikh in their community had given information to the police about the Benbrika group.  The trial before Justice Bernard Bongiorno continues. #

IN SHORT

[Paying out for the future voters.]

 
   The West Australian, Letter to The Editor, p 22, Thursday, February 21, 2008
   This was reported in the British news magazine The Week, February 9 edition: "Although bigamy is illegal in this country, ministers have decided that where benefit claims are concerned, polygamous marriages can be recognised by the state – provided the wedding took place in a country where they are legal.
   In future, claimants in polygamous marriages will be entitled to the standard couple rate of 92.80 pounds per week plus 33.65 pounds for each additional spouse."

ISLAM

WHAT ABOUT OUR CHOICE?

   The West Australian, Various Letters to The Editor, p 22, Thursday, February 21, 2008

We can't see

   Your report on Sibel and Khadija (18/2) was most helpful. It made it clear to me that they are happy, friendly women, worth getting to know.
   I needed to be told this because I couldn't judge for myself from outside the veil.
   I couldn't see if Sibel was smiling or baring her teeth. If only she could see that this makes us keep our distance.

WHAT ABOUT OUR CHOICE?

   How interesting that Sibel Bennett (Traditional covering empowers us: veiled women, 18/2) should be telling us that "the traditional veiled covering empowers us".
   She says that the veil allows her to choose who gets to see her, never mind that the rest of us have no choice in who sees us.
   Of course, we could all have the rudeness to go around covering our faces, but can anyone imagine what a terrible world it would be if everyone were to walk around hiding their identity behind a mask or the effect it would have on our thinking, development and whole way of life?
   These people are from another culture, but they are quite happy to force their culture on the rest of us. The truth is, it's all about their determination to never integrate but to dominate our thinking and way of life until we capitulate to them.
   I know because I was once a Muslim.

SHARIA LEADS TO CONFLICT

   As a Muslim I do not support the introduction of sharia law in Australia.
   Australia is not a Muslim country. Sharia law applies only where the majority of the people are Muslims.
   Introduction of sharia law would be in direct conflict with Australian law in many ways. For example, in the law of evidence, sharia law will only consider evidence from two Muslim women whereas under our Australian law only one woman is needed to furnish evidence for or against any matter. The equality of genders is the issue here.
   Under sharia law a Muslim husband may beat his wife but under the Australian law it is considered physical abuse and is punishable.
   As a migrant who came here 27 years ago, I have no problem with Australian law, except that soft or lenient sentences have become a joke.

THEY CAN GO HOME

   My father, like many hundreds of thousands of young Australians, fought and died defending our way of life for everyone – male and female.
   After World War II there were thousands of migrants and refugees brought out from Europe. They came to our schools, many were given nicknames, but we all played together and grew up together.
   They were all prepared to assimilate.  Now some of my best friends came from Hungary, Poland, Sicily, Germany and a few other European countries.
   I believe anyone choosing to live here in Australia should adapt and abide by our laws.  If they don't like them, nothing is stopping them from returning to where they came from – and it's about time that our politicians realised this before it is too late.
Today's text
All wisdom comes from the Lord, and so do common sense and understanding. -- PROVERBS 2:6. (The Bible for Today). From the Bible Society.
   Letters to the Editor, WA Newspapers, GPO Box N1027 Perth WA 6843. Fax 08 9482 3830. E-mail to: letters@wa news.com.au

[Suicide and other bombings, Bali bombers appeal again – while the US and others go on flouting global torture treaty.]

 
   The West Australian, Various pages, Thursday, February 21, 2008
   Page 16. "Last-ditch appeal by bombers next week."  INDONESIA:    The "smiling assassin" Amrozi Nurhasym, his brother Ali Ghufron (alias Mukhlas) and Imam Samudra will begin a final legal challenge on Monday February 25.  They have been convicted over the Bali nightclub bombings that killed 202 people, including 88 Australian, in October 2002.
   Page 22. [Immigration cash cow versus compo to Aussies.]  AUSTRALIA:    Letter: The Immigration Department is paying $1.4m to immigrant Cornelia Rau and $800,000 to the detained Iranian refugee who sewed up his lips.  The Department is becoming a cash cow for immigrants working the system, aided by refugee support groups and greedy lawyers.  But Sgt Shane Grey, bashed by a Victorian murderer, is offered $34,000 and Const. Matthew Butcher, bashed at Joondalup, is told the maximum is $75,000.
   Page 24. "Gangs attack Kosovo border."  PRISTINA:         Serbian gangs have set fire to buildings along the border between Serbia and its former Kosovo province, which this week declared itself independent.  The north is populated mainly by Orthodox Christians, some of whom seek partition, and the south by Muslims.  The United Nations mission has governed Kosovo since 1999.  Australia is one of the countries that recognised Kosovo's independence, and there was a bomb scare in Zagreb, Croatia.
   Page 30. "Israeli general escaped arrest."  LONDON:        British police refused in 2005 to arrest Israeli retired Maj-Gen. Doron Almog, who stayed on the plane at Heathrow airport.  They feared an armed fightback by air marshals.  The charge is over his role in Gaza during 2002 when Israeli forces destroyed 59 houses in Rafah refugee camp, from which fire was coming.
   Page 30. "Let's do a Kosovo, says Abbas aide."  PALESTINE:      A top aide to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said yesterday that Palestinians ought to follow Kosovo's lead and declare an independent state unilaterally if peace talks with Israel continue to falter.
   Page 42. "Dud MiG fighters humiliate Russians."  MOSCOW:      Algeria has demanded that Russia take back 15 MiG fighter jets supplied under a multi-billion-dollar arms deal because of quality concerns.  A representative of the manufacturers said that quality control was almost nonexistent, partly due to loss of staff etc.
   Page 43. "Iraqi doctors on brink of defeat."  IRAQ:          The Iraqi medical system is on the brink of collapse.  Since the invasion by the United States, Britain, and Australia in 2003, 618 medical personnel including 132 doctors had been killed.  Followers of Shi'ite cleric Moktadar al-Sadr were turning hospitals into bases for his Mahdi militia, and supplies were being stolen.
   Page 43. "Death toll rises ahead of cleric's deadline."   IRAQ:    Ten people were killed in a suicide attack at a market near Baquba, and 15 were wounded.  On Tuesday as many as 15 policemen were killed and 27 wounded, while three US troops were killed by an improvised explosive device in a separate attack.  Renewed rocket attacks raise concern ahead of a deadline for the anti-US cleric Moktadar al-Sadr to renew his ceasefire order.
   Page 44. "Bird flu conspiracy alleged."  JAKARTA, Indonesia. :    Indonesian Health Minister Siti Fadilah Supari has claimed that the US and the World Health Organisation are part of a global conspiracy to profit from the spread of bird flu.  Her new book, outlining these views, have been ordered withdrawn, it is understood.  Indonesia is said to be blocking sharing samples from human victims.  Dr Supari's claim that Indonesian virus samples had previously been sent to a biological weapons laboratory in Los Alamos, New Mexico, was denied by the laboratory. .
   Page 44. "10 criminals executed."  IRAN:    Iran hanged 10 criminals yesterday, six in Zanjan city for armed robbery, and four in Teheran for murder. 
   Page "Today 14." "Prejudice and fear can run deep."  Film review of "Resolution," M., 3 ½ stars, review by Mark Naglazas.      The film is about an Egyptian-born engineer who spent his entire adult life in the US, and is kidnapped by US operatives in Chicago and "rendered" to a North African country, where he is beaten, humiliated, and "waterboarded," (i.e., a wet towel is wrapped around the head to give the victim the feeling of drowning). 
   In real life, the reviewer notes, The New York Times recently reported that US Attorney-General Michael Mukasey declared that "waterboarding" torture is a perfectly legal tactic in the war on terror.

Jihad cell suspects ‘targeted informer’

   The West Australian, http://www.thewest.com.au , p 18, Friday, February 22, 2008
   MELBOURNE – Members of an alleged Melbourne terror cell wanted to "flog" and "smash" an associate they believed had informed police of their plans to conduct violent jihad, the Victorian Supreme Court was told yesterday.
   Prosecutor Richard Maidment told the court that on New Year's Day 2005, senior members of the group gathered to discuss rumours circulating about them in the local Muslim community.
   The court was told that the fathers of two of the men had confronted them with the rumours and speculation, one of them telling his son "the news has reached all over the world".
   Mr Maidment said the reaction of the so-called terror group to the situation pointed to their guilt.
   "No one is saying, 'How outrageous'," Mr Maidment told the jury.
   "The concern is the truth is out – and they're going to get arrested."
   On trial are Abdul Nacer Benbrika, 48, Aimen Joud, 22, Hany Taha, 32, Shoue Hammoud, 27, Fadl Sayadi, 27, Ahmed Raad, 24, Abdullah Merhi, 22., Amer Haddara, 28, Shane Kent, 30, Majed Raad, 23, Bassam Raad, 25, and Ezzit Raad, 25.
   They have pleaded not guilty to charges including being members of a terrorist organisation.
   Mr Benbrika, Mr Joud, Mr Hammoud and Mr Taha concluded that a former member of the group, named only as Baha, was the informer and they were secretly recorded by police plotting their revenge.
   "You know what brother? You just walk up to his door and just smash him," Mr Joud said on tape.
   Mr Hammoud proposed a "flogging".
   "I'll go rough him up a bit and say, 'Why am I getting headaches about things nobody knows except you?'," Mr Hammoud said.
   "Just give him a flogging."
   Mr Benbrika suggested they take Baha into the bush and tie him to a tree to get the truth from him, and agreed to put a curse on Baha.
   The court was told the fathers of Mr Hammoud and Mr Taha had warned their sons about associating with Mr Benbrika.
   Mr Taha was recorded telling Mr Joud and Mr Benbrika his father had told him the "police are trying to get all the brothers".
   Mr Hammoud said he was less concerned about the accusations than about how far the rumours had spread.
   "Just from the talk, they are going to get us arrested I am telling you," he said. "They think we are doing the forbidden and the abominable."
   But Mr Benbrika assured them they were safe because the police would have arrested them if they had any evidence.
   "They didn't arrest us or nothing because they don't have nothing," he said in the intercepted conversation.
   The trial before Justice Bernard Bongiorno continues today. #

Jihadis use foreign phone networks

   The Weekend Australian, ausletr@news corp.com.au , by Richard Kerbaj, p 7, February 23-24, 2008
   COUNTER-TERRORISM agencies fear that local extremists are increasingly using mobile phones connected to overseas networks to thwart investigators and spread hardline propaganda.
   Agents from Victoria Police and ASIO are investigating the sale of mobile phones within Melbourne's Somali community that are being used to receive al-Qa'ida-linked motivational videos of Islamic extremists torturing and beheading "infidels".
   The connection of mobiles to overseas networks is frustrating police as bugging telephones has been a good method of tracking and infiltrating suspected extremists. The Weekend Australian understands the mobile phones are being sold at some hardline Islamic prayer halls and mosques in Melbourne for between $500 and $1000.
   It is believed the phones are connected to telephone networks in Lebanon and Syria.
   The phones are connected to anonymous foreign accounts and calls, emails and video messages are limited to phones using the same overseas network to make them more difficult to trace.
   Making overseas calls from an international phone in Australia involves the transmission of signals to a local phone tower, which then sends a signal to a fixed-line network before getting through to the overseas destination.
   Phones connected to overseas networks are more difficult if not impossible for authorities to track.
   Security sources told The Weekend Australian there was concern the phones were predominantly being sold to young Muslim Somalis who were vulnerable to extremist messages.
   "The phones are able to receive and send all sorts of videos, including radical sermons, assassinations and beheadings of infidels by Islamic terrorists," a security source said.
   Australian Federal Police Association chief executive Jim Torr said the AFP was aware that criminals were increasingly using phones connected to overseas networks.
   "And it's not just your profit-motivated criminals who will use this (technology), it's also terrorists who will use mobile phones in particular, so it's certainly a big deal," Mr Torr said.
   It is understood that Victorian authorities are looking at ways of involving telecommunications networks such as Telstra in the latest investigation through the Special Projects Unit, which has an agreement with networks entitling it to obtain call records.
   Among the alleged distribution points is the Eight Black prayer centre in North Melbourne. The centre has been the subject of a federal police investigation, Operation Rochester, as well as investigations by Victorian police and ASIO, over the past two years after allegations that radical sermons had been preached at the prayer hall and young Somalis attending the centre had returned to join Islamic jihad in their homeland. The investigations are ongoing.
   Islamic leaders at Eight Black, including senior imam Sheik al-Somali, have rejected accusations that the prayer centre is a proponent of radical Islam.
   Agents believe the primary seller of the phones is a Somali community member from Melbourne's northern suburbs. They said they were unaware of how many phones were in circulation. #

Islam culture oppresses women: former Muslim

   The West Australian, http://www.thewest.com.au , By MICHAEL BENNETT, p 11, Saturday, February 23, 2008
   PERTH – A woman who lived most of her life as a Muslim before renouncing her faith and joining the Catholic Church has labelled parts of sharia law and the Muslim culture as "sick", "disgusting" and "oppressive for women".
   Shereen Zailanee, who was born and raised in Singapore and has lived in Australia for 10 years, was angered by claims in The West Australian on Monday made by Muslim women Sibel Bennett and Khadija.
   She said their assertions that living life behind a veil made them feel empowered, confident and liberated were ridiculous and the issue was one that divided her Muslim family and had separated her from friends.
   "I think these women who hide their faces are being oppressed, people use religion like poison," Ms Zailanee, from Perth, said.
   "We could all have the rudeness to go around covering our faces but can anyone imagine what a terrible world it would be if everyone were to walk around hiding their identity behind a mask.
   "What effect would that have on our thinking, development and way of life?
  [Picture] Swap: Shereen Zailanee was a Muslim and now is Catholic. Her Catholic mother had to convert to Islam to marry but secretly went to church.    Picture: Nic Ellis  
   "These people are from another culture but are quite happy to force their culture on the rest of us. The truth is it's all about their determination to never integrate but to dominate our thinking and way of life until we capitulate to them."
   Describing parts of her religious upbringing as "painful", she said children forced into Islam by birth were never given any choice throughout life.
   "When you are living it, it's not strange because you think that's the way it has always been but when you stand back and have a look at it you realise how frightening it can be," Ms Zailanee, 30, said. "If I have children Islam will not enter their lives."
   She expressed disbelief over the recent controversy in Australia and England sparked by comments from Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams that courts should consider sharia law in their judgments.
   "It should not be given a consideration," she said. "People want to impose sharia law because they want to bring Muslim cultures here. Why? If you want to do that live in a Muslim country."
   Ms Zailanee said since September 11, "being Muslim" had taken on a new meaning that rendered itself "untouchable" in the Western world.

  ‘women who hide their faces are being oppressed, people use religion like poison.’  
  SHEREEN ZAILANEE  

   "The religion has developed an arrogance that places itself above other religions. It's a sick culture," she said. "Muslim people look at it and give it an importance – 'I'm a Muslim, you can't touch me'."
   Throughout Ms Zailanee's childhood, her mother, who had been raised Catholic but forced to convert to Islam to marry, secretly attended a Catholic Church.
   "Why should any religion have the power to dictate someone to live like this," she said. #

‘Maximum damage’ was terror accused’s order

   The West Australian, http://www.thewest.com.au , p 19, Saturday, February 23, 2008
   MELBOURNE – Accused Melbourne terror-cell leader Abdul Nacer Benbrika told two Sydney associates "we want to die for jihad" and do "maximum damage" to lives and to buildings, the Supreme Court was told yesterday.
   Mr Benbrika is alleged to have said: "Everyone has to prepare himself. Or to die or be jailed. Allah know best. I don't want this kind of life. Give that to them. But we have to be careful.
   "We want to die for jihad. We do maximum damage, maximum damage. Damage their buildings with everything, and damage their lives just to show them. That's what we are waiting for."
   He warned the men: "You be careful– Trust no one."
   His alleged conversation on February 23, 2005, with the Sydney contacts – named only as "Khaled One" and "Abdul"– was covertly recorded by investigators.
  [Picture] Be prepared: Abdul Benbrika cautioned his followers to trust no one.  
   Prosecutor Richard Maidment told the court that Khaled One and Abdul had previously attended a camp at Louth in NSW with several of the 12 Melbourne men, including leader Mr Benbrika, who are being tried for terror offences.
   The men have pleaded not guilty to all charges. Mr Maidment said Mr Benbrika also told the Sydney men that he had refused to talk to ASIO agents who visited his home several days earlier.
   The prosecutor quoted Mr Benbrika as saying: "They are dogs. Shouldn't talk to them, even for normal questions, for, 'How are you?' I don't answer you. Just get lost."
   Mr Maidment said several conversations recorded Mr Benbrika talking about a 1600-page book on jihad that he wanted to print.
   Mr Maidment said he talked about it as "a good and dangerous book".
   Mr Benbrika was asked by an unidentified male, "about dogma or something like that?" Mr Benbrika allegedly replied, "No, no, it's about killing."
   Mr Maidment said Mr Benbrika was also recorded telling several of his fellow accused it was important that the "brothers" (members of the group) not get scared. Mr Benbrika said that if anyone got caught, they could argue they were "young" and "naive", Mr Maidment said.
   "So instead of getting 10 years imprisonment, they get two years. That's what he's saying," Mr Maidment said.
   He also accused two of the men of colluding to lie to police who were investigating an outing the group had made to King Lake on December 11, 2004.
   The trial continues before Justice Bernard Bongiorno on Monday. #

No to sharia law

     The Sunday Times (Perth, W. Australia), Letter to The Editor, p 69, February 24, 2008
   AS a Muslim, I do not support the introduction of sharia Islamic law in Australia.
   First, Australia is not a Muslim country. This law only applies to where the majority of Muslims dwell.
   Second, the introduction of sharia law will be in direct conflict with Australian law in many ways.
   The equality of genders is the issue. Under sharia law, a Muslim husband may beat his wife, but under Australian law it is considered physical abuse and is punishable.
   As a migrant who came here 27 years ago, I have no problem with Australian law, barring that soft or lenient sentences have become a joke.

Bishop stands up to Islamic threats

   The West Australian, http://www.thewest.com.au , p 10, Monday, February 25, 2008
   LONDON – Anglican bishop Michael Nazir-Ali, who received death threats for airing his views on Islamic issues, has vowed to continue to speak out.
   Dr Nazir-Ali's claim that Islamic extremism had turned some parts of Britain into "no-go" areas for non-Muslims led to fierce rows between political and religious leaders over the impact of multiculturalism on the nation.
   His comments were followed by the suggestion by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, that the adoption of aspects of sharia law in Britain was "unavoidable".
   The bishop's views sparked a storm of criticism and raised questions over the role of the Church in society but, most seriously for Dr Nazir-Ali, led to threats that he and his family would be harmed.
   Yet the Bishop of Rochester remains steadfastly defiant. He will not be silenced.
   "I believe people should not be prevented from speaking out," he said. "The issue had to be raised. There are times when Christian leaders have to speak out."
   Dr Nazir-Ali arrived in Britain in the 1980s and seems to have taken up the mantle for defending the country's values he fears are being threatened by a loss of its Christian heritage.
  [Picture] Strong opinions: The Bishop of Rochester, Michael Nazir-Ali.  
   Threats were made warning that he would not "live long" and would be "sorted out" if he continued to criticise Islam.
   "If you disagree, that must be met by counter-arguments, not by trying to silence people," he said. "It was a threat not just to me, but to my family. I took it seriously, so did the police. It gave me sleepless nights."
   But it's not the first time that his life has been endangered.
   Shortly after being made a bishop in Pakistan – at 35 he was the youngest in the Anglican Church – he was forced to flee to Britain to seek refuge from Muslims who wanted to kill him.
   He says he never expected to suffer the same treatment in Britain.
   "The real danger to Britain today is the spiritual and moral vacuum that has occurred for the last 40 or 50 years," he said. "When you have such a vacuum something will fill it.
   "If people are not given a fresh way of understanding what it means to be a Christian and what it means to be a Christian-based society then something else may well take the place of all that we're used to and that could be Islam."
   A respected academic – he studied at Cambridge and Oxford universities – he speaks with a measured deliberation. "There are extremist movements in this country whose agenda is far from integration, we must be aware of this," he said. "It is not only a threat to security but to integration. They are significant enough to influence sections of young people."
   Just over a year ago Muslim radical Abu Izzadeen heckled former home secretary John Reid as he tried to deliver a speech on targeting potential extremists.
   There was widespread dismay at the outburst but nobody had dared try to suggest that these views were entrenched across the country until the bishop spoke last month.
   In warning of attempts to impose an Islamic character on certain areas, for example by amplifying the call to prayer from mosques, he seems to have tapped the fears of a big section of society.
   To many, he has become a champion of traditional Christianity but within the Church, Dr Nazir-Ali finds himself isolated from colleagues. #

Contractors beheaded in web video

   The Sunday Times Online, (Perth, W. Australia), www.news.com. au/perthnow/ story/0,21598, 23272321- 950,00.html , 02:25pm, February 25, 2008
   From correspondents in Dubai –
   AN Iraqi militant group has posted a video on the internet showing the killings of 12 Nepalese men who worked for a Nepalese company with a US contract.
   A militant beheaded one of the men with a knife.
   The rest were shot in the back while laying face down in a sandy lot, the video, posted by an Islamist group called the Army of Ansar al-Sunna, showed. #

[Sharia law depresses rights of women, widows, and children.]

   From An Informed Source, Letter to an Anglican archbishop, February 26, 2008
   Dear Rev. Sir,
   Sharia law is the law of a warrior religion, based on man-made doctrines masquerading as orders from Heaven.
   Acquiring knowledge about the Koran, the Hadith, the Sira, etc., requires much reading.  To assist, the comments on the back of the "WA" editorial [Feb 12, 2008], and two pages of the Koran Key, are enclosed.
   If you think that sharia law could assist in women's matters, such as divorce and custody of children, and a widow's rights – God bless you!
   Yours truly, [Signed]
   P.S.: Would the slaves of Muslims be allowed to appeal to civil courts in Australia?

Muslim mum discrimination case headed to Supreme Court

   The Local, Sweden, http://www.thelocal.se/10128/20080227/ , and at www.religion newsblog.com/ 20787/ islamic- extremism-48 , Feb. 27, 2008
   SWEDEN – The City of Gothenburg has appealed to Sweden's highest court to avoid paying damages to two Muslim mothers who were kicked out of a swimming pool for not removing their veils.
   A month ago, the Court of Appeal for western Sweden found the city guilty of ethnic discrimination and ordered it to pay the women 20,000 kronor ($3,230) each in damages.
   The city had been sued by the Discrimination Ombudsman (DO).
   The women, Houda Morabet and Hayal Eroglu, were at the pool accompanying their children but had no intention of swimming themselves.
   Both were wearing veils, long pants and long-sleeved tee-shirts because their religion does not allow them to reveal parts of their body in public.
   The life guards considered the women's clothing hazardous as it could inhibit their ability to swim if they fell into the pool.
   The District Court had ruled in favor of the city, but the Court of Appeal overturned the decision, finding that the women were subject to discrimination when the life guards demanded the women change clothes or leave the swimming pool area.
   The city is now asking for a hearing in front of the Supreme Court. #

Too much ignorance about Islam

     The West Australian, Letter to The Editor, p 22, Thursday, February 28, 2008
   According to the Oxford Dictionary, the meaning of ignorance is lack of knowledge or information.
   Certainly there is plenty of it shown in all the recent letters referring to Islam, Muslims and sharia law.
   To the ignorant non-Muslims, do not judge Islam by what you see ignorant Muslims doing.  Unless you have sufficient knowledge you will never be able to define the difference between what is correct Islamic living and what are the cultural practices that misrepresent Islam.
   I want to draw your attention to some major misconceptions that are perhaps perpetuated by ignorant Muslims themselves.
   You cannot be forced into Islam; it identifies very clearly that mankind is given the ability of free choice above all the creations of God.
   You cannot force a Muslim woman into marriage; she has the right to decline any offer of marriage.  To say that women have fewer rights than men is incorrect; they, in fact, have many more rights than men.
   The penalty for adultery is the same for both genders; execution is not just for women.
   Women who wear the niqab are not oppressed; it is the non-Muslim women who suffer sexist harassment and exploitation who are truly oppressed.
   Be honest here:  Western men use sex to sell almost anything you can think of from ice-cream to cars, beer to soft drinks.  Would they exploit their own daughters and mothers?  Islam (God) orders Muslim men to "lower their gaze", no perving at women, no wolf-whistling, no sexist flirtations.  There are too many misconceptions to address here.
   My challenge to you is to research for yourselves what is Islam, investigate for yourselves these words: Tawheed, Salah, Zakat, Imaan, Taqwa, Tauba and Dunya.  There is a lot you need to know before you come anywhere close to having an educated opinion.
   And think about this:  a $40 million a year social debt related to alcohol; homes lost and families destroyed due to the rise in interest rates; an advertising campaign currently running on TV to stem the spread of STDs because of uncontrolled sex; and smoking is killing how many Australians at what cost?  Islam prohibits all of these social cancers – and more.  These prohibitions are not to oppress us, but to liberate us from our own self-destruction.
   If you take the time to open your hearts and minds and learn for yourself about Islam, you will see that it is about submission and obedience to God and not to the desires of mankind.  So don't be ignorant, educate yourselves.
   Finally, I leave you with this beautiful verse from the Koran: (Surah 109) Al Kafiroon: "Say unbelievers. I do not worship what you worship.  Nor do you worship what I worship.  I shall never worship what you worship.  Neither will you worship what I worship.  For you your belief, but I have my religion." Hamzah bin Talib, Maylands.

Ignorance of war and other bad texts

     From an Informed Source, Letter to the Editor of The West Australian, sent Thursday, February 28, 2008
   Yes, Hamzah bin Talib, there is too much ignorance about Islam (Letters 28/2).  Every point in your letter is contradicted in the writings and in history, but let me discuss your claim that "You cannot be forced into Islam."
   Bukhari's Hadith reports that Umar said [4, 53:386]: "I would like to consult you regarding these countries which I intend to invade." ( http://www. usc.edu/ dept/MSA/ fundamentals/ hadithsunnah/ bukhari/053. sbt.html# 004.053.386 ) .   Was this the planning for the unprovoked invasion and overthrow of the old Persian Empire, and the seizure of huge tracts of Middle Eastern and north African land ruled by the Christian Roman Empire of the East?
   Islam is warlike, and the foundation for fighting and killing includes at least 36 texts, including the Koran 8:39 (or 8:40), and let me quote 2:193 (or 2:189): "… Fight the unbelievers until no other religion except Islam is left."  ( http://www. usc.edu/ dept/MSA/ quran/002. qmt.html# 002.193 )
   Another, which shows why Islamists can become terrorists, is the Koran 8:12: "… I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Therefore strike off their heads and strike off every fingertip of them." ( http://www.usc. edu/dept/ MSA/quran/ 008.qmt.html# 008.012 )
   The degradation of women, including an order to beat them if the husband even suspects they might be disobedient, at Koran 4:34 (or 4:38), makes even the home a place of warfare, and women the long-term victims of the culture.
   Nearer to our own times, how many know that the Barbary Coast pirates and slavers were following the Koran teachings favouring slavery, such as 4:92 (or 4:93), and this classic text still being invoked today: 24:33 (or 24:34) "… You shall not force your slave-girls into prostitution in order that you may enrich yourselves, if they wish to preserve their chastity. If anyone compels them, Allah will be forgiving and merciful to them."  ( http://www. usc.edu/ dept/MSA/ quran/024. qmt.html# 024.033 ).   Isn't that nice! Allah will forgive the enslaved and debauched women!  But there is no mention of the slave-trader's evil, and the clients of the woman – they are MEN, so guilt is not mentioned in the text!
   What religion was invoked by the Mahdi of Khartoum, whom General Gordon fought against?  Whose bullets killed the Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics?  Whose explosives went under the World Trade Centre years ago?  What scriptures were quoted after the aircraft smashed into the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon on 9/11?  What religion's courts are still sentencing the VICTIMS of rape to death, saying they are fornicators or adulterers?  It isn't the Calathumpian religion!
   Islam does not mean peace. It means submission to human beings, who tell their followers they are submitting to the invisible Allah, although in reality they are submitting to the visible men who lead them, quoting religious writings so bad that this week we read that the Turkish Muslim scholars want to rewrite the Hadith.  I'd like to see that!
   And in answer to 109:6 saying "For you your belief, but I have my religion," let me quote Koran 3:83 (or 3:77): "Are they seeking a religion other than Allah's, when every soul in the heavens and the earth has submitted to Him, willingly or by compulsion?" ( http://www. usc.edu/ dept/MSA/ quran/003. qmt.html# 003.083 )
   Letters to the Editor, WA Newspapers, GPO Box N1027 Perth WA 6843. Fax 08 9482 3830. E-mail to: letters@wa news.com.au

Thanks for the lesson

     The West Australian, Various Letters to The Editor, p 17, Friday, February 29, 2008

Thanks for the lesson

   I read with interest the letter from Hamzah bin Talib (Too much ignorance about Islam, 28/2),
   All I can say is thank you, Mr Talib, for educating us.  Now we have been informed that Islam is about "submission and obedience" to God, I am eternally grateful that I live in Australia where we have "freedom".  So on Saturday when I tuck into bacon and eggs for breakfast, walk down the street seeing women and girls walking by themselves and then I enjoy a beer at a social event later in the day (and not driving afterwards) I am comfortable that in Australia I am not breaking the law.
   Sure, we have problems here in relation to alcohol, smoking, sex and other social issues, but at least in Australia we have the freedom to be able to make our own mistakes in life (and hopefully learn from them) rather than be dictated to by barbaric and sexist laws created from the imagination of some guy in the early 7th century who claimed that an angel dictated the Koran to him over a 10-year period.  The only story that is about as far-fetched is the one about some guy who was born from a virgin, was eventually crucified and then he was resurrected a couple of days later.
   The world has progressed beyond believing these fairy stories, Mr Talib, but amazingly Islam has more than a billion followers and still a big percentage of the population gullibly follows these rules and laws.  The Koran, the New Testament and all other religious books were written by men who cannot substantiate these writings with any proof.
   God did not come down from the heavens with a typewriter or pen and paper.  I will continue to follow the laws of my country and live my life in freedom, treating people how I would expect to be treated myself.  Mr Talib, you can please yourself, but please adhere to the laws of the country you live in.  May sharia law never be a consideration here.
   I note that you quoted Surah 109 to the readers of The West Australian, rather than Surah 108.  How convenient (I have read the Koran).

Was he joking?

   Hamzah bin Talib would have expected to receive some feedback following his letter about Westerners' ignorance of Muslims.  One believes that it is the desire of Islam to see the whole Earth filled with Islamists. To say any different would be false.  That Muslim devotees, especially in developing countries, use arms to "persuade" people to change their beliefs is part of developing history.  Ask the victims' families of the Bali bombers what they think, especially faced with the smiling faces of the bombers who say we deserved it.
   One knows of the disparity between punishment for men and women for alleged sexual misconduct. What about education for women and driving licences?   Should one go on?
   The greatest "joke" in Mr Talib's letter is the part about smoking causing problems, given that the majority of heroin is grown by and sent into the world by Muslims.
   Mr Talib is able, without risk, to write and then have published his views because of the democracy he enjoys.  Would Christians in Islamic coimtries be given such liberties?  I think not.

Your choice

   I wholeheartedly agree with Hamzah bin Talib's comments.  It is also true that a Muslim could face death should he wish to convert to Christianity, as such was the case in Afghanistan which was widely reported not only in this paper but throughout the world.  Free choice does not seem to work both ways.
   As for women having more rights than men, please consider that in Islam a man can divorce his wife for any reason by simply saying three times "I divorce you", but the woman cannot initiate a divorce, nor can she marry four husbands.  The man has the right to four wives.
   Men are regarded as superior to women.  The hadiths also make it clear that men can beat their wives for complaining.  Also, because of their inferior position, no woman is allowed to be a judge, an imam, a guardian or head of state.  The wearing of the veil is a symbol of servitude which keeps women in a state of second-class citizenship.
   As for sexist advertising, this does normally result in the exploitation of mothers and daughters.  However, wolf-whistling and sexist flirtations are considered to be minor when we remember the Sydney youths who savagely gang-raped the infidel girls.
   We live in a free democratic society, which may be the reason so many are leaving Islamic regimes to seek refuge in this country.  This is your choice – and that is the truth.

Two terror suspects to remain in custody

   The Local (Sweden's News in English), www.thelocal. se/10190/ 20080229/ , 08 17:01 CET, Feb 29, 2008
   SWEDEN – Two men, 37 and 42, are to be detained in custody following their arrest on Thursday on suspicion of preparing acts of terrorism, a court in Stockholm ruled on Friday.
  

Non-Muslims under Islam

 
   Barnabas Aid magazine, www. barnabas fund.org , 4-page Pull-out Supplement, March-April 2008

This series of pull-out supplements is intended to provide background information for Christians seeking to understand the nature of Islam and its contemporary expression.  One aspect of this relates to understanding the reason for the oppression and persecution of Christians in various Islamic parts of the world, and another to the growing challenge which Islam poses to Western society, culture and Church.

   It is often said nowadays that Islam has always been a peaceful and tolerant religion in which non-Muslim minorities flourished undisturbed, with Jews and Christians respectfully treated as equals by the Muslim majority. The well-known scholar of Islam, Bernard Lewis, criticises this myth as a recent invention which has no base in history:

It is only very recently that some defenders of Islam have begun to assert that their society in the past accorded equal status to non-Muslims.  No such claim is made by spokesmen for resurgent Islam, and historically there is no doubt that they are right.  Traditional Islamic societies neither accorded such equality nor pretended that they were so doing.  Indeed, in the old order, this would have been regarded not as a merit but as a dereliction of duty.  How could one accord the same treatment to those who follow the true faith and those who wilfully reject it?  This would be a theological as well as a logical absurdity. ¹

   This article looks at how Islam treats non-Muslims of various kinds, both in history and in theology. Muhammad set the tone shortly before his death by stating his intention of cleansing the Arabian peninsula of all non-Muslims.

It has been narrated by 'Umar b. al-Khattab 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. (Sahih Muslim, Book 019, Number 4366).

   The traditional Islamic view is that God has made Muslims superior to all other people.  According to the Qur'an, Muslims are "the best of peoples" Q 3:110 [or 3:106]. ²  All relationships with non-Muslims have to serve the principle of honouring and strengthening Islam and Muslims.  Muslims must be dominant and non-Muslims subordinate.  In an Islamic state, only Muslims have full citizenship rights.
   Even today, many Muslims accept it as natural and normal for non-Muslims to be despised and discriminated against.  They feel that it is quite proper for non-Muslims to be restricted in the public expression of their faiths and quite improper for a Muslim to submit to a non-Muslim in marriage, at work or in the political sphere.
   Muslim attitudes to non-Muslims are based on the Qur'an, on Muhammad's example, on the example of the early Islamic state under the four "rightly-guided caliphs", and on Islamic law (shari'a) as it developed in the classical age.
Muhammad and non-Muslims
Pagans
   Muhammad totally rejected the polytheistic pagan idolatry of pre-Islamic Arabia. During his early years in Mecca he patiently suffered persecution at the hand of the Arab pagans without retaliation. However, once he had moved to Medina and gained political power there, he demanded that all Arab pagans submit and convert to Islam or else be killed. The final development in Muhammad's attitude to pagans is given in the Qur'ans so-called "sword verse":

But when the forbidden months are past, then fight and slay the pagans wherever ye find them, and seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem (of war). (Q 9:5)

Jews and Christians
   Muhammad saw the monotheistic faiths, Islam and Christianity, as a different category from paganism. At first he even recognised their validity, but in Medina he gradually turned against his Jewish allies who persistently refused to accept his claim to be a prophet and would not practise the new religious customs he introduced. This friction with Jews, and later with various Christian communities, hardened his position as to the absolute superiority of Islam.
   Muhammad fought the Jewish tribes, massacred many of their men, enslaving their women and children, and expelled others from their lands near Medina to areas further north. The gradual hardening of Muhammad's attitude can be seen in the Qur'an where the later chapters, dating from his time in Medina, are much harsher towards pagans, Jews and Christians than the chapters dating from his early years in Mecca.
   According to the Qur'an, Christians are blasphemers because they say that Christ is God and believe in the Trinity:

They do blaspheme who say: "God is Christ the son of Mary." But said Christ: "0 children of Israel! worship God my Lord and your Lord." Whoever joins other gods with God - God will forbid him the Garden and the Fire will be his abode. There will for the wrong-doers be no one to help. They do blaspheme who say: God is one of three in a Trinity: for there is no god except One God. If they desist not from their word (of blasphemy) verily a grievous penalty will befall the blasphemers among them. (Q 5:75-76) [5:72-73]

   According to the Qur'an Jews are under God's wrath and curse for rejecting the message of the prophets and of Jesus:
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¹ Bernard Lewis, The Jews of Islam (Princeton University Press, 1987) p.4.
² Quotations from the Qur'an are taken from A. Yusuf Ali, The Holy Quran: Text, Translation and Commentary (The Islamic Foundation, 1975.)

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{ii}

Curses were pronounced on those among the Children of Israel who rejected Faith by the tongue of David and of Jesus the son of Mary: because they disobeyed and persisted in Excesses.  Nor did they (usually) forbid one another the iniquities which they committed:  evil indeed were the deeds which they did.   Thou seest many of them turning in friendship to the Unbelievers.  Evil indeed are (the works) which their souls have sent forward before them (with the result) that God's wrath is on them and in torment will they abide. (Q 5:81-83) [or 5:78-80, or 5:82-83]

   Therefore Christians and Jews are joint targets of hostility:

0 ye who believe! Take not the Jews and the Christians for your friends and protectors: they are but friends and protectors to each other. And he amongst you that turns to them (for friendship) is of them. Verily God guideth not a people unjust. (Q 5:54) [or 5:51 or 5:56]

   They must be fought until they humbly submit to the rule of Islam:

Fight those who believe not in God nor the Last Day nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by God and His apostle, nor acknowledge the Religion of Truth (even if they are) of the People of the Book until they pay the Jizya with willing submission and feel themselves subdued. (Q 9:29)

Shari'a and non-Muslims
   The shari'a (Islamic law) was compiled at a time of Muslim dominance during the days of the Abbasid Empire. It is therefore based on the assumption that political power is in the hands of Muslims, and it contains many detailed rules about non-Muslims, rules which set boundaries between them and the Muslims, and ensure the latter's superiority. Discrimination on grounds of religion is therefore fundamental to shari'a.
   According to shari'a, all non-Muslims are basically defined as kafirun or kuffar (singular kafir, with various alternative spellings), meaning unbelievers or infidels.  This is a term of contempt and abhorrence.  Dr Taj Hargey, Chairman of the Muslim Education Centre Oxford (MECO), stated last year:

The word kafftr is a very pejorative, negative, disparaging term. When you call someone a kaffir, they are not worthy to be associated with. ³

   Within the larger category of the kafirun are several subdivisions:

1. The pagan idolatrous polytheists (mushrikun), who worship other than the one true God.  These are to be fought and killed unless they convert to Islam.
2. The People of the Book (Ahl al-Kitab), so-called because they had received a written revelation from the one God.  This category comprises Jews, Christians, Sabeans (followers of John the Baptist) and sometimes Zoroastrians.  However they are charged with having misunderstood the original revelation, added to it, changed it and corrupted it, and with having deified human beings, associating them with God.  They were allowed to keep their faith and their life provided they submitted to Muslim rule under various humiliating conditions.  Their status was defined as Ahl al-Dhimma (people of the pact).
3. Muslim apostates or renegades (murtaddun).  These may be outright converts from Islam to another faith, or blasphemers, heretics (mulhidun) and denier's of the main doctrines of Islam.  This category includes Muslim individuals and sects who have deviated from orthodox Islam.

Jihad and non-Muslims
   According to classical Islamic doctrine, jihad is the God-given method for dealing with non-Muslims and for the expansion of Islam's political dominion into non-Muslim territory. Pagans who did not convert to Islam were killed. Jews and Christians, on the other hand, were allowed to keep their faith and live, but only if they submitted to Islamic domination. After a Muslim conquest, any sign of discontent amongst the subjugated Jews and Christians was considered to revoke the pact of submission/protection and require further jihad against them. ⁴
   It is clear from documents of the time that early jihad campaigns brought misery to the conquered non-Muslims. Muslim writers often claim that the Islamic conquests brought liberation to oppressed people and tolerance to all religious communities. But the accounts of Christians, Jews and others who were on the receiving end are very different, and even Muslim historians recorded large-scale brutality. Jihad was all too frequently accompanied by destruction of cities, the killing of captured soldiers, the massacre of civilians, looting, widespread slavery, forced conversions to Islam, the seizing of non-Muslim lands and heavy taxation. ⁵
Status of pagans
   Relations between Muhammad and his pagan relatives and neighbours were tense from the beginning. shari'a forbade any social interaction such as sharing of food or intermarriage between Muslims and pagans. Pagans were to be fought by jihad until they submitted and converted to Islam, or were killed or enslaved. In historical reality, all the Arabian tribes were forced to become Muslims by the first caliphs. In later conquered areas such as India, where polytheists were very numerous, many were initially slaughtered, but the sheer number of polytheists in the conquered territories made the command to kill them impractical in reality, Later some Muslim scholars gave Hinduism the same status as Judaism and Christianity, but other scholars disputed this.
Status of Jews and Christians
   Jews and Christians were defined in shari'a as dhimmis, that is, subjugated second-class people given protection by the Muslim state. Protection meant that they were allowed to keep their non-Muslim faith yet not be killed (unlike pagans). However, this arrangement - protection in return for submission - held only as long the dhimmis did not carry weapons, knew their lowly place in society, treated Muslims with respect, and paid a demeaning poll tax called jiyza. Numerous petty laws restricted and humiliated Jews and Christians in their daily lives. They were only allowed to worship within their synagogues and churches, not in public space. Church bells were not allowed to be rung. New church buildings were not allowed, nor could existing churches be repaired. Dhimmis could not testify in a shari'a court against a Muslim. Finally, dhimmis were not
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³ "Undercover Mosque", transcript, Dispatches, TV Channel 4, broadcast 15 January 2007, http://www.islamicpluralism.org/news/2007n/undercovermosquesscript.pdf , viewed 7 January 2008.
⁴ Patrick Sookhdeo, Global Jihad: The Future in the Face of Militant Islam (Isaac Publishing, 2007), especially chapters 4 and 5.
⁵ Patrick Sookhdeo, Global Jihad: The Future in the Face of Militant Islam (Isaac Publishing, 2007), p. 244-268.

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{iii}   [Picture] Egypt. In accordance with shari'a, the minaret of the mosque is higher than the towers of the nearby church. Islam teaches that non-Muslim faiths and their followers must always be seen to be of lesser status than Islam and Muslims  
to be given any public office that placed them in a position of authority over Muslims. At best, they could serve their Muslim rulers in administrative capacities, and any signs of "arrogance" were harshly punished. It is narrated that the Caliph Umar refused to employ Christians in positions of power, saying:

I will not honour them when God has degraded them; I will not glorify them whenGod has humiliated them; I will not bring them near when God has set them far. ⁶

   The ancient Christian communities that have survived under Muslim rule, such as the Copts in Egypt or the Assyrians in Iraq, see their history as a long series of persecutions, massacres, forced conversions, and destroyed churches. They feel themselves to be a subjugated people precariously surviving among a dominant and hostile Muslim majority. Martyrdom and suffering have a high symbolic meaning as they perceive themselves facing a constant threat to their very existence.
   During the colonial period, the practice of shari'a was partly dismantled in several Muslim states, being replaced to some extent by Western codes of law. The rise of secular and socialist forms of nationalism at the end of the colonial period brought a temporary reprieve from traditional Muslim hostility to non-Muslims. There were great hopes of creating new national identities across religious and ethnic divides.
   However, since independence in the mid-twentieth century, many Muslim states have reintroduced shari'a as a main source of their legal systems, and many modern Islamist movements are demanding a greater use of shari'a.
   Furthermore, whether or not shari'a is officially implemented, the long history of its application still influences attitudes of Muslim communities around the globe. The result is that Christians (and Jews when they were present) in Muslim countries are commonly despised and discriminated against by officialdom and by society at large. They find it hard to get jobs, are not treated as equals in the law-courts, and are often harassed by the security services.
   The current growth of Islamism is fuelling an increasing hostility to non-Muslims. Indigenous Christians are often assumed to be Western collaborators and spies in the . heart of Islam. These attitudes are eroding the hard-won freedoms inherited from the colonial and independence era. Discrimination, persecution and attacks against Christians are on the increase in many Muslim states.
Status of apostates from Islam
   According to Islamic theology, apostasy is one of the few sins God cannot forgive. All schools of shari'a agree that adult male apostates from Islam should be killed, and various other punishments are specified as well. The punishment for women apostates varies, but in some schools of law it is also a death sentence. Even where the death sentence is not carried out, apostates face severe penalties such as exile, disinheritance, loss of possessions, threats, beatings, torture, and prison, and the marriages of apostates may be automatically dissolved.
   The Qur'an does not have any unambiguous commands to kill apostates, but hadith traditions claim that Muhammad said, "Whoever changed his [Islamic] religion, then kill him" (Bukhari, Volume 9, Book 84, Number 57). Other hadiths record how apostates were killed on Muhammad's orders. Hence the death penalty for apostates in shari'a.
   Soon after Muhammad's death in 632 various groups of Arabs rebelled against their Islamic rulers. They were all branded apostates by the first caliph, Abu Bakr (632-634). The fighting that followed was known as the Wars of Apostasy, and a number of Arabs were burned to death by the renowned general Khalid ibn al-Walid for refusing to return to Islam. Abu Bakr insisted on dealing ruthlessly with the rebel apostates, following the example of Muhammad, despite the hesitation of many others in Medina.
   In shari'a apostasy (irtidad) has always been linked to unbelief, blasphemy and heresy, terms which are sometimes used interchangeably. All are regarded as serious crimes, and they are often combined in prosecutions in spite of the different categories of shari'a criminal law they fall under. ⁷  Muslims who accept teachings considered heretical by orthodox Islam are held by shari'a to have reverted to paganism and therefore to deserve the death penalty.
   While apostate (murtadd) usually refers to a Muslim who has converted to another faith, others who consider themselves to be Muslims can be accused of unbelief, blasphemy and heresy as well as of apostasy for various other causes, including scepticism, atheism, and not fully implementing shari'a. The process of denouncing someone else as an apostate is called takfir, the significance being that the "apostate" is then considered liable to the death sentence. Many liberal or secularist Muslims have found
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⁶ Ibn Qutayba, Uyun al-Akhbar, Vol. 1 (Cairo, 1962), p. 43. (Isaac Publishing, 2002), pp. 243, 297-302.
⁷ Patrick Sookhdeo, A People Betrayed: The Impact of Islamization on the Christian Community in Pakistan (Isaac Publishing, 2002), pp. 243, 297-302.

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{iv} themselves classified as apostates for views which the religious establishment or militant Islamist groups hold to be heretical. Some have been assassinated and others have been convicted by the courts of apostasy and had to flee to the West for safety. ⁸  Muslim "heretical" sects are severely persecuted. This is especially true of the Ahmadiyyas in Pakistan and of the Bahais in Iran.
   For most Muslims, apostasy still carries strongly negative connotations of betrayal of one's community and rejection of one's heritage. This attitude explains why so few Muslim voices are ever raised in defence of people accused of apostasy.
   Apostates bring terrible shame on their families. Converts to Christianity are normally rejected by their families and in danger of being killed by individuals and persecuted by Muslim states. Even in Britain, the growing numbers of British Muslims who convert to Christianity face severe persecution. They are not just shunned by their family and community, but experience harassment, violent attacks, kidnappings and outright attempts at murder.
Forced conversions   ⁹
   Sharia permits the forced conversion to Islam of pagans, prisoners of war, female slaves, captured and abandoned children, and apostates. Historical Islamic practice often went far beyond these boundaries. By defining various population groups as pagans, permission was given for their forcible conversion.
   In the early centuries of Islam, Christian Arab tribes sometimes faced efforts at forced conversion. For example, Umair ibn-Sa'd, governor of Homs under Caliph Umar (634-644), was in the habit of forcing Christian Arab tribes to convert to Islam. The Banu Taghlib Christian tribes of north-west Syria surprised him with their firm refusal to embrace Islam.
   Bar Hebraeus (1226-1286), a scholarly bishop, reported that under the Abbasid Caliph al-Mahdi, 5,000 Christian Arabs of the Tannukh tribe were forcibly converted to Islam.
   When the Almohad Muslims conquered the province of Ifriqiyya (modern Tunisia) they offered Jews and Christians the choice between conversion to Islam or death. Similar policies were followed in other areas in North Africa and Spain that came under Almohad control. Many thousands who refused to convert were slaughtered.
   In the various Muslim conquests in India, many forced conversions of Hindus are mentioned, for example, during Mahmud of Ghazni's campaign (1013-1014), under Jalal-ud-Din of Bengal (1414-1430), in the early years of the Mughal Emperor Akbar (1556-1605), under Shah Jehan, (1626-1658) and under Emperor Aurangzeb (1658-1707).
   From time to time the Ottomans tried forced [? to force] conquered populations to convert to Islam. For example, Sultan Selim I (1512-1520) organised a number of conversion campaigns, including converting the Bulgarians. In the next century forced conversion among the inhabitants of the Rodope and Pirin mountains from 1666 to 1670 created a new population group named the Pomaks (Christian Bulgarian Slavs converted to Islam).
   There were repeated forcible conversions of Jews to Islam in Persia. The first was under Shah Abbas II, who in 1656 ordered all Jews in his kingdom to become Muslims. The newly converted Jews where known as jadid al-Islam (literally, the new of Islam). Forced conversions occurred as late as 1839 in the city of Mashad.
   At the turn of the eighteenth century Shah Sultan Hossein (1694-1722) issued a decree that all Zoroastrians should convert to Islam or face the consequences. Many were slaughtered and the others converted to Islam.
   Forced conversions to Islam have recently taken place in Sudan during the civil war which ended in 2005, and in Indonesia during the 1998-2002 jihadi attacks on Christians in the Malukus and in Central Sulawesi.
Conclusion
   The positive attitude of Muhammad early in his career to Jews and Christians had no lasting effect in Islam, because it was over-ridden by his later hostile attitude. The shari'a, based on the later dated verses in the Qur'an and on the hadith traditions describing what Muhammad said and did, enshrined an attitude of hostility and contempt towards non-Muslims. Centuries of applying shari'a has created a general Muslim attitude of contempt for non-Muslims so that even in modern secular Muslim states which have constitutionally guaranteed equal rights to all citizens, non-Muslims are discriminated against in numerous ways. With the contemporary rise of Islamism and militant Islam, non-Muslim minorities in Muslim countries face increasing pressure, harassment and restrictions.
   © Barnabas Fund, 2008
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⁸ "The Application of the Apostasy Law in the World Today", Barnabas Fund, http://www. barnabasfund. org/News/ archives/ article.php? ID_news_ items=294
⁹ Patrick Sookhdeo, Global Jihad: The Future in the Face of Militant Islam (Isaac Publishing, 2007), pp.240-244.
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Gunmen grab bishop

   The Sunday Times (Perth, W. Australia), p 40, Sunday, March 2, 2008
   BAGHDAD:  A Chaldean Catholic archbishop was kidnapped by gunmen in Iraq's restive northern city of Mosul after a shootout killed his three companions.
   Faraj-Farraj Rahhu, the archbishop of Mosul, was seized after two bodyguards and his driver were killed, said Brigadier General Khalid Abd al-Sattar.
   Pope Benedict XVI [Ratzinger] condemned the kidnapping as an "atrocious act which touches the whole of the church" in Iraq, and expressed his "bitterness," a statement from the Vatican said, calling it a premeditated attack.
   The Pope also expressed solidarity with the head of the Chaldean Catholic Church in Iraq, Patriarch Emmanuel III Delly, and all the Christian community as well as the families of the victims.
   Archbishop Rahhu, seized while on his way home after a religious ceremony, is the latest Christian cleric to be abducted in Iraq since the US-led invasion in March 2003.
   The Syrian-Catholic Archbishop of Mosul, Monsignor Basil Georges Casmoussa, was kidnapped in January 2005 and held for a day before being released.  Early last June, Chaldean priest Ragheed Ganni, 31, and three assistants were shot dead outside Mosul's Holy Spirit Church.  At the time, the Pope sent a telegram to Archbishop Rahhu to convey his condolences and express sadness over the "senseless killings", the Vatican said.
   Three days later another Chaldean priest, Hani Abdel Ahad, and five parishioners were kidnapped in Baghdad.
   The previous month, Chaldean priest Nawzat Hanna was kidnapped in the capital, but released two days later.
   In October, Iraqi Roman Catholic priests Pius Affas and Mazen Ishoa, from Mosul, were released alive and well after more than a week in captivity.
   In November 2006, Chaldean priest Douglas al-Bazi went missing in Baghdad.  Three months earlier another member of the Chaldean church, Father Saad Syrop, was abducted in Baghdad.  Their fate is unknown.
   The Chaldeans are the largest group of Christians in Iraq.  They were said to number as many as 800,000 before the coalition invasion nearly flve years ago.
   Associated with Crusades' invaders, they are victims of sectarian cleansing, killings and kidnappings by Sunni and Shiite Islamists, as well as criminal gangs. Their churches have been bombed and homes confiscated. #

Finding common ground between Muslims and Christians

   On Line Opinion (Australia's free Internet journal of social and political debate), www.online opinion.com. au/view. asp? article= 7067&page=0 , by David Palmer, posted Monday, March 3, 2008
   AUSTRALIA – In response to Pope Benedict XVI's [Ratzinger] well publicised 2006 Regensburg address in which some mildly critical observations were offered in relation to Islam, 138 Muslim religious and political leaders at the end of Ramadan last year sent out a remarkable open letter, entitled A Common Word between Us and You. The letter was addressed to the Pope, 20 Orthodox Patriarchs and Leaders of all the main Protestant groupings. According to those knowledgeable, while some of the signatories are known for their moderation and peaceful intentions, others are Wahhabists, Deobandists and members of the Muslim Brotherhood.
   The following month, a rather enthusiastic response from 300, mainly Protestant, leaders both liberal and evangelical, took the form of a full page advertisement in The New York Times entitled "Loving God and Neighbour Together".
   A Common Word begins by stating that since Muslims and Christians account for more than half the world's population, "the future of the world depends on peace between Muslims and Christians". The letter then draws attention to what is said to be held in common between Christians and Muslims - the Unity of God and the necessity of love for Him and neighbour, all of which is supported by quotations drawn from the Koran and the Bible. These three matters are said to serve as the basis for their invitation to Christians "to come together with us on the basis of what is common to us".
   From the responses to date it is clear that, during the course of 2008 and beyond, there will be discussions between groups of Muslims and Christians. Thus the Vatican's response has been to invite representatives of the 138 Muslim scholars to a meeting with the Pope but is otherwise subdued, noting as a fact that differences between Christians and Muslims cannot be "ignored or downplayed".
   This caution on the part of the Vatican is appropriate for it is quite clear that the Muslim's explication of the Unity of God and the Koranic texts selected to illustrate the doctrine can be read as a classic example of Islamic mission (Da'wa) - in this case addressed to the topmost echelons of the world wide Church of Jesus Christ!
   In other words, the letter from the 138 Muslim scholars and leaders is an invitation to the Church's leaders to become Muslims, and will be read as such by knowledgeable Muslims generally. No one should be in any doubt on this point, least of all those proposing to meet with these scholars. The lack of response of the Orthodox Patriarchs to A Common Word, because of the long and bitter experience of the Eastern Church living under militant Islam, rather underscores this understanding of the Muslims' letter.
   However, it is still good that Christian leaders should, with open eyes, accept the letter at face value, as a genuine call to dialogue with a view at the very least to reducing tensions between Christians and Muslims. This certainly is owed to those moderate Muslims who have signed A Common Word, and who are unlikely to press the call for submission.
   In the second place, Christian leaders for their part, out of loyalty to Christ and His Church must make clear their own adherence to the far richer revelation of the triune God given through Scripture and in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ. To do otherwise would be a betrayal.
   Then too, importantly, there will be opportunity to press issues such as the right of both Muslims and Christians anywhere to worship freely and to proselytise, even the right to proselytise persons of each other's faith, the right of non Muslim minorities together with their religious institutions to share fully in an unhindered way, in the life of their respective nations as well as the right of persons to change their religion without fear of interference, persecution, or death at the hands of the State or other persons, including family members.
   This is an issue of reciprocity since Muslims living in the West already enjoy these rights.
   But how easy will such discussions be?
   Quite apart from the issue of getting some uniformity of agreement from internally disparate groupings of Muslims and Christians, itself a major issue, the difficulties at the Muslim Christian divide are considerable.
   In the first place agreeing on what the unity of God means is impossible and should not be even attempted, even for those Christians who might wish to affirm that Muslims and Christians worship the same God.
   The second difficulty concerns the Islamic understanding of terms used in A Common Word, terms which would be understood quite differently by Christians. For example, the meaning of "freedom of religion" for a Muslim means freedom to practice Islam alone. As previously noted, the term "unity of God" constitutes a rejection of the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. Also problematic is the Islamic use of "devotion" as a synonym for "love".
   The immutability of the Islamic sacred texts represents a third difficulty. These texts contain many alarming things for Christians and persons of other faiths. The classic example is Sura 9.29 which reads, quoting from the Noble Koran translation of Dr Hilali and Dr Khan, published by Maktaba Dar-us-Salam, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, "Fight against those who believe not in Allah, nor in the Last Day, nor forbid that which has been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger and those who acknowledge not the religion of truth (i.e. Islam) among the people of the Scripture (Jews and Christians) until they pay the jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued". The Noble Koran adds a footnote to the effect that the jizya is a tax levied from the non Muslim people (Jews and Christians), who are under the protection of a Muslim government.
   Aside from Islamic teaching, the history of Muslim Christian relations clearly tells us that Islam has never been at peace with Christianity. As Bernard Lewis (in The Crisis of Islam: Holy War and Unholy Terror), renowned authority on Islamic affairs points out, "the presumption is that the duty of jihad will continue, interrupted only by truces, until all the world either adopts the Muslim faith or submits to Muslim rule".
   Therefore, getting Muslims to move on issues such as the status of Christians and Jews as second class citizens (dhimmis) in Islamic society and the treatment of apostates (Muslim converts to Christianity) will be extraordinarily difficult.
   A fourth difficulty concerns the Islamic doctrine of taqiyya.
   Whereas for Christians, lying is considered a sin, the use of taqiyya in Islamic jurisprudence and theology, as a precautionary deception and keeping one's convictions secret from unbelievers, is regarded as a virtue and a religious duty. And "unbelievers" is precisely how Muslims consider the Pope and other Christian leaders.
   A major problem, that will frustrate Muslims, concerns the issue of what it is that the Muslims are seeking and this issue is allied to the implied fallacy in A Common Word that Christian leaders can speak for Western nations. This is an understandable confusion for Muslims as Islam is as much a political ideology as a religion in a way that Christianity is not, the Crusades notwithstanding.
   This coalescence of religion and political ideology in Islam helps explain why freedom of religion remains so foreign to it. By issuing this challenge to Christianity, Islam in fact challenges itself to recognise the religious neutrality of the state and therefore religious freedom for all its citizens regardless of their particular religious beliefs.
   So, what are Muslims seeking?
   One answer has already been suggested - the conversion of the Church's leaders, beginning with the Pope. This can be no more than a fond hope, even for the most conservative Muslim.
   Arguably, the main objective for the Muslim political leaders signing A Common Word must be to gain the assistance of Church leaders in bringing the war on terror, or in Muslim eyes the war on Islam, to a speedy end. In this they will be disappointed. The disappointment will not be with the words and actions of church leaders, who with few exceptions will willingly comply, but rather with the discovery that the church leaders' voice will count for so little in determining the course of the war on terror.
   While it would be foolish in the extreme to expect any significant doctrinal accord between Muslims and Christians, yet on the basis of our common humanity and for the sake of the approximately one in ten Christians facing persecution in the world today, much of it from Muslims, we should by all means possible seek mutual understanding and civility in relationships across the Muslim Christian divide. This, I suggest, would be a profoundly Christian thing to do, even if in effect all that is achieved is a truce for a limited time.

Understanding Westerners

     The West Australian, Various Letters to The Editor, p 22, Monday, March 3, 2008

[Why remain in this den of iniquity?]

   Why is it we "ignorant" non-Muslims have to open our hearts and minds to Islam, research and educate ourselves to avoid misconceptions? Has Hamzah bin Talib (Letters, 28/2) ever put himself out to open his heart and mind to our culture, customs and beliefs or merely prejudged us?
   Western men are portrayed as sexual perverts who exploit women:  women are oppressed because they don't wear the niqab and society is obsessed with booze, smoking and (horrors!) uncontrolled sex.  Let alone the rise in interest rates.
   What a mob of hopeless sinners we are.
   I wonder what this person is doing living in our free society while obviously regarding it as a den of iniquity.  This attitude will do little to aid integration, as will covering the female form with veils and robes.
   Do us a favour and go to live in a good Muslim country where the men rule and seem to indulge in street riots every time they perceive any insult to Islam, women are kept in their place (usually home) and it's considered heroic to blow other people up.
   Many illegal drugs are grown in strict Muslim countries and smuggled to the West.  Women might not have to endure wolf-whistling and sexist flirtations (which we are generally capable of handling with tolerance and humour) but rape and domestic violence occur.
   Are victims free to access counselling and legal assistance without being persecuted?  Would we be free to express our opinions of their society in their newspapers?  One thing I agree with is that misconceptions are rife: on both sides of the fence!

[Both genders executed under sharia?]

   I was pleased to be brought to my senses and reminded how ignorant I was of the Muslim faith.  It was good to be reminded of the sins we Westerners should seek to correct by changing our beliefs to those of Islam.
   The fairness of Islam knows no bounds and it was good to be reminded that under sharia law both genders would be executed for committing adultery.  Give me a break.

US sends more to Pakistan war

   The West Australian, http://www.thewest.com.au , [World page edited by Alan Kirk], p 24, Monday, March 3, 2008
   WASHINGTON – The US is planning to step up its military involvement in Pakistan's violent Afghan border region, where suicide bombers claimed scores of lives at the weekend – and the Americans might be joined by British troops.
   The US already has a number of military trainers working with Pakistani security forces fighting al-Qaida insurgents in the region despite Pakistani political sensitivities about foreign troops on its soil.
   The New York Times reported yesterday that the US Defence Department had drafted a plan to send about 100 more trainers into the region.  They would accompany Pakistani security forces on operations to what the newspaper called "the point of contact".
   The paper quoted Defence Department sources as saying there was little likelihood of the number of instructors ballooning into a full-fledged fighting force as had happened during the Vietnam War.
   It said Britain was planning to send additional instructors to Pakistan but quoted British defence sources as declining to comment on the plan.
  [Picture] Alert: Pakistani paramilitary soldiers man a checkpoint set up after a suicide bombing in the town of Mingora, in Pakistan's Swat Valley..    Picture: Associated Press  
   More than 450 people have been killed in militant-related violence in north-western Pakistan this year. Yesterday, a suicide bomber blew himself up and killed at least 40 people at a meeting of tribal elders to discuss security measures in the town of Darra Adam Khel, about 40km south of Peshawar.
   Alam Khan, a tribesman at the meeting, said a young man walked up to a group of elders and blew himself up.  Another tribesman, Ramin Khan, said: "It was a huge explosion and left body parts and blood scattered on the ground."
   He suffered wounds to his left leg and face and was among more than 100 people taken to hospital.
   It was the third suicide bombing in as many days in north-western Pakistan.  On Friday a suicide bomber blew himself up at the funeral of a dead police officer in Mingora town in the Swat Valley, killing more than 40 people and injuring at least 60.
   On Saturday, a suicide bombing in nearby Bajur killed one person and wounded 19 others, mostly security personnel.
   Friday's bombing was the bloodiest attack in the Swat Valley since militant followers of a pro-Taliban cleric, Maulana Fazlullah, grabbed control of large parts of the scenic corner of Pakistan's restive north-west, an apparent reflection of how the Government of President Pervez Musharraf has lost control of parts of the region.
   The suicide bomb campaign intensified after the army stormed the Red Mosque in Islamabad last July to crush a militant student movement.
   The escalating violence has raised concern about the stability of the nuclear-armed state as it passes through a period of political transition with doubts over how long Mr Musharraf can hold power after his allies lost a parliamentary election on February 18.
   The new training program, along with intensified missile strikes in Pakistan against suspected militants, is another sign of the US Government's growing concern and frustration with Pakistan's failure to do more about al-Qaida's movements in the tribal areas.
   The New York Times said the new team of US specialists would help train the Frontier Corps, a paramilitary force of about 85,000 recruited from ethnic groups living on the frontier.
   It quoted Elizabeth Colton, a spokeswoman for the US Embassy in Islamabad, as saying: "The US is bringing in a small number of trainers to assist Pakistan in their efforts to improve training of the Frontier Corps.  The US trainers will be primarily focused on assisting the Pakistan cadre who will do the actual training of the Frontier Corps troops."
   A senior US military official said the trainers initially would be restricted to Pakistani bases, but could eventually accompany Pakistani troops on missions "to the point of contact" with militants.
   Police filed on Saturday formal charges against top Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud and four others of planning the assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto. #

Al-Qaida book deepens Islamic split

   The West Australian, http://www.thewest.com.au , p 30, Tuesday, March 4, 2008
  [Picture] Split: Ayman al-Zawahri hits out at militants who gave up violence.  
   CAIRO – Al-Qaida's chief ideologue and strategist, Ayman al-Zawahri, has published a 212-page book on militant Islamic websites slamming his former radical colleagues in Egyptian jails for disavowing armed struggle and turning their backs against violence.
   The book, released on the websites on Sunday, is the latest salvo in an intellectual war between the ideological founders of al-Qaida and Islamic militants, many of whom have become disillusioned with its trademark suicide bombings and attacks on civilians.
   "This message that I present to the reader today is the most difficult, if not the hardest I have written in my life," al-Zawahri wrote in the introduction to Exonerations, published by al-Sahab, al-Qaida's media wing.
   He criticised a series of "revisions" renouncing violence published by prominent jailed Islamist thinkers, saying "it serves the interests of the Crusader-Zionist alliance with the Arab leaders to drug the mujahideen and drag them away from the confrontation".
   The most recent renunciation came last year from Sayed Imam, who was once a top leader in the Islamic Jihad group in Egypt and an associate of al-Zawahri.
   Imam's writings in the 1980s giving an Islamic legal basis for violent action against "infidel" regimes were highly influential among al-Qaida militants. His "revisions" say that such violence is banned by Islamic law.
   Imam followed in the footsteps of other jailed thinkers over the years from Egypt's radical groups that once fought a bloody guerilla war against the state that resulted in over a thousand deaths and the jailing of tens of thousands but who now condemn armed struggle.
   Experts on Islamist movements say these revisions could rob militant groups such as al-Qaida of the entire ideological basis for their violent actions.
   A video praising recently killed al-Qaida in Afghanistan leader Abu Laith al-Libi issued on Wednesday included an advertisement for the book, describing it as a way to counteract an image of the Islamic world as "helpless, submissive, fearful", the way al-Zawahri said America and the West want Islam to be.
   In the book, al-Zawahri maintains that far from being an internal reappraisal of the movement, these revisions are instigated by the US to weaken a movement that had inflicted so many defeats on America.
   "The entire crime of al-Qaida and the mujahideen is that they have faced the Americans, the Jews and the agents and so American-made propaganda, such as this document, have been unleashed so that the world would forget and ignore the real criminals," he wrote.
   Al-Zawahri – seen by many counterterrorism experts as al-Qaida's operational chief, rather than Osama bin Laden – is believed to have a big part in directing its strategy and issues frequent videos and audiotapes, often laying out its doctrinal line. #

Caversham mosque plan sparks petition

   The West Australian, By DANIEL HATCH, p 39, Tuesday, March 4, 2008
   CAVERSHAM (Perth), W. Australia – At least 144 Swan Valley residents have signed a petition against a Bosnian Islamic Society plan to build a $4 million mosque at Caversham.
   The application to build the 1277sqm mosque with 19m minaret on the Smallbrook Retreat is due to go before council this month.
   "It has raised a lot of community concern and a lot of people would not sign the petition because … they didn't want to look anti-Muslim," Swan Valley Progress Association president Rod Henderson said.
   The association's argument against allowing the mosque to be built on a 9400sqm block on the edge of the valley is that it falls within the Swan Valley Planning Act, which was designed to protect the region from developments that were inconsistent with the tourist, viticultural and horticultural character of the area. #

Pray for us!

Iraqi Christians beg world's believers for prayer after Archbishop's kidnapping, murders of bodyguards Vatican describes kidnapping as "despicable," motive may have been money rather than ideology.
   The Record (R.C. Perth, W. Australia, weekly), by Carol Glatz, (Contributing to this story was John Thavis in Rome), CNS, Pages One and 12, Wednesday, March 5, 2008
   VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Pope Benedict XVI [Ratzinger] appealed for peace and security in Iraq after kidnappers abducted Chaldean Catholic Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho of Mosul, Iraq, and killed the three people who were travelling with him.
  [Picture] Kidnapped: Archbishop Rahho of Mosul, Iraq.    CNS  
   "May those who hold in their hands the fate of the Iraqi people increase their efforts so that through the commitment and wisdom of everyone, Iraqis may regain peace and security and not be denied the future that is rightfully theirs," the Pope said to people gathered for his noonday Angelus prayer in St Peter's Square on March 2.
   Archbishop Rahho was kidnapped late on February 29 after he finished leading the Way of the Cross, Chaldean Bishop Rabban al Qas of Arbil told the Rome-based missionary news service AsiaNews.
  [Picture] Grief: The daughter of a slain bodyguard is held by her mother, right, during his funeral in Mosul, Iraq, on March 1.  The guard was among three men killed in the February 29 abduction of Mosul's Chaldean Catholic Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho.    PHOTO: CNS / REUTERS  
   The Mosul archbishop had just left the Church of the Holy Spirit in Mosul and was in his car with his driver and two bodyguards when the kidnappers attacked.
Iraqis call for global spiritual aid from Christian brothers and sisters
  [Picture] Victim: Chaldean Catholic Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho of Mosul, Iraq, second from left, was kidnapped on February 29 in Mosul. Archbishop Rahho is pictured at the Vatican last November after a papal audience for new cardinals that included Cardinal Emmanuel-Karim Delly of Baghdad, right.    PHOTO: CNS PHOTO / PAUL HARING  
   "The bishop is in the hands of terrorists," Bishop Qas told AsiaNews on February 29.
   "But we don't know what physical condition (the archbishop is in); the three men who were with him in the car, including his driver, were killed," he explained.
   The kidnappers reportedly have communicated their demands, which were not made public.
   Chaldean Catholic Archbishop Louis Sako of Kirkuk, Iraq, told Vatican Radio on March 2 violence against Christians "destroys the trust and brotherhood" between Iraqis.
   But he said numerous Muslim leaders have made appeals and are working for the archbishop's release.
   Archbishop Sako said the archbishop was abducted by "a criminal group, it is not a group that claims an ideology," which suggests the kidnappers may only be looking to receive ransom money for the prelate's return.
   Archbishop Sako said the Pope's appeal resonates throughout all of Iraq "because when he speaks it is balanced," which is noticed and appreciated by Muslim leaders there.
   After praying the Angelus, the Pope said it was with "deep sadness I follow the dramatic news" of the archbishop's abduction.
   He said he was adding his voice to the appeal of the Chaldean patriarch, Cardinal Emmanuel-Karim Delly of Baghdad, to quickly release the 65-year-old archbishop who is in a "precarious condition of health" and reportedly must take medications daily.
   The Pope said his prayers were with the "three young men who were with him at the moment of the kidnapping and were killed."
   He said his thoughts and prayers were also with "the entire Church in Iraq and in particular the Chaldean church, struck a harsh blow once more."  Pope Benedict also encouraged "the priests and faithful to be strong and firm in hope."
   A Vatican statement released on February 29 said the archbishops abduction and the killing of his aides was a "despicable act."
   "The Holy Father asks the universal Church to join in his fervent prayer that reason and humanity will prevail in the perpetrators of the attack," it said.
   The Vatican said the fact that the archbishop was abducted immediately after leading a Way of the Cross service indicated that the attack was premeditated.
   The incident comes less than a year after a Chaldean Catholic priest and three subdeacons were gunned down outside the same Mosul church. #

Melbourne parish host first Catholic/Muslim meal

   The Record (W. Australia), by Paul Gray, p 6, Wednesday, March 5, 2008
A Catholic parish in Melbourne has co-hosted the first "Miryam Meal" between members of the Catholic and Muslim communities.
   The Miryam Meal is designed to promote dialogue between the Catholic and Islamic faiths at a grass-roots level, with the blessing of the Church.
   It takes as its starting point the Hebrew name for Mary, explicitly recognising the unique place of honour given to Jesus' mother within Catholic tradition.
   Fr John Pearce, parish priest of St Paul the Apostle parish in Melbourne's Endeavour Hills, spoke at the first Miryam meal along with Dr Salih Yucel, a Muslim and a lecturer at Monash University. "When I heard Dr Yucel talk about Mary, I appreciated my faith tradition through another lens," Fr Pearce said.
   The Miryam Meals project grows out of an agreement between the Australian Intercultural Society, a Muslim organisation, and the Ecumenical and Interfaith Commission of the Melbourne Catholic Archdiocese.
   The speakers addressed the importance of "dialogue in our faith." Dr Yucel criticised those who oppose interfaith dialogue today. "There are extremists who do not understand the essence of religion and question why people are coming together for interfaith dialogue," he said.
   Dr Yucel said no matter which major religion one belongs to, it is imperative to understand the importance of dialogue. "First and foremost, God entered into a dialogue with humanity through the Prophets," he said.
   Fr Pearce said those engaged in dialogue are doing a service to the nation.  "Australia needs men and women like us who are prepared to walk on the same side of the road and say 'Hello?'
   Fr Pearce also acknowledged that the two faiths are different.  "We don't have to have the same prayer," he said. 
  [Picture: Three women in headscarfs, two without.] Learning from each other: Catholic and Muslim women together at the Miryam Meal in Melbourne    PHOTO: PAUL GRAY  
   In July last year the Intercultural Society and the Melbourne Ecumenical and Interfaith Commission signed a Memorandum of Understanding which sketched out joint activities between Muslims and Catholics under four main headings for dialogue.
   These are called dialogues of life, action, understanding and religious experience. The Miryam Meals program falls under the heading dialogue of life.
   Other initiatives envisaged under the Memorandum include consultation between a Muslim welfare organisation, on one side, and the St Vincent de Paul Society and Centacare on the Catholic side.  Dialogues between Catholic and Muslim youth and a proposed "joint pilgrimage" to Rome and Istanbul have also been proposed.
   The Australian Intercultural Society is also active in promoting better relations with the Jewish community, co-hosting the second National Social Cohesian [? Cohesion] Conference at the University of Melbourne in late February.  This conference focused on the integration of the Muslim community into mainstream Australian society.
   A keynote speaker, Supreme Court Judge the Hon Justice Howard Nathan, spoke of the history of the Jewish community in Australia, which began with the first fleet in 1788.  The judge described that history as a "good news story."
   Justice Nathan said education had been the key to the successful integration of the Jewish community.  "Not only were they (the early Jews in Australia) literate but they were also numerate, which put them ahead of others and stood the Jews in good stead ever since.
   "Education, education and yet more education was the key," he said.  Muslim comedian and law student Nazeem Hussain also spoke at the Cohesian [? Cohesion] conference, highlighting the important role of humour in communication between migrants and others.
   A Turkish Muslim speaker, Mr Kazim Ates, said that migration produced surprising results for many newcomers to Australia.  "We actually discovered our religious and cultural identity here in Australia," he said.  "We didn't hear about Gallipoli until we got here. We realised we had something in common and we could build on it."
   Mr Ates said that going to school in rural Australia had quickly taught him the importance of building on shared values with your neighbours.  Sportsmanship, loyalty and business ethics were some of the shared values which Muslims and non-Muslims could use to build relationships with each other. #

Woman jailed for ‘worshipping tea pot’

   The Telegraph (Britain), www.telegraph. co.uk/news/ main.jhtml? xml=/news/ 2008/03/04/ wteapot104. xml&DCMP= EMC-new_ 05032008 , By Thomas Bell, South East Asia Correspondent, Last Updated 1:37am GMT, March 07, 2008
   MALAYSIA … A sharia court in Malaysia jailed a woman for joining a "tea-pot worshipping" cult.
   Kamariah Ali, a 57 year old former teacher, was arrested in 2005 when the government of the Muslim majority country demolished the two storey high sacred tea pot and other infrastructure of the "heretical" Sky Kingdom cult.
   For the eccentric sect, which emphasised ecumenical dialogue between religions, the tea pot symbolized the purity of water and "love pouring from heaven".
   But in Malaysia, despite constitutional guarantees of freedom of worship, born Muslims such as Mrs Ali are forbidden from converting to other religions.
   Passing sentence, the Sharia judge Mohammed Abdullah said: "The court is not convinced that the accused has repented and is willing to abandon any teachings contrary to Islam. I pray God will open the doors of your heart, Kamariah."
   Mrs Ali has already been jailed once for apostasy, for 20 months in 1992.
   "This has to stop. They can't be sending her again and again to prison for this," her lawyer, Sa'adiah Din, told reporters.
   "She informed the court that she is not a Muslim. She doesn't come under Sharia court anymore."
   The case underlines the dissatisfaction of non-Muslim Malaysians, who make up just under half the population, ahead of the country's most contentious election in a generation this Saturday.
   Yet analysts say gerrymandering, vote buying, press censorship and a virtual ban on opposition rallies make the government unbeatable. Last year 31,000 people over 100 years old were found on the electoral register. They were alleged "phantom voters", who have helped keep the ruling coalition in power since independence 50 years ago.
   The population is divided between Hindus of Indian origin, Christian and Buddhist ethnic Chinese and a narrow majority of ethnic Malays who are legally deemed Muslim by birth and whose interests the government is sworn to protect.
   Last autumn a protest by Hindus, angered by perceived discrimination such as the demolition of temples, was broken up with tear gas and water cannon.

The giant teapot at the Sky Kingdom cult's headquarters [left] and the empty grounds after its demolition

   The community has long standing grievances. In one emotional case, the first Malaysian to climb Mt Everest - Maniam Moorthy - was declared a Muslim after his death and given a Muslim burial, to the consternation of his original Hindu community.
   Last week Christian churches made a rare political intervention, urging voters to choose candidates who support freedom of worship. Christians have suffered several seizures of bible shipments by customs authorities in recent months.
   The rise of sharia law in parallel to the civil code has alarmed both minority faiths, and spawned several controversial judgements in cases of religious conversion and interfaith marriage. The Malaysian government has been implicated in several corruption scandals in recent months and is blamed for a struggling economy.
   Analysts say the politicisation of religion in the country is a complex phenomenon but cite among its causes the government's need to draw dissatisfied Muslim voters away from the relatively radical Islamic opposition. #

[Gunman kills students studying scriptures.]

   Radio and television reports, Friday, March 7, 2008
   ISRAEL / PALESTINE … A gunman shot dead several students in a Jewish religious school, before he was shot dead.
   There was joyousness in some Arab areas of unoccupied Palestine, people jumping up and down, and at least one firing bullets into the air.

  What is lost in translation?  

   The Post, Subiaco (Perth suburb), Western Australia, p 42, March 8, 2008
   A linguistics lecturer researching issues relating to translations of the Qur'an needs to interview non-Arab Muslims and interested non-Muslims.
   Dahlia Sable's research will look at how translations of the holy book of Islam should be done in order to adhere to the original as well as maintaining readability.
   There is a concern that many of the available translations are not accurate, some being too literal to the extent of being incomprehensible while others depart from the Arabic idiom, imagery or structure.
   The study will investigate the preferences and problems of non-Arabic speaking Muslims and non-Muslims in reading Qur'an translations.
   Those helping in the research need to be over 16 and have a good command of English.
   They need to have had some experience with Qur'an translations but don't need to be well versed in the Qur'an.
   The 10-page questionnaire will take a few hours and needs to be completed by the end of March.
   To volunteer, ring 6488 4554 or email dsabry2007@ gmail.com . #

Burials fuel Israeli reprisal

   The Sunday Times (Perth, W. Australia), p 35, Sunday, March 9, 2008
   JERUSALEM:  Eight students who died on Thursday when an Arab gunman attacked their religious school were buried on Friday as Israelis and Palestinians braced for trouble.
   A river of mourners accompanied the bodies from the bullet-scarred school to their funerals, where they were buried alongside blood-stained Torah scrolls.
   Over the past week, Israel and Palestinians have absorbed stunning blows that have shaken hopes of US-promoted peace talks forestalling a new spiral of violence.
   "We are heading into very dangerous times," said Mohammed Masri, former head of the Palestinian Authority's intelligence services in Gaza, who now runs the Palestinian Centre for Research and Strategic Studies in Ramallah, on the West Bank.
   "If the Israelis are not aware of this, then I don't rule out the possibility of a third uprising."
   The attacker's family identified him as Alaa Abu Dheim, a 25-year-old chauffeur for a private firm who held an Israeli identification card.
   Authorities would not say whether Abu Dheim, who was killed by police on Thursday, was an Israeli citizen or a Jerusalem resident with more limited rights.
  [Picture] GRIEVING: Fatima, centre, the mother of Alaa Abu Dheim, whom family members say killed eight Israeli students, is comforted by relatives.  
   The fact that he came from East Jerusalem, however, fuelled hostility towards its 250,000 Arab residents, who often live uneasily in parts of the city that Israel captured from Jordan in the 1967 Six-Day War.
   At one of the funerals, Israeli Public Security Minister Avi Dichter reportedly told mourners that Arabs in East Jerusalem who were involved in militant activity should be stripped of their Israeli IDs and expelled to the West Bank.
   Police searched Abu Dheim's East Jerusalem house on Friday to try to determine where he got the machinegun he used, whether he'd worked alone and why he chose to attack a landmark religious school that has been an intellectual incubator for Israel's religious settlement movement.
   Hezbollah's TV station in Beirut reported that an unknown group had conducted the attack to avenge last month's assassination of Hezbollah leader Imad Mughniyeh in Damascus.
   Militant Islamist group Hamas denied it was behind the attack. #

Iran link in Palestinian attacks

   The West Australian, http://www.thewest.com.au , "World" section edited by Alan Kirk, p 23, Monday, March 10, 2008
   JERUSALEM – Israeli officials believe Iranian supporters of the militant Islamic faction Hamas, which rules the Gaza territory, are behind increasing terrorist attacks, including the deadly shooting in a religious school last Thursday.
   Their warning that Hamas' use of stronger rockets and larger-scale incursions into Israel represented the escalation of a proxy war were echoed by Jordanian King Abdullah.
   "Those in the Iranian Government that are pursuing this policy have hijacked the Palestinian corps," King Abdullah said in Washington at the weekend.

N-threat a world problem, says Peres    Israeli President Shimon Peres called Iran the world's "greatest problem" yesterday but said Israel would not act on its own against the Islamic nation's nuclear program.    "Iran is a danger not just for Israel but for the rest of the world, the combination of being a centre of terror and developing a nuclear option is the most dangerous you can think of," he said.    Last week, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Israel had the "might and power" and would use military force if necessary against Tehran's nuclear ambitions.

   "The failure of the peace process will get them to increase their ambitions."
   Across Israel at the weekend, eerily familiar sounds cut through the air: sirens, restaurants turning televisions from music programs to news and teenagers phoning home to reassure parents.
   Despite the tension, Palestinian and Israeli officials said that peace talks would proceed this week on several levels. The comments came hours after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called for Israel not to abandon peace efforts.
   Israeli officials say last week's violence can be attributed, at least in part, to the funding and inspiration supplied by Iran to Hamas and Hiz-bollah, the group Israelis see as its Shi'ite counterpart in Lebanon.
   "What Hizbollah has been doing for a long tune is to try to recruit people in the West Bank to direct them to carry out terrorist attacks," Ephraim Sneh, a former Israeli deputy defence minister, said.
   The latest violence can be linked directly to Israel's operation last weekend in Gaza, where about 120 Palestinians including 22 children were killed.
   A Palestinian legislator from the moderate Fatah movement, Muhib Salameh, tried to explain the issue. "If the people see no political horizon they will become tools of extremist groups like Hizbollah and even al-Qaida," he said.
   Militants in Gaza were still firing rockets at the weekend and it is widely believed Hamas got many of these rockets with financial aid from Iran.
   Mr Abbas is also worried about Iranian involvement and by what he believes to be an al-Qaida presence in Gaza. #

China foils Islamic terror attack

   The West Australian, http://www.thewest.com.au , p 23, Monday, March 10, 2008
   BEIJING – China has foiled an attempt to crash a passenger jet en route to Beijing and the aircraft made a safe emergency landing, a senior official said yesterday in what state media called an attempted terrorist attack.
   The China Southern flight originated in Urumqi, capital of the restive far western Chinese region of Xinjiang, where militant Uighurs have agitated for an independent "East Turkestan".
   It landed in the north-western city of Lanzhou on Friday after the crew discovered and foiled the attempt to "cause an air disaster", Xinjiang Governor Nuer Baikeli said.
   A source said at least two passengers on flight CZ6901 were taken into custody for questioning after flammable material was found in the plane's toilet.
   A Chinese official also revealed that police captured or killed alleged terrorists in the area plotting attacks targeting the Beijing Olympics.
   Wang Lequan, the top Communist Party official in the western region of Xinjiang, says materials seized in the January 27 raid in the regional capital, Urumqi, suggested the plotters intended "specifically to sabotage the staging of the Beijing Olympics".
   Xinjiang is home to eight million Muslim Uighurs, many of whom resent the growing presence and economic grip of Han Chinese. The oil-rich region borders Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia.
   A senior Chinese official has warned that Uighurs – a Turkic, mainly Islamic people who share linguistic and cultural bonds with Central Asia – were plotting attacks on the Beijing Olympics.
   China has said its police shot dead two members of a "terrorist gang" and rounded up 15 others in the raid in January in Xinjiang.
   Xinjiang's Communist Party boss Wang Lequan said that the group's aim had been to attack the Olympics.
   In January 2007, Chinese forces killed 18 people described as terrorists in a gunbattle in Xinjiang.
   The Xinjiang governor said only a "very small number of people" in the region supported the separatists. #

‘Kidnapped bishop may be dead’

Iraqi archbishop expresses concern about fate of kidnapped prelate    The Record (R.C. Perth, W. Australia, weekly), CNS, p 10, Wednesday, March 12, 2008
   LONDON (CNS) – An Iraqi Archbishop has expressed concern that Chaldean Catholic Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho of Mosul, Iraq, who was kidnapped for ransom, is sick, injured or has been killed.
   No one has heard from Archbishop Rahho since he was kidnapped on February 29 after he finished leading the Way of the Cross in Mosul, said Chaldean Catholic Archbishop Louis Sako of Kirkuk, Iraq, in an interview with Aid to the Church in Need, a Catholic charity helping persecuted Christians. The interview was released by the British branch of the charity on March 10.
   Archbishop Rahho "was able to make a call from the back of the car in which he was kidnapped but since then nothing," said Archbishop Sako. "The people in contact with the kidnappers have over several days asked to hear the archbishop's voice, but they are constantly refused."
   Archbishop Sako said he was worried the captors have increased the ransom for Archbishop Rahho's release from US$1 million to US$2 million to US$3 million.
   "It leaves us with two possibilities," he told the charity. "Either the Kidnapped Chaldean Catholic Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho Archbishop is sick or injured or he has been killed and the kidnappers just want to get as much money as possible."
   The Mosul Archbishop reportedly is in poor health with a heart condition and needs medication daily.  Archbishop Sako, who said he thinks the captors are organised, added: "Really, this is a kind of mourning time.  There is nothing from the Archbishop - no sign.  We don't know where we are heading with the process - the future is totally unknown."
   Archbishop Rahho had just left the Church of the Holy Spirit in Mosul and was in his car with his driver and two bodyguards when the kidnappers attacked.  The three people who were traveling with him were killed. #

Militia admits link to Sudan leaders

   The West Australian, http://www.thewest.com.au , p 26, Thursday, March 13, 2008
   KHARTOUM – Adjusting his camouflaged turban, the commander pointed at the weapons and vehicles inside his camp in Sudan's war-torn region of Darfur.
  [Picture] On the run: A girl and her brother who fled from Darfur battle overcrowded conditions in a refugee camp in Chad.    Picture: Reuters  
   "All the hardware that we have – where did we get it from?" Mohammed Hamdan said.
   "Do you think we just 'magicked' it out of the air?  It belongs to the Government."  With those words, he destroyed a myth carefully crafted by the Sudanese Government.
   Mr Hamdan commands hundreds of gunmen from the notorious Janjaweed militia, which human rights groups blame for countless atrocities in Darfur's civil war.
   But President Omar al-Bashir's Arab-dominated regime has always denied links with the Janjaweed.  Instead, Mr Bashir has denounced them as "bandits and thieves" and denied giving the Janjaweed any arms or supplies.
   Mr Hamdan spoke near a vehicle mounted with a heavy machinegun, and his fighters were armed with mortars, anti-aircraft guns and Kalashnikov rifles.
   "The weapons, the cars, all that you see, we got it from the Government," he said.
   This support was given in direct breach of United Nations Resolution 1556, passed in July 2004, which gave the Sudanese regime 30 days to disarm the Janjaweed and bring their leaders to justice.
   Mr Hamdan, 31, has been named-by Human Rights Watch as a Janjaweed commander.
   From his camp near the town of Um Al-Qura, in Southern Darfur province, he claims to control 20,000 gunmen. These Arab fighters were originally armed and raised by Khartoum to fight Darfur's black African rebels.
   The Khartoum regime might disown them now but Mr Hamdan said that his orders came directly from Mr Bashir.
   He claimed to have met the President twice in September 2006.
   "They asked for a meeting with us," he said.
   "There were two places that had fallen to the rebels: Um Sidir and Kiryari (in Northern Darfur).
   "After they fell, they called upon us of course as part of the army to go to the northern areas.
   "We asked for the hardware that you now see with us. And they provided us with cars and weaponry and we moved to the northern area."
   He claimed that Sudanese Defence Minister Abdul Rahim Mohammed Hussein was at both meetings.
   "One meeting with the President was in his home and the other was in the armed forces' headquarters," Mr Hamdan said.
   "There was a general call to arms, to the entirety of "Sudan after the rebellion began.  The Sudanese Government then specifically came to us."  He said his troops were trained by the Sudanese regular army. #

Saddam had ‘no link’ to al-Qa’ida

   The Weekend Australian, www.the australian. news.com.au , Correspondents in Washington, AFP, p 14, March 15-16, 2008
   A DETAILED Pentagon study confirms there was no direct link between the late Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and the al-Qa'ida network, debunking a claim President George W. Bush used to justify invading Iraq.
   Coming five years after the start of the war in Iraq, the study of 600,000 official Iraqi documents and thousands of hours of interrogations of former Saddam colleagues "found no smoking gun between Saddam's Iraq and al-Qa'ida", the study said.
   The US administration appeared to bury the release of the study, making it available only at individual request and by mail – instead of posting it on the internet or handing it out to reporters.
   A Pentagon spokesman said he did not know why the Joint Forces Command was not posting the report online, but denied it was an attempt to limit its distribution.
   "We don't have a reason to do so. I think when you see the report, it will show a Nazi-esque catalogue of Saddam's ties to terror, both within his own country and elsewhere in the Middle East," Pentagon press secretary Geoff
   Morrell said The September 11 Commission and the Pentagon's inspector-general last year reached the same conclusion that there were no ties between Saddam and al-Qa'ida, but none had access to as much information.
   "The Iraqi Perspective Project review of captured Iraqi documents uncovered strong evidence that links the regime of Saddam Hussein to regional and global terrorism," said a summary of the Pentagon study to which ABC News in the US provided a link on its website.
   "State terrorism became a routine tool of state power" but "the predominant target of Iraqi state terror operations were Iraqi citizens", the summary said.
   ABC reported that the study initially was to be posted on the US military's website accompanied by a background briefing with the study's authors.
   But the Pentagon scrapped those plans and took the unusual step of offering to send the report by mail only to those who asked for it
   Mr Bush, Vice-President Dick Cheney and top aides have insisted there were links between Saddam and al-Qa'ida, citing the alleged ties as a rationale for going to war in Iraq.
   "The reason I keep insisting that there was a relationship between Iraq and Saddam and al-Qa'ida is because there was a relationship between Iraq and al-Qa'ida," Mr Bush said in June 2004.
   The study says Saddam's regime did not have clear ties to al-Qa'ida, which was responsible for the September 11, 2001, attacks on the US, but had associations with other terror groups including Palestinian militants.
   The regime "often co-operated directly, albeit cautiously, with terrorist groups when they believed such groups could help advance Iraq's long-term goals", the study said.
   "The regime carefully recorded its connections to Palestinian terrorist organisations in numerous government memos.
   "One such example documents Iraqi financial support to families of suicide bombers in Gaza and the West Bank." AFP #

Hardline politicians pump up anti-West stance after moderate reformists fail to make inroads as Iranians go to the polls

Iran election ends nuclear talks

   The West Australian, http://www.thewest.com.au , p 12, Monday, March 17, 2008
   TEHRAN – Iranian hardliners have celebrated victory in parliamentary elections by toughening their stance against the West, firmly rejecting any possibility of talks over the country's controversial nuclear programme.
   Buoyed by early results from Friday's vote, the Government said talks with the group of five permanent United Nations Security Council members and Germany were at an end.
   The statement will come as a blow to those who believed the group could still broker a diplomatic solution to the Iranian nuclear crisis, but reflects the strength of the conservative vote.
   With more than half the results counted for the 290-seat Parliament, conservatives had taken a 108 to 33-seat lead over their reformist opponents. If the results are repeated in the remaining seats, it will mark a significant victory for the hardliners aligned with Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.
   After months of jostling for position among the ranks of rival conservatives, the IRGC is poised to take over from Iran's clerics as the dominant force in Parliament.
   In recent weeks some more moderate clerics have been criticised over their lifestyles, undermining their electoral chances. Many reformist supporters boycotted the polls, complaining their candidates had been barred from standing, but the Government claimed that turnout still amounted to more than 60 per cent.
   For Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian President who faces re-election next year, the results offered a mixed message. The rise of the IRGC is generally regarded as being in his favour – although he has faced some criticism from its ranks for backsliding – but there were also gains for more moderate conservatives, who have criticised his handling of the ailing economy.
   Their success could increase the Ahmadinejad chances of an alternative conservative challenge to Mr Ahmadinejad next year, with Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, the mayor of Tehran, and Ali Larijani, the former nuclear negotiator who resigned after falling out with the President, both possible candidates.
   Reformists were hoping at least to form an effective minority bloc, larger than their approximately 40 seats in the outgoing Parliament, but the results pointed to how deeply the movement was hurt when the unelected Guardian Council disqualified 1700 candidates on grounds of insufficient loyalty to Islam or to Iran's 1979 revolution.
   Many of their supporters did not vote, but others believed they had to make an effort. "The situation in the country has gone from bad to worse," Araman Mohebi, 25, a businessman in Tehran's main bazaar, said. "I voted for the reformists because something is better than nothing and I hoped they could bring some changes to the suffering of the people.
   "I don't like Ahmadinejad and I will never vote for him in the next presidential election either. He has made us face danger with the world and also suffer from high inflation inside the country."
   Concerns about the state of the economy may account for the failure of the hardliners to secure a more resounding victory. People preparing for the forthcoming Iranian new year were unhappy at being hit by large increases in prices. #

  Moral leader ‘in brothel’  

   The West Australian, http://www.thewest.com.au , p 12, Monday, March 17, 2008
   TEHRAN – President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's "moral enforcer", who led a crackdown on women failing to adhere to Iran's Islamic dress codes, has been arrested in a Tehran brothel, London's The Times website reported.
   Brig-Gen. Ali Reza Zarei, 53, the Tehran police chief and a confidant of the President, was said to have been with six prostitutes when he was detained by members of his own force two weeks ago.
   He has been removed from his post and granted bail, according to the Iranian Farda website.
   The Justice Department admitted last week that an unnamed senior official had been arrested.
   Gen. Zarei, who was in charge of the program for the "moralisation" of women, faces possible prosecution. #

IN BRIEF

  Catholics celebrate  

   The West Australian, http://www.thewest.com.au , p 28, Monday, March 17, 2008
   QATAR – Thousands of worshippers have gathered in a long and emotional ceremony for the consecration of the first Catholic church in the Gulf state of Qatar, ending decades of underground Christian worship in the deeply conservative Muslim country.
   The 2700-seat church was built on land donated by Qatar's emir, Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al-Thani.
   Five other buildings are under construction nearby for other Christian denominations. During the five-hour Mass on Saturday a cardinal presented the parish with a chalice given by the Pope. #

Faith, Power and Territory: Patrick Sookhdeo's new book released today

   Barnabas Fund for News, www.barnabas fund.org , www.barnabas fund.org:80/ News/archives/ text.php?ID_ news_items=392 , Monday, March 17, 2008
   Dr Sookhdeo's latest book Faith, Power and Territory: A Handbook of British Islam is being released in the UK and USA today, Monday 17 March 2008.
   BRITAIN – No-go areas for non-Muslims in the UK, an increasing separation between Muslim communities and the rest of British society, a growing dominance of Islam – developments such as these raise the question: what of the future? Especially in the context of a declining Church and a nation losing its Judaeo-Christian foundations, Islam poses a challenge unlike any other seen for many centuries. Islam believes itself to be a faith and also recognises that it is a political and territorial power. How is this going to be expressed in the UK? Will there be assimilation or separation?
   Dr Sookhdeo's book has been written to provide an easy-to-use resource to help non-Muslims understand Islam in Britain today and the way in which it is seeking to transform the country. Introductory chapters look at what Muslims in the UK believe and do, what they have in common as well as the wide range of variation and differences among them. There is an emphasis on tracing current movements and trends, in particular the more radical movements which are those likely to have the greatest impact on non-Muslim Britons. Later chapters review influential Muslim figures who have shaped or are shaping Islam in the UK, and give concise information on a wide range of Muslim organisations active in the UK, showing the inter-linkages between them. A final chapter looks at a range of very specific issues and challenges relating to the subject of Islam in Britain. Dr Sookhdeo's book asks penetrating questions about the way in which the Muslim communities in the UK may develop in the future and how British authorities and institutions appear to be yielding to the process of Islamisation.
   "Faith, Power and Territory is an invaluable resource book for all who are interested in learning more about the important subject of Islam in contemporary Britain, by an author whose knowledge, learning, experience and expertise ensure confidence in the accuracy of the information and the analysis of the very important wider implications for the British government and people." -- Caroline (The Baroness) Cox
   "Patrick Sookhdeo has been developing understanding of and expertise in Muslim-Christian relationships for 40 years. He is acknowledged internationally as an expert in this field. His views and analyses are always worth serious consideration." -- Rt Hon the Lord Mawhinney Kt
   Special introductory offer - Order your copy today UK Hardback £8.99 (RRP £12.99) (+£2.50 postage and packing within the UK) Paperback £7.99 (RRP £10.99) (+£2.50 postage and packing within the UK) To order visit www.barnabas fund.org/shop or call 024 7623 1923 (from outside the UK +44 24 7623 1923)
   USA Hardback US$20 (free postage and packing) To order visit www.barnabas fund.org/shop or call 703 228 1681 or 866-936-2525 (toll free)
   Faith, Power and Territory will be released in Australia and New Zealand in May 2008.  Copyright © Barnabas Fund - March 17th 2008 #

The doctrine of sacred space

   Extracts from "The doctrine of sacred space" in Chapter 3 in   Faith, Power and Territory; A Handbook of British Islam,   (Isaac Publishing, USA), by Patrick Sookhdeo (Britain), pp 45-53, ©2008, published March 17, 2008
BRITAIN: The doctrine of sacred space is a key motivation of radical Muslims.  … Areas under Islamic rule are called Dar al-Islam (the House of Islam) and the rest of the world is Dar al-Harb (the House of War).  … such territory must be subjugated by Muslim military might, one of the original meanings of jihad.

The Islamic state, whose principal function was to put God's law into practice, sought to establish Islam as the dominant reigning ideology over the entire world … The jihad … was the state's instrument … ²⁸  [p. 45]
   … The rest of the world is the home of hostility (dar-al-harb).  A Muslim can have only two possible relations with dar-al-harb: peace with a contractual agreement, or war. ²⁹

   … Whatever has been won for Islam is dedicated to Allah … Any lost sacred space must be regained …
   … According to the Qur’an, the whole earth belongs to Allah, and he has given it to Muslims. …

Allâh has promised those among you who believe and do righteous good deeds, that He will certainly grant them succession (to the present rulers) in the land. … But whoever disbelieved after this, they are the Fâsiqûn (rebellious, disobedient to Allâh. (Q 24:55)
   Mûsâ (Moses) said to his people: Seek help in Allâh and be patient.  Verily, the earth is Allâh's.  He gives it as a heritage to whom he wills of his slaves; – (Q 7:128) ³⁰  [p. 46]

   The Islamic scholar Ibn Taymiyya (1263-1328) … believed that when non-Muslims were conquered by Muslims those lands were being restored by Allah to their rightful owners, the Muslims.

These possessions received the name of fay ³¹ since Allah has taken them away from the infidels in order to restore (afa’a, radda) them to the Muslims.  … thus is restored to a man the inheritance of which he was deprived, even if he had never before gained possession. ³²

   A relevant concept here is that of waqf … Typically it means dedicating a building or plot of land for religious purposes, whose management and revenues will then be regulated by shari‘a.  [p. 47]  […]
Contemporary Muslim scholars
   Yusuf al-Qaradawi states that land once held by Muslims may never be given up to non-Muslims.

No Muslim, be he in authority or not, is allowed to abandon any of the lands of the Muslims. …
    Conversely, it is the duty of individuals and groups to strive hard to liberate occupied territories and retrieve usurped land.  … Therefore I have issued a Fatwa indicating that it is unlawful for all homeless Palestinian refugees to accept damages in return for their lost land, even if they amount to billions.  The land of Islam is not for sale; it is not to be relinquished, and no damages can possibly make up for its loss. ³⁸  [p. 49]  […]

Implications of "lost lands"
   Lands which were formerly under Islamic rule include Israel, Spain, the Balkans [southern Europe] and Chechnya [formerly conquered by the Russian Empire] to name but a few.  [p. 51]  […]
Sacralising territory for Islam in the UK
   New lands settled by Muslims are being added to the sacred space of Islam.  Migrant Muslim communities in the West are constantly engaged in sacralising new areas … mosques … processions … marchers transcribe the name of Allah on the space they cover … ⁴⁴
… Local place names have been changed in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets in response to the requests of Muslims living there who object to saints' names and other Christian-sounding names for their parks, electoral wards, etc. … [p. 52]  […]
   The marked tendency of many British Muslims to live close together and create what are effectively Muslim enclaves can be easily understood in the light of the doctrine of sacred space. … For example dog-owners have been told … the animals will be killed … (Dogs are considered unclean by Muslims.)  Christians and Hindus living in Muslim-majority areas have been threatened … A BBC1 Panorama programme has highlighted the issue of "white flight" in Blackburn. ⁴⁷   There are some incidents of specifically anti-Christian violence (see pages 73-74). … likely … will be demanding some form of semi-autonomy.  [p. 53]
___________________
28. Majid Khadduri, War and Peace in the Law of Islam, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 2955, pp. 51, 53.
29. Sayyid Qutb, Milestones, Indianapolis: American Trust Publications, 1990, p. 102.
30. Muhammad Taqi-ud-Din al-Hilali and Muhammad Muhsin Khan, Interpretations of the Meanings of the Noble Qur’an, 15th edition, Riyadh: Darussalam, December 1996.
31. Fay is war booty (including land) gained without fighting.
32. Ibn Taymiyya, Majmu’at al- Fatawa li-Sheikh al-Islam taqi al-Din Ahmad bin Taymiyya al-Hurani, al-Mansourah: dar al-Wafa’ Wal nashr Wal Tawzi’, 1997, p.308.  English translation from Bat Yeor, Islam and Dhimitude:  Where Civilizations Collide, Madison, Teaneck: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press and Lancaster, UK: Gazelle Book Services, 2002, p. 59.
38. "The Sacred Duty of Defending Jerusalem", 23 August 2005, http://www.islamonline.net/servlet/Satellite?pagename=IslamOnline-English-Ask_Scholar/FatwaE/FatwaE&cid=1119503543558 , viewed 6 August 2007.
44. Pnina Werbner, Imagined Diasporas among Manchester Muslims, Oxford: James Currey, 2002, pp. 116-117.
47. Transcript of "White Fright", Panorama, BBC1, shown 7 May 2007, BBC News, 25 May 2007.

Chaldeans mourn martyred Archbishop

   The Record (R.C. Perth, W. Australia, weekly), By Cindy Wooden, p 16, March 18 2008
   VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Pope Benedict XVI [Ratzinger] called the kidnapping and death of an Iraqi Archbishop "an act of inhuman violence that offends the dignity of the human being".
   Chaldean Catholic Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho of Mosul, 65, was kidnapped on February 29 in an attack that left his driver and two bodyguards dead.
   The Pope had made several public appeals for his release.
   Catholic leaders in Iraq said on March 13 that they had recovered the Archbishops body after the kidnappers told them where they had buried him.
   Police were unclear if Archbishop Rahho had been killed.
   The Archbishop of Mosul had no bullet wounds, his body showed signs of decomposition and he appeared to have been dead a week, reported the British news agency Reuters.
   Archbishop Rahho's funeral and burial were held on March 14 outside Mosul, a northern Iraqi city considered to be a stronghold of al-Qaida, according to The Associated Press. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki blamed al-Qaida for the Archbishop's death.
   The Vatican announced on March 14 that Pope Benedict would celebrate a memorial Mass for the Archbishop on March 17 in the Redemptoris Mater Chapel of the Apostolic Palace.
   In a March 13 telegram to Cardinal Emmanuel-Karim Delly of Baghdad, Patriarch of the Chaldean Catholic Church, Pope Benedict said that after being informed of "the tragic death" of the Archbishop, whom he called a "zealous pastor," he wanted to let Chaldean Catholics and all Christians in Iraq know that he is close to them.
  [Picture] Grieving: Mourners hold pictures of Chaldean Catholic Archbishop Paulos FarajRahho of Mosul during his funeral in a village outside Mosul, Iraq, on March 14.  Archbishop Rahho, who was kidnapped on February 29, was found dead on March 13.    PHOTO:  CNS / REUTERS  
   The Pope also said he was praying that the Lord would show "his mercy so that this tragic event would serve to construct a future of peace in the martyred land of Iraq."
   Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, Vatican spokesman, said Pope Benedict was informed immediately of the recovery of Archbishop Rahho's body.
   "We all had continued to hope and pray for his liberation," Father Lombardi said.
   "Unfortunately, the most absurd and unjustified violence continues to weigh on the Iraqi people and particularly on the small Christian community, to whom the Pope and all of us are particularly close in prayer and in solidarity at this moment of great pain."
   Father Lombardi said the Vatican hoped "this tragic event" would lead to a greater commitment by all, particularly the international community, to work for peace in Iraq.
   Chaldean Auxiliary Bishop Shlemon Warduni of Baghdad told the Italian Catholic agency SIR that the kidnappers had informed church leaders on March 12 "that Archbishop Rahho was very ill," then a few hours later they phoned again to say he had died.
   "This morning (March 13) they telephoned to tell us they had buried him," Bishop Warduni said.
   The Church sent several young men to an area just outside Mosul where the kidnappers had said the grave was located, and the body was recovered.
   "We do not yet know if he died of causes tied to his precarious health or if he was killed," Bishop Warduni said, referring to the Archbishop's heart condition, for which he needed medication daily. "The kidnappers told us only that he was dead."
   Chaldean Bishop Rabban al Qas of Arbil told the agency AsiaNews: "It is a heavy cross for our Church ahead of Easter."
   Archbishop Rahho was kidnapped after leading the Way of the Cross service at the Church of the Holy Spirit in Mosul.
   He was in his car with his driver and two bodyguards when the kidnappers attacked.
   The three people who were travelling with him were killed.
   The kidnappers' demands reportedly included a $1 million ransom.
   While mediators were in contact with the kidnappers early on, police and military intelligence officers were unable to find them. #

Jemaah Islamiyah

   Barnabas Fund for News, http://www.barnabasfund.org , www.barnabas fund.org:80/ News/archives/ text.php?ID_ news_items=393 , March 18, 2008
   INDONESIA – Barnabas Fund has received credible reports that the Al-Qaeda linked terrorist organisation Jemaah Islamiyah has threatened to target Christians in Indonesia this Easter.  Jemaah Islamiyah has been responsible for many attacks in the past - it is believed to have organised the Bali bombings in 2002 and 2005, and bomb attacks at churches on Christmas Eve in 2000.
   Jemaah Islamiyah is dedicated to creating a single Islamic state throughout South-East Asia under shari'a law.  It considers non-Muslims as legitimate targets and is active throughout the region.  The organisation is closely linked to Al-Qaeda, and has shown that is it able to carry out devastating attacks, such as the Bali bombings in 2002 which killed 202 people.  On Christmas Eve, 2000, Jemaah Islamiyah bombed several churches in Jakarta, Bandung and Riau, killing 18 people and injuring more than a hundred.
   Threats to Christians on major celebrations such as Easter and Christmas are frequent in Indonesia, and security guards are often posted outside churches at this time.   Some churches in Jakarta keep metal detectors near their entrances to try to thwart bomb attacks. This Easter will therefore be a time of great anxiety for Indonesia's Christians.
   Please join with us in prayer–
1. Pray that Indonesian Christians will be able to worship in safety this Easter.
2. Pray that the authorities in Indonesia be active in protecting Christians from terrorist attacks and that that they will apprehend those who threaten to attack Christians. #
   Visit the INDONESIA Index > Archive News Index > Barnabas Fund Homepage > Donate Online >
   Copyright © Barnabas Fund - March 18th 2008

11-year-old boy marries 10-year-old cousin

   The Age (Daily, Melbourne, Vic., Australia), www.theage.com. au/news/ world/ 11yearold- boy-marries- 10yearold- cousin/ 2008/03/19/ 1205602 419887.html ; AFP, 6:25AM, March 19, 2008
   SAUDI ARABIA – An 11-year-old boy has married his 10-year-old cousin in the ultra-conservative Muslim kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
   Mohammed al-Rashidi and his unidentified cousin will seal the marriage they contracted under the sharia laws of Islam and move in together after a ceremony to take place in the summer, Al-Shams newspaper reports today.
   "I am ready for this marriage.  It will help me study better," Mohammed, who goes to primary school in the northern province of Hail, was quoted as saying by Al-Shams.
   "I invite all my classmates to do like me," the boy said, adding that he wanted to "crown a love story through marriage".
   The schoolboy's father, Muraizak al-Rashidi, told the newspaper he was busy sending out invitations for a summer celebration to seal the marriage.
   Dahim al-Jaber, the headmaster at Mohammed's school, said marriage at such a young age was "inappropriate" but wished the couple a happy life together.  AFP #

Hilali protest at cartoons

   The Weekend Australian, by Natalie O'Brien, p 2, Saturday and Sunday, March 22-23, 2008
   AUSTRALIA – CONTROVERSIAL Muslim cleric Taj Din al-Hilali yesterday rallied his supporters against the publication of cartoons insulting to Mohammed, just a day after Osama bin Laden denounced the European Union over the same issue in a new videotape.
   At his sermon at Australia's biggest mosque, in the southwest Sydney suburb of Lakemba, Sheik Hilali said the cartoons, published in a Danish newspaper in 2005 – and republished last month – showed the "hatred and envy" felt by the West against Islam.
   He said today's sermon at the mosque would be followed by a march to a nearby park to protest against the cartoons.
   "The West announces holding a competition for caricatures that insult the Messenger of God, may he be blessed," Sheik Hilali said.
   "And the worst drawing, that succeeds in causing the most harm in order to provoke the Muslims and cause them hurt for their prophet, wins the competition. They are determined. They are hateful."
   In an audiotape message posted on a militant website, bin Laden warned Europe of a "reckoning" over the cartoons and claimed their publication formed part of "the framework of a new Crusade" in which the Pope "has played a large, lengthy role".
   At his sermon today, Sheik Hilali is expected to be critical of the new-look secular Muslim advisory board being considered by the Rudd Government, saying it will be a waste of time for the public and the Government. He will make an appeal to the Government not to make the same mistakes as its predecessor.
   In his sermon, Sheik Hilali will also congratulate Kevin Rudd for his Stolen Generations apology, saying it was a courageous decision that removed a lot of bad feeling in the community.
  [Picture] Rally against caricature: Taj Din al-Hilali at Lakemba Mosque. He will protest today against the 2005 Mohammed cartoons    Picture: Amos Aikman  
   He will say the Government's congratulations to Israel for its 60th anniversary ignored the plight of the Palestinians. He will express his grief at the "Zionist occupation of Palestine" and call on people around the world to stand with the Palestinians so they can live in peace.
   As revealed in The Australian earlier this month, the Government plans to recruit sporting figures, academics and mainstream Muslims for the new advisory group in an effort to help change the overly religious image of Islam in Australia.
   Sheik Hilali said the Government must include religious leaders in the proposed advisory group. He said they did not need to be imams, but they did need to be people who understood the community, the law and the religion, and were accessible to ordinary worshippers.
   "The danger is that there will be no solutions achieved and it will just create more problems, and they will find themselves catapulted towards more negative stereotypes," Sheik Hilali said.
   "We want people who have relevant qualifications and can give the right information. We would like the Government to get it right from the start and see the community for what it is. They must have a clear vision for the future."
   The advisory group is being considered despite the previous government in 2006 abolishing the troubled Muslim advisory board that was set up by John Howard after the London terrorist attacks in 2005.
   The previous body was headed by academic Ameer Ali, who had been criticised for being out of touch and out of reach of the ordinary Muslim. The Government is focused on reshaping the group and shifting the focus to everyday Muslims.
   The president of the Islamic Friendship Association, Keysar Trad, said: "We don't need another reference group which put us at odds with mainstream Australia."
   A wide range of Muslim leaders have backed the plan to promote more moderate and secular voices from the community, but many say imams must be consulted to offer the correct religious perspective.
   World - Page 10 #

Mosque row in court

   The Weekend Australian, by Natalie O'Brien, p 2, Saturday and Sunday, March 22-23, 2008
   SYDNEY (NSW), Australia – AN alleged member of a global movement described as a recruiting ground for al-Qa'ida has been been ordered to stay away from a Sydney imam and his mosque amid a power struggle.
   An apprehended violence order has been issued against Abdullah Yousef, who, Sydney's Bankstown Local Court was told, is a member of Tablighi Jamaat, a religious group named in a US intelligence report as being an "indirect line to terrorism".
   Members of TJ in Sydney have been accused of attempting to oust Imam Shah Abdul Karim Quasimi to seize control of the mosque at Sefton, in the city's southwest, where he preaches.
   Mr Yusef failed to attend court for the AVO hearing as he was overseas.  He has previously denied to The Australian that he is a TJ member.
   Magistrate Daniel Reiss granted a two-year AVO against Mr Yusef, 39, last Friday after hearing he had tried to evict Sheik Abdul Karim from his home next to the mosque and had allegedly threatened to kill him if he returned.
   The court was told trouble at the mosque had started because of a power struggle between groups.  One of those groups, which follows the Tablighi stream of Islam, wants to take over the mosque, push out Sheik Abdul Karim and bring a Tablighi preacher from overseas to fill the role.
   Sheik Abdul Karim told the court Mr Yusef was a member of the TJ and that it was an extremist group.  Last month, TJ was described by the private US intelligence group Stratfor as a recruiting ground for al-Qa'ida. #

Episcopal head’s Gaza visit highlights plight of Palestinians

   Ekklesia (Britain), www.ekklesia. co.uk/node/ 6959 , By agency reporter, Mar 23, 2008
   GAZA,Palestine – US Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori's recent visit to Gaza brought a deeper understanding of the humanitarian crisis that is impacting 1.5 million Palestinians in the region and offered some signs of hope in the work of the Al Ahli Arab Hospital, local churches and human rights organizations - writes Matthew Davies for ELO.
   Throughout 19 March 2008, Jefferts Schori heard a constant message of Muslims and Christians united in their witness and common mission for peace, justice and reconciliation.
   Joined by Anglican Bishop in Jerusalem Suheil Dawani, who was visiting Gaza for the first time since his installation in April 2007, Jefferts Schori was encouraged by the hospital's commitment to providing essential healthcare in the Palestinian territory that has been severely affected by Israel's blockade of Gaza.
   Israeli officials have said the blockade, enforced since January 17, has been necessary to put pressure on militant Palestinians to stop firing rockets into southern Israel. But regular power cuts, food and water shortages, lack of fuel, and attacks from the Israelis are placing immense pressure on the local population.
   Donkey-driven carriages, vehicles backed up at gas stations, countless garbage piles and rocket-punctured buildings are typical scenes on Gaza's streets, and with the highest density of population in the world, the city's unemployment rate stands at 80 percent.
   But the Al Ahli Arab Hospital, along with its dedicated staff and inspirational director Suhaila Tarazi, brings hope to Gaza's traumatized community, including its 3,000 Christians.
   In addition to dispensing free medical treatment and services to everyone, the hospital also provides food and other necessities to those in need. But it struggles without electricity for 10 hours a day and it relies on limited fuel supplies to operate its generator. The blockade has also caused difficulties in bringing medicines into Gaza, and some food items, Tarazi said, have increased in price by 500 percent.
   Founded as a mission of the Anglican Church in 1882, the hospital became a service ministry of the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem in 1982.
   Touring the grounds, the Presiding Bishop and her delegation -- husband, Richard Schori; ecumenical and interfaith officer, Bishop Christopher Epting; and director of government relations, Maureen Shea -- met some of the patients and staff, and heard about the services that benefit some 45,000 local Palestinians per year, including free medical missions offered twice weekly.
   One male patient told Jefferts Schori that the hospital provides the best services in Gaza and praised the staff for their tireless work.
   Another said that he thanks God for people coming to visit. "The situation is very bad, but we are in God's hands," he said.
   "We will go home and tell the story and continue to pray for peace," Jefferts Schori said.
   "This is a place of love and reconciliation," Tarazi said, acknowledging the unity between Muslims and Christians in Gaza. "We are all children of Abraham working in mission to help one another."
   "Everyone has a story," said Dawani, "and it is a story of deep faith. This is our witness."
   The American Friends of the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem (AFEDJ) and Episcopal Relief and Development (ERD) have provided critical financial assistance to the hospital as it struggles to serve the predominantly Muslim population in Gaza where about 80 percent of the population are living below the World Health Organization poverty line.
   In January, the AFEDJ board sent $18,000 to the hospital for immediate humanitarian purposes. AFEDJ, a non-profit, non-political organization which supports the work of the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem, donated more than $160,000 to the hospital in 2007.
   After leaving the hospital, the Presiding Bishop and her delegation met with Archdeacon Artemios of the Orthodox Church and visited the 1600-year-old building where he serves his congregation. He acknowledged that Gaza's Christian population is unique "because we live in peace with Muslims."
   Jefferts Schori told Artemios "it is shocking to see the reality" in Gaza and that most Americans have very little awareness of the situation. She introduced Shea's work with government relations in Washington, D.C.
   "We try to correct misinformation and now we can go back and relay what we have seen with our own eyes," Shea said.
   Gaza's heads of Churches and dignitaries joined the Presiding Bishop's delegation for lunch overlooking the Mediterranean Sea where hundreds of fishing boats were moored due to fuel shortages in the region.
   Earlier in the day, the delegation's entry into Gaza began at the Erez terminal, one of two main crossing points from Israel, where the delegation waited one hour for security checks before being granted entry.
   A Palestinian family, including a young girl, was waiting to cross into Gaza to see relatives for the first time in two years. Although they had already secured the required permits, they were told the border had been closed. Moments later, the Presiding Bishop's delegation was granted access.
   Once inside the complex, a long line of numbered metallic boxes with bullet-proof shielding faced the delegation, but the vast space was eerily empty and it was clear that not many people would be crossing the border today.
   After passing security checks and walking 150 meters through no-man's land, the delegation arrived at an unmarked steel gate which opened to reveal a welcoming Palestinian man who was eager to assist in carrying the box filled with flashlights and equipment Dawani was delivering for the generator at Al Ahli Arab Hospital.
   The first sighting of Gaza revealed a long dirt track with concrete bollards in the distance and a once-functional industrial city left in ruins from repeated Israeli attacks.
   Once across the border, the delegation was met by Tarazi and members of the Ministry of Interior that provided security throughout the day.
   The Gaza Strip, 25 miles long and between 4.5-7 miles wide, lies along the Mediterranean Coast and borders both Israel and Egypt. Its almost exclusively Palestinian population of 1.5 million includes 750,000 refugees.
   Israel disengaged from Gaza and dismantled its settlements in August 2005 after almost 40 years of occupation.
   Following the June 2007 conflict between Hamas and Fatah, known as the Battle of Gaza, the area is controlled by the Palestinian Islamist militant organization Hamas.
   During the afternoon, the Presiding Bishop's delegation heard about the work of two Palestinian human rights organizations, Al Mezan Center and The Palestinian Centre.
   Earlier in the week, the delegation met with the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem, and Ir Amim, an Israeli organization that strives for an equitable and stable Jerusalem with an Agreed Political Future and engages in issues impacting on Israeli-Palestinian relations in Jerusalem and on the political future of the city.
   Shea said she is delighted that B'Tselem will be opening an office in Washington, D.C. "It is important that Americans hear from Israelis who are deeply concerned about the affects of both the separation barrier and the check points on the daily life of Palestinians as well as on Israeli society," she said. "The well-researched information they bring will be enormously helpful in our advocacy for Middle East peace.
   "In this land where the need for reconciliation is so great, where hopes for peace have been continually dashed, there are wonderful people and groups -- both Palestinian and Israeli -- who work daily to expose injustice, to find ways to bring people together, and to help them so that healing might begin."
   Shea said the delegation has learned a great deal from the meetings with Rev. Naim Ateek and the staff and volunteers at Sabeel, as well as the leaders of Ir Amim, B'Tselem, Al Mezan Center and the Palestinian Center. "It is through groups such as these that we will have the just and reconciled world that is the promise of Easter."
   Concluding the day in Gaza, Jefferts Schori reiterated that the information that filters through to the United States is very different from the reality on the ground. "We will tell the story loudly and freely and we will tell it to our government as well," she said.
   She acknowledged her gratitude for what the Palestinian community is able to accomplish with minimal financial resources. "But you are rich in human resources," the Presiding Bishop said, and noted that she had been blessed to see many prophets on her visit.
   © Matthew Davies, editor of Episcopal Life Online and Episcopal Life Media correspondent for the Anglican Communion, is traveling with the Presiding Bishop in the Holy Land. http://www. episcopalchurch. org/episcopal_life.htm #

A mother’s mission

   STM, The Sunday Times Magazine (Perth, W. Australia), An edited extract, pp 22-24, March 23, 2008
FOR 174 DAYS MELISSA HAWACH WAS WITHOUT HER GIRLS.  HER DARING BID TO SNATCH THEM BACK FROM THEIR AUSTRALIAN FATHER IN LEBANON IS THE SUBJECT OF HER BOOK FLIGHT OF THE DRAGONFLY.  THIS IS AN EDITED EXTRACT.  PICTURE BY SARAH RHODES
IN MY MARRIAGE TO JOSEPH HAWACH, my wearing pants was an issue. Not shaving my legs was an issue. My playing baseball was an issue. My taking university courses was an issue. When I married Joe, I had known him for two years. I knew his family and I had experienced first-hand their generosity and goodness.
   Joe is the eldest of six siblings, and I liked them all. I liked Joe's mother, Gladys, who has a great sense of humour. I would go to church with Joe's brother Pierre. I liked the spirit and fun of the restaurants the family ran, the Lebanese neighbourhood in Rosehill (in Sydney), how everyone lived around the corner.
   Perhaps, had Joe and I lived together for some time before taking the plunge, some of the cultural differences between us would have been revealed. But that really was not an option. Cohabitation would have shown great disrespect to his family, and I did not want that.
   Joe and I got married on November 14, 1999. We had our honeymoon in Paris, and my new husband was very romantic and seemed very much in love with me. And I loved him.
   But even then, just days into our marriage, he expressed disappointment. He thought there would be more sex, and he was not shy about voicing his complaint. "Are you frigid?" he would ask. "Are you a lesbian?"
   The honeymoon was not relaxing at all. We wanted to see too much of Europe in just three weeks. Still, I have good memories of our touring. Years later, Joe would tell me the honeymoon was a terrible disappointment. Was it really? Were we on different honeymoons? How could I have remembered a much better time? Did he really mean it when he told me that he was so disappointed that he prayed the plane taking us home would crash?
   Joseph Hawach is not an introspective man. Neither does he have much of a sense of humour. He was a controller and a scorekeeper: It was all about winning. I would write long letters to him, explaining what I was feeling, expressing hope that we could work through our problems. I would leave the letters on the kitchen table, but he would pointedly ignore them.
   He would get upset if I wore pants five days in a row (he kept count), or if I did not shave my legs (not something I ever worried about) he would call me a lesbian. I had coached a girls' basketball team in Sydney and had been athletic all my life. Suddenly I was supposed to be a glam girl? I was shocked that Joe could be so cruel and make such absurd demands.
   One day early in 2000, just one month into my marriage, I was working with Joe at the restaurant downtown when I turned four people away because the only table left was too small to accommodate them. Actually, they themselves made the decision since they weren't interested in waiting for a bigger table to free up.
   Joe started yelling at me, something he had never done, and he asked to speak with me in the back alley. "You f***ing moron!" he screamed. "Are you retarded?" I was shocked, gob-smacked. No one had ever spoken to me like that. All the customers and staff could hear my husband through the open window, strafing me with his words.
   A pattern began to unfold between Joe and me. I would do something that would make him angry and he would punish me. He would take off his wedding band and tell me it was staying off until I started acting properly (that is, doing exactly what he said). He would take away my credit card.
   The news of my pregnancy seemed to soften Joe. For a while.
   Two months into the pregnancy and five months into our marriage, I got the first taste of just how cruel my new husband could be. I was working a night shift with him, learning some of the ropes in the kitchen while Joe served, but when two meals were not done properly, Joe started yelling at me.
   I am emotional by nature, but now I was pregnant with hormones raging. And, with the open kitchen, everyone could hear our exchange.
   "Get out there!" Joe said. "You serve, and I'll cook!"
   I was bawling, I was embarrassed, and I refused to wait on tables in that state, and oh, did that make him mad. At the end of the night, I cleaned up the kitchen and I walked out into the back alley. I was not going to wait for a ride with him; I was going to take the train home.
   I got halfway down the alley when I heard Joe come up behind me. He grabbed me by my hair and sweater and he dragged me so forcefully I was choked and short of breath.
  [Picture] MELISSA HAWACH WITH HER DAUGHTERS, HANNAH AND CEDAR, JUST 36 HOURS AFTER ARRIVING BACK IN CANADA FROM LEBANON.  
   He forced me back to the restaurant and shoved me against the shelves. He blocked the doorway, and I just said quietly "Get out of my way".
   He would not move, and I just kept staring at him and repeating "Get out of my way".
   Finally, he did, but as I passed he kicked me in the lower back and into the hood of his car parked in the alley. I got up and walked to the train station.
   There were times when my husband would make no eye contact or say anything to me for weeks at a time. We argued in a cafe once, when I was six months pregnant with Hannah. Joe stormed out and drove off. With no money, I had to walk the 10km home along the highway. I kept thinking that Joe would cool off, reconsider, come back and give me a lift, but he never did. The walk home took me two hours.
   FRIGHT AND FLIGHT
   Hopeful they could make a fresh start, the couple sold their restaurant and moved with their new baby Hannah to Calgary, Canada, where Joe started a paper business. Despite attempts to save their marriage, Melissa and Joe separated after the birth of their second child, Cedar.
   The separation was amicable, with the pair choosing to come to an arrangement themselves about assets and child access. So amicable, Melissa agreed Joe could take the girls home to Sydney for a three-week holiday. At first she had daily contact with the children, but two weeks into their trip, all contact ceased.
   On July 19, 2006, after four days of frantic phone calls, Joe Hawach's brother Pierre finally admitted the truth: Joe had taken his children to Lebanon, and wasn't coming back.
   In December, having exhausted all official and judicial channels, Melissa flew into Lebanon with her father. She had hired a security team who said they could reunite her with her children. After weeks of soul-searching, she sent the security team home, convinced such an action could traumatise her children and see herself arrested.
   But the next morning two of the men, an Australian and New Zealander known to Melissa only as Brian and David, called her back offering her one last chance. "I feel like I have been given a gift from God," she said.
   AT ABOUT 7AM, A COUPLE OF HOURS AFTER Brian's phone call, we went to the resort.
   All of us, Brian, David and their two compatriots waited in a room for nine long hours watching old shows on television. It was a long, nervous day, but at 4.35pm my long wait ended.
   One of the guys had been checking to see if Joe's rented vehicle, a brand-new black four-wheel-drive Suburban, had returned.
   Now the news came that he had arrived, that Joe was hauling groceries in both arms and Hannah was struggling to close the back door of his vehicle. I watched as Hannah and Cedar came out to the little park at one end of the resort. They were wearing mismatched track-suits, their hair was unbrushed, and they looked dishevelled. They were walking towards the park with their two friends and the nanny.
   I knew Joe's habits: He would be lying down on the bed, napping or watching TV.
   As David and I walked up the spiral staircase to the sprawling park, I was calm and focused and clear. We took our time, even let 15 minutes pass. The men had told me: Stay calm. No running, no sudden movement. Nothing, they said, creates alarm like sudden movement.
   Now we were five feet (1.5m) from the nanny. My focus was on Hannah, all on Hannah. Cedar, I knew, would follow her. "Hannie? Hannie?" I called out. She had this glazed look on her face. I was out of context, and six months had passed since she'd seen me. This was her mother all right, no question. But what was she doing here?
   Then, pure instinct kicked in.
   "Momma! Momma!" she cried out, and she ran straight at me and launched herself up into my outstretched arms. Now Hannah was in my arms, and Cedar was right behind her, calling my name.
   I said, loud enough for the nanny to hear and hoping she would be confused by this, "Hey, guys. You're going to come with me for a bit. We'll talk to Daddy after."
   I was carrying Hannah, not Cedar. Everything was casual.
   We walked on, and at one point I wanted to switch the girls, put Hannah down to pick Cedar up. In lifting Cedar, my cell phone slid from my hip and hit the ground.
   Nice and easy, David picked it up, and the four of us walked away. We were so casual. The nanny did nothing, said nothing, just stood there.
   No doubt Joe had made no mention of their circumstances on the run. It must have seemed to this woman a perfectly ordinary thing. The girls' mother had come along and taken them for a walk. There were no tears. The kids were as good as gold, and they were so happy to see me.
   It had been 174 days since I last hugged them. Everything we had planned for, had hoped for, all just came together at once. It was surreal, just surreal. What I did not feel was any sense of victory.
   It was all so tentative, and at any moment, I knew the girls could be snatched from me.
   One of the guys had stayed in the stairwell, acting as lookout.
   Carrying Cedar and with Hannah holding my free hand, I and the two men now ran down the staircase, piled into the van with the tinted windows, and the van headed for the resort's exit.
   The girls and I were tucked in low behind the bench seat.
   After the guard lifted the long wooden security arm at the gate, we pulled away, but the guys in the back of the van eyed the gatehouse as we drove off.
   Guards had come out, which they do not normally do, and one was writing down our licence plate. The alarm had sounded.
   Two minutes later, as per the plan, some of us transferred into a sedan, a regular car without tinted windows.
   I took to the back seat between Hannah and Cedar, scrunched down low so no one could see us.
   We drove a long time, close to an hour, in gridlocked traffic.
   Police cars would scream past with their sirens blaring, and we would all freeze.
  [Picture] MELISSA AND JOSEPH HAWACH WITH HANNAH WHEN SHE WAS YOUNGER.  
   In the car, the girls and I played. I had water for them, and books, and old routines to call upon. For as long as we would remain in the Middle East (and I had no idea then how long that would be), I wanted things to stay light for the girls.
   Whatever strains and stresses I would feel in days to come, I did not want them sharing my burden.
   Finally, at dark, we arrived at our destination, the Hotel Alexandre.
   Dad was crying, hugging the girls and everyone there. But I was all business. I wanted out of that parking lot, fast.
   "We're good?" Brian asked me.
   "We're good," I replied.
   There had been no Blackhawk helicopter, no guns drawn, no commandos in fatigues, no grand escape.
   But our departure had not gone unnoticed, as later that day we would discover.
   Brian and David and their families would suffer terribly for the role they played in helping me (each spent three months in a Lebanese jail), and I dearly wish it were otherwise.
   Till the day I die, I will be beholden to those two fathers who acted out of a father's instinct and no other.
   They had put themselves at great risk to help me regain the girls.
   Yet it was very much their decision and I was convinced no matter what happened they would never hold it against me.
   Brian and David would have shared in my joy that day as I rode in the car and played with my daughters.
   Now it was Joe's turn to be king-hit, to be taken by surprise.
   The Hawach family never saw me coming, never dreamed I would parachute into their war-torn homeland, find the girls and simply call them to me. Getting them was literally a walk in the park.
   At that moment, even without knowing when and how we would ever get home, there was nowhere in the world that I would rather have been than in that vehicle with Hannah and Cedar.
   I felt such pure joy in being with them, but I also felt almost sick to my stomach knowing that their father was now feeling the same pain and loss I had felt.
   I would not wish that on anyone.  –
   Flight of the Dragonfly by Melissa Hawach is out on Wednesday, Aus. $35. Reprinted with permission of HarperCollins Publishers. #

Internet host suspends website for unreleased anti-Koran film, Fitna

   ReligionNewsBlog  www.religion newsblog.com/ 20927/fitna- movie , Item 20927, Posted Sunday, March 23, 2008
   NETHERLANDS and UNITED STATES of AMERICA – A website that a Dutch right-wing politician was planning to use to release a film expected to be fiercely critical of Islam has been suspended.
   The US hosting service, Network Solutions, said it was investigating complaints that it may have breached guidelines on hate language.
   Dutch politician Geert Wilders says the 15-minute film describes Islam as "the enemy of freedom".
   The planned release has sparked angry protests in many Muslim countries.
   The Dutch government has disassociated itself from Mr Wilders' views, but there are fears the film will spark protests similar to those that followed the publication in Denmark two years ago of cartoons seen as offensive to Muslims.
   The film has already been condemned by several Muslim countries, including Iran and Pakistan.
   Mr Wilders' film is entitled Fitna, an Arabic word used to describe strife or discord, usually religious.
   Mr Wilders wrote a commentary in a Dutch newspaper on Saturday.
   "The film is not so much about Muslims as about the Koran and Islam. The Islamic ideology has as its utmost goal the destruction of what is most dear to us, our freedom," he wrote in De Volkskrant [www.volks krant.nl].
   "Fitna is the last warning for the West. The fight for freedom has only just begun," he said.
   He had been using Network Solutions to promote the film.
   But on Sunday, Network Solutions said it had received a number of complaints that were under investigation.
   It said the site was suspended until it was established whether the content of the site violated Network Solutions' terms of acceptable use.
   They include "material that is obscene, defamatory, libellous, unlawful, harassing, abusive– hate propaganda" and "profane, indecent or otherwise objectionable material of any kind or nature".
   Mr Wilders has had police protection since Dutch director Theo van Gogh was killed by a radical Islamist in 2004.
   – Original title: Dutch Islam film website 'shut' #

Dutch Muslims offer to air anti-Quran film

   ReligionNewsBlog  www.religion newsblog.com/ 20931/ fitna , Radio Netherlands, Netherlands, www.radio netherlands.nl , (posted on Religion News Blog Mar 24), March 23, 2008
   AMSTERDAM – The Dutch Muslim Broadcasting organisation has offered Dutch populist MP Geert Wilders to air his planned anti-Qur'an film.
   Mr Wilders has rejected the proposal. The network first wants to ascertain that Fitna does not violate any constitutional rights. The far-right politician says the demand is unacceptable.
   The website where Mr Wilders intends to show the film has been shut by the provider after receiving complaints. The site went online in early March.
   The US hosting service is investigating whether the site's content breaches company policies on hate speech. Mr Wilders says he intends to release the 15-minute film before the end of this month. Fitna is an Arabic word for strife or discord.
   On Saturday, around 1300 people gathered in the centre of Amsterdam to protest against Mr Wilders' film and racism and discrimination in general. Mr Wilders has described Islam as "the enemy of freedom."
   The turnout fell far short of the 5000 people expected by the organisers. The far-right politician called the protest a hate demonstration and said he was pleased by the poor turnout.
   Technorati Tags (go to source webpage): Fitna, Geert Wilders, movie, anti-Koran, Quran, islam, islamism, islamic, muslim, muslims, islamic extremism #

Smith condemns Bashir ‘bigotry’

   Australian Broadcasting Corporation, www.abc.net. au/news/ stories/ 2008/03/24/ 2197836.htm , Monday, March 24, 2008
   AUSTRALIA and INDONESIA – The Federal Government has condemned comments Muslim cleric Abu Bakar Bashir made about Western tourists during a sermon in Indonesia.
   An Australian university student video-taped Bashir's sermon to around 300 people while he was in East Java last October.
   Bashir can be heard calling Western tourists "worms, snakes and maggots". He calls on young Muslims to beat up tourists and urges them to die like martyrs.
   He also said infidels such as Western tourists ruin moral values by exposing their skin at the beach.
   Foreign Affairs Minister Stephen Smith says the comments are full of the intolerance that has marked many of Bashir's previous speeches.
   "These remarks, these reported remarks from a speech six months ago, contain all the familiar bigotry and they are absolutely condemned," he said.
   Bashir was jailed for conspiracy over the 2002 Bali bombings, but his conviction was overturned and he was released from jail in 2006.
   Tags (go to ABC webpage): religion-and-beliefs, islam, world-politics, australia, nt, darwin-0800, indonesia #

‘Iraqis face Calvary’

   The Record (R.C. Perth, W. Australia, weekly), Catholic News Service, By Simon Caldwell and Regina Linskey, Pages 1 and 3, Wednesday, March 26, 2008
   English bishop says wartorn nation’s Christians undergoing their own ‘Via Crucis’ as Rahho letter comes to light
   LONDON (CNS) – An English bishop asked Catholics in England and Wales to mark the fifth anniversary of the US-led invasion of Iraq by praying for the Iraqi Christian community, which is "undergoing its own Calvary."
   "In the midst of continuing conflict and instability we should all reflect on the lessons that need to be learned and ask how we can contribute to creating a better future for Iraq," said Bishop Crispian Hollis of Portsmouth, England, chairman of the Department of International Affairs of the Bishops' Conference of England and Wales.
  [Picture] Archbishop Rahho  
   "Above all, we need to remember the people of Iraq as they struggle to rebuild their country," he said on March 18. "In particular, we ask you to hold in your prayers the Christian community.
   He said the plight of Iraqi Christians had been "brought home with terrible force" by the February 29 abduction and subsequent killing of Chaldean Catholic Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho of Mosul, Iraq.
   Meanwhile, it has transpired that shortly before his death Archbishop Rahho had asked for prayers for Iraqi Chaldean Catholics and said he would be the last person to leave Mosul.
  [Picture] Under threat: A woman receives Communion during an Easter Mass on March 23 at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Baghdad, Iraq.    PHOTO: CNS / THAIER AL-SUDANI, REUTERS   UK prelate warns Iraq’s Christians are going to their own Calvary Continued from Page 1
   "We are asking for your prayers to remove this cloud from our country and our Church," said Archbishop Rahho in a January 18 letter to the New York-based Catholic Near East Welfare Association.  The letter, which the association sent to CNS on March 17, referred to a series of church bombings in Mosul in early January.
   "We want to stay in our beloved land, despite the situation and the sufferings, especially after these last bombings," said Archbishop Rahho.
   The Archbishop asked for support from the association and said that "as a result of immigration, violence, kidnappings, bombings and unemployment" the church's revenue had declined by more than 25 per cent.
   However, Archbishop Rahho said the church provided "nonstop pastoral services for Chaldean families forced from Baghdad and other insecure areas" who had settled in villages in northern Iraq.
   We do not want to close our churches or leave Mosul," Archbishop Rahho said.
   He added, "Personally, I will be the last person to leave."
   Archbishop Rahho, 65, was kidnapped on February 29 in an attack that left his driver and two bodyguards dead. The archbishop's body was recovered on March 13 after the kidnappers told Catholic leaders in Iraq where he had been buried. His funeral was on March 14.
   Conservative estimates put the Iraqi death toll at about 89,000 people, while 4.3 million have been displaced, including more than 600,000 Iraqi Christians. #

Dutch MP posts Islam film on web

   ReligionNewsBlog  www.religion newsblog. com/20980/ fitna- movie-3 , BBC (UK), news.bbc.co.uk , March 27, 2008
   NETHERLANDS – Dutch right-wing politician Geert Wilders has posted a controversial film critical of Islam's holy book, the Koran, on the internet.
   The opening scenes show a copy of the Koran, followed by footage of the attacks on the US on 11 September 2001.
   The 15-minute film was posted on video-sharing website LiveLeak. [ www. liveleak. com ]
   Its planned release had sparked angry protests in Muslim countries.  The Dutch government has distanced itself from the views of Mr Wilders.
   The film is called "Fitna", a Koranic term sometimes translated as "strife". Dutch broadcasters have declined to show it.
   'Spiteful'
   Graphic images from the bomb attacks on London in July 2005 and Madrid in March 2004 are also shown.
   Scenes from a beheading and pictures of the Dutch director Theo van Gogh, who was murdered by a radical Islamist in 2004, are also included.
   The film ends with someone turning pages of a Koran, followed by a tearing sound.
   A text that appears on the screen says: "The sound you heard was from a page (being torn from a) phone book.
   "It is not up to me, but up to the Muslims themselves to tear the spiteful verses from the Koran."
   The film concludes: "Stop Islamisation. Defend our freedom."
   Two years ago the publication in Denmark of cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad sparked protests across the Muslim world. #
   To see film: Click: www.religion newsblog. com/20980/ fitna- movie-3

Muslim attacks forcing Jews out of Paris suburbs

   News Weekly (Melbourne, Australia), "As the World Turns," p 15, March 29, 2008
   VILLEPINTE, France: Rabbi David Altabe looks older than his 27 years when he talks about the future of the Jewish community in this working-class suburb of Paris.
   "We do what we can, but it's hard," he says. "I don't know why I stay. I ask myself that question all the time."
   Over a period of just three years, roughly half the Jewish families in Villepinte have left. Some have gone to other suburbs or Paris neighborhoods considered safer for Jews; a few have left the country.
   Of 300 families three years ago, only 150 remain today, community president Charly Hannoun estimates.
   Villepinte's 4O-year-old synagogue, which was torched in 1991 and 2001, is at risk of closing because there are barely enough regulars for a minyan. Jewish community leaders are wondering if Jews have a future here.
   "It's a whole history that's being erased," says Hannoun, who worked with contractors and friends to build the town's synagogue. "It's the end of the synagogue… "
   Villepinte is one stark example of what is happening to many Jewish communities in the immigrant-heavy suburbs of the Seine-Saint-Denis region, north of Paris.
   Scarred by the surge in anti-Semitism that swept through France between 2000 and 2005, roughly two-thirds of the mostly Sephardic Jews who once lived in these close-knit communities have left town.
   Experts say the Jewish flight from the suburbs is changing the demographics of France's Jewish community and increasing the ghettoisation of Jews in the country.
   All of France is experiencing the problem, says University of Paris sociologist Shmuel Trigano, the author of The Future of the Jews in France.
   "It is a general shift, not a passing crisis," Trigano says.
   "The Jewish community is becoming a ghetto. It is no longer a community of choice but a community of necessity. In a democracy that shouldn't happen."…
   "They chased us from Algeria and they followed us here," Robert Sebbane, 8l, says of the North African Muslims responsible for much of France's anti-Jewish crime.
   – "Muslim attacks forcing Jews out of Paris suburbs", JTA: Jewish & Israel News (New York), March 12, 2008.

ABC’s take on Islamic school controversy

   News Weekly, www.news weekly. com.au , (Melbourne, Vic., Australia), p 19, March 29, 2008
   AUSTRALIA – Earlier this year, I wrote a rather pessimistic article on the controversial proposal to build an Islamic school in Camden, a rural centre southwest of Sydney ("A stern test for multiculturalism", News Weekly, February 2, 2008).
   On March 10, the very night that the Camden City Council was due to hand down its decision, Sally Neighbour reported on the controversy for ABC television's flagship current affairs program Four Corners.
   Entitled "Dangerous Ground", the program commenced with Ms Neighbour's sonorous tones announcing: "One night in December, a crowd of close to a thousand farmers, business people, housewives and retirees converged on the Camden Civic Centre on the southwestern outskirts of Sydney. It was packed to overflowing and there was no turning them away.
   "The issue that prompted the huge turnout was a planning application for a new school catering for 1,200 studeofs – not just any school, but a school for Muslims. And these residents weren't having a bar of it."
   Unworthy
   What followed was a program completely unworthy of the ABC. Of greatest concern was the overall impression conveyed by Ms Neighbour that somehow the average Australian of either gender is a racist redneck.
   Pictures of the roiling crowd outside the Camden Council offices soon gave way to sympathetic interviews with members of the Islamic community who were concerned about the alienation of their youth and the concomitant proposition that this led almost irrevocably to radicalisation and the seductive allure of jihadist propaganda and recruitment to terrorist organisations.
   We were presented with scenes in a gym of young men, probably of Middle Eastern extraction and Muslim, being trained for boxing. The tragedy was that the occupants were being forced to leave and had no obvious premises to which to move; but at no stage was a measured appraisal of the situation made from those opposed to the Islamic school.
   Rather, in a cruel twist of fate, Four Corners showed that, after the Camden Council had turned down the proposal for the Islamic school, the next item on the agenda was favourable consideration for the licensing of a brothel.
   And so it went on. Normal Australians appeared as foul-mouthed racist bigots, and inevitably archival film footage of the Cronulla riots of December 2005 was used to drive home this point.
   Ignored was the fact that the vast majority of Australians are remarkably tolerant of migrants, and we have been spared so far the problems encountered in the UK, and increasingly in the US, with multiculturalism.
   In the United Kingdom, political correctness, holds such sway that it is now official 'policy not to refer to terrorists as terrorists, but only as a category of criminals.
   The security and police forces of this country, however, would be well advised to continue giving priority to monitoring terror suspects, and to distinguish this clearly from routine investigations of mere criminal activity.
   The most disappointing aspect of Ms Neighbour's campaign to denigrate the majority of Australia's population was that she managed to rope in Dr David Wright-Neville, an associate professor at Monash University and deputy director of the Global Terrorism Research Centre, who waxed lyrical about alienation and the part it plays in the life of young Muslims, making them vulnerable to the siren call of extremists.
   He was honest enough to admit that everybody experiences alienation in one form or another during their life; but the alienation of Muslim youth was depicted, rather crudely, with a simple diagrammatic sketch, which described stages through which young Muslims might pass from alienation from society and the mainstream culture – sometimes even from their families – through to a point of susceptibility to radicalisation.
   What he did not say, and what Ms Neighbour did not see fit to include, was the impact of fundamentalist Muslim clerics and their firebrand preaching on young Muslims. (Nor, for that matter, were any stories of successful immigration and integration mentioned– ).
  [Picture] Sally Neighbour  
   This episode of Four Corners lacked any balance. It also manifestly failed to acknowledge the asymmetry between Australian society and Musjim countries.  Freedom of religion is common to Western society in general, but the same cannot be said of the vast majority of countries where Islam holds sway.
   In some of these countries Christians are tolerated, such as the Coptic Christians in Egypt and the declining Orthodox communities across the Middle East. However, in many of them, Christians are forbidden to erect churches or proselytise, and most of their activities are circumscribed by the very nature of Islamic society. There is no multiculturalism in Islam.
   By its very nature, multiculturalism is a divisive policy and cannot be counted as a success anywhere that it has been tried. Countries with large unintegrated migrant communities are riven by strife, both inter- and intra-communal; and where there is a definite lack of national identity, such as in Australia – a relatively young country – the fracture lines in our community are all too apparent.
   – John Miller is a former senior intelligence officer.

Threats kill anti Islam film

   The Sunday Times (Perth, W. Australia), p 38, Sunday, March 30, 2008
   THE HAGUE: Internet site LiveLeak.com says it has withdrawn the anti-Islam film Fitna by far-right Dutch MP Geert Wilders after threats to its staff.
   "Following threats of a very serious nature, and some ill-informed reports from certain corners of the British media that could directly lead to the harm of some of our staff, Liiveleak.com has been left with no other choice, but to remove Fitna from our servers," the British-based site said yesterday.
   "This is a sad day for freedom of speech on the net, but we have to place the safety and wellbeing of our staff above all else.
   "We would like to thank the thousands of people, from all backgrounds and religions, who gave us support.
   "We stood for what we believe in, the ability to be heard, but in the end the price was too high."
   Mr Wilders said it was "terrible that these threats deal a serious blow to freedom of expression" but he understood the decision to withdraw the short film.
   Fitna can still be seen on other websites, including youtube.com. [ www. youtube. com ] #

K. Rudd’s Fetish for Political Persecution – Soviet Style

   News Release, ce said to me that the measure of a man can be determined by his ability to take criticism.
   Naturally this speaks volumes when one views the tactics and behavior exhibited by dictatorial and totalitarian leaders and their regimes. Leaders who tolerate no criticism, no opposing position on any issue- such dissent is to be hounded into silence, prosecuted under oppressive laws stifling freedom of speech and expression.
   Welcome to life in Australia 2008. Socialist governments from coast to coast and an emboldened internationalist multiculturalist lobby growing fat, arrogant and ever more dangerous on the taxes of Australian workers.
   Perhaps a little over dramatic?
   The Australian Protectionist Party [www.protect ionist.net], a progressive patriotic party in existence in our nation today, has come to the attention of that government department known as the "Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission". Equal opportunity, except in the area of free speech and open discussion for Australians.
   This body acts as little more than a government agency (as in the same manner as the Soviet KGB), they use their position to intimidate and bully those whose position on issues affecting the nation's future is at odds with those held by their paymasters.
   So, what exercise in horrendous racial vilification are the Australian Protectionists (and according to the Human Rights Commission, the National Chairman, Andrew Phillips) supposed to have carried out, thereby falling foul of our open minded regime led by a power mad Sinophile who claimed he intended to govern for ALL Australians?
   A complaint has been lodged by a government employee of yet another dictatorial social engineering department located in WA. Apparently this person is of Islamic Arab persuasion and had a leaflet she claims to be from the Protectionists sent to her by a friend "for her interest".
   So, the leaflet, available on the internet for anyone to download, was put into a friend's letterbox and sent to the complainant for her interest.
   Apparently the poor woman was so outraged and offended at receiving the leaflet, 90% of which consisted of reprinted tracts of the utterances of the Prophet Mohammed, that she began making abusive and threatening phone calls to the WA branch (as if they had put the leaflet into her box) and then lodged a confused and bitter complaint against the Party with Krudd's Thought Police.
   Despite claiming the desire to "negotiate" and "have all leafleting and activities cease", the true motivation of both the plaintiff and the Human Rights Thought Police are much darker than they would have us all believe.
   The plaintiff apparently shrieked at Australian Protectionists that "you'll all be going to gaol for SEVEN years" (hmmm, doesn't sound very conciliatory now, does it?), while the Thought Police sent out interesting extracts from the Racial Vilification Laws which truly set out how oppressive our system really is.
   The law states that Australians are free to believe whatever they wish (sounds quite reasonable, doesn't it?) in private.
   Apparently one falls foul of the law once "one causes words, sounds, images or writing to be communicated to the public" or "is done in the sight or hearing of people who are in a public place".
   Perhaps this does not sound too much like a One Party State in practice, but let us look deeply at what they're REALLY saying here.
   A group of reasonable, patriotic Australians who are naturally law abiding wish to discuss a contentious issue such as say, immigration and national identity.
   Not wanting to fall foul of the law, one of them decides to hold a meeting to discuss the issue in the privacy of his own home, or hires a small hall so people can discuss their concerns in private.
   At what point does the transmission of an "offensive personal point of view" attracting "7 years gaol" to the public really take place? As with all dictatorial systems, a public meeting is deemed to take place once 3 or more people are gathered together in one place.
   All it takes is for one person to disagree with a point of discussion in a room containing 3 or more people, lodge a complaint -- and you have broken the law. Perhaps a journalist has heard of this quiet meeting and chosen to invite themselves along?
   There you have it. All patriotic Aussies are entitled to their own opinions in our "free and democratic land", just as it should be. Just don't ever get the idea of meeting with like minded people, forget about raising issues of importance for discussion by your fellow Australians and absolutely forget about ANY idea of forming a political movement to represent your wishes.
   George Orwell would be proud.
   Regardless of these developments, the Australian Protectionist Party leadership are committed to standing firm against the actions of a dictatorial government and their globalist cronies. APP is devoted to the task of speaking out for Australians on ALL issues, be they the threats to Aussie manufacturing jobs, the attempts to drive our farmers off their land and endanger the viability of our primary industry through cheap imports, attacks on the biological integrity of our land through lowered quarantine standards, the actions of social engineers in our education system instructing our children to loathe their own identity and culture, immigration and the threat to freedom of speech which has long been treasured by Aussies and a gift to the nation by our founders -- a gift paid for with the blood of diggers on foreign battlefields.
   As in the past, there is a renewed effort to deny Australians their right to freedom of speech and self determination. Members of the Protectionist Party and the Party's National Committee will be resisting any attempts to deny Australians their right to discuss issues of national interest and deny us the tradition of questioning the dubious actions and motivations of remote and disinterested governments.
   "If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever"- George Orwell, 1984.
   Australia, it's YOUR country, protect what is left for future generations. Australian Protectionism - the ONLY way forward.

ANNALS AUSTRALASIA     3-4     MARCH 2008
Editorial
Pure Islamism is 'theoretically bankrupt,' and 'politically impossible'

DIALOGUE WITH ISLAM: PLANNING TO FAIL?

 
By Paul Stenhouse, MSC, PhD OVER THE PAST few weeks much has been said and written about recent comments on Islamic Shari‘a, by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Williams.
   In none of the comments on the Archbishop's speech, was there any unequivocal indication given by the people expressing opinions that they really understood either the comprehensive power [or 'jurisdictional'] claims made by Shari‘a, or the nuances inherent in Shari‘a, which is the very 'nucleus' of Islam. ¹

Three Catholics Murdered Chaldean Archbishop Kidnapped POPE BENEDICT XVI [Ratzinger] urged the release of the Chaldean Catholic Archbishop of Mosul who was abducted by gunmen today in the northern Iraqi city.    AsiaNews reported that Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho had just left Mosul's Holy Spirit Cathedral when he was kidnapped in the al-Nour district in the eastern section of the city. Three people who accompanied him were killed.    "Gunmen opened fire on the car, killed the other three and - kidnapped the Archbishop," a Mosul police official told Reuters.    The Holy See's note added: "Saddened by this new abominable act, which profoundly affects all of the Church in the country, and in particular the Chaldean Church, the Pope expresses his closeness to the patriarch, Cardinal Emmanuel III Delly, and all of the afflicted community, as well as the relatives of the victims.    "The Pontiff invites the universal Church to unite in fervent prayer so that reason and compassion prevail in the kidnappers and Archbishop Rahho is given back as soon as possible to his flock," Bishop Rabban al-Qas of Arbil told AsiaNews:    "The bishop is in terrorist hands, but we don't know in what physical state. The three men who were with him, including his driver, were killed. "It is a terrible moment for our Church. Please, pray for us."

   Two crucial issues among many that affect the assimilation of Muslims into non-Muslim democratic societies continue to elude protagonists at all levels of the political and religious spectrum.
   Firstly, the Archbishop and some of his critics appear to assume that the Shari‘a of Islam is religious law; and that fatwas emanating from Shari– a courts would affect only questions of a religious nature - garb, dietary laws, prayers, religious obligations, pilgrimages, training of imams, defining sins etc.
   The reality is otherwise. What we are witnessing, in essence, is a flexing of legal muscles brought about by competing jurisdictional claims made by two systems of civil laws: those governing Western democratic societies {in this instance, British law} and those civil/religious/social laws that govern Islamic societies. These laws are called Shari– a.
   Islamists are seeking, quite literally, to live {and have other Muslims live} under Shari– a rather than under British Law. Only one of these competing systems can be supreme.
   The Archbishop recognizes that there is a problem but seems unaware of the danger of ceding jurisdiction to a group of Islamic Shari– a scholars who deny that compliance with Shari– a is optional.
   Western legislators who dabble with Shari– a in the hope of assisting assimilation of Muslims into a secular political society ruled by civil law are digging a grave for Democracy.
   Political Islam and religious Islam are co-extensive. The one heterogeneous reality to which both terms refer, and from which they draw their inspiration and strength, is called Shari– a. To see the question as one of religious law {Islamic} and civil law {Western countries} is to miss the point. Laws of a political, juridical and religious nature are 'absolutely similar from the Muslim point of view'.
   'The Shari– a' however, 'is not "Law" in the modern sense of the word, any more than it is, on account of its subject matter. It comprises without restriction, as an infallible doctrine of duties, the whole of the religious, political, social, domestic and private life of those who profess Islam [my emphasis], and the activities of the tolerated members of other faiths as far as they may not be detrimental to Islam'. ²
   The West is dealing with contradictory, opposed and apparently irreconcilable political systems. Islam is not some routinely familiar religion - or even an exotic religion - with a political face. Islam is an intricate political system with a religious face.

UK Police, the Qur’an and Shari– a POLICE WILL BE trained on the importance of the Koran and Sharia law to Muslims under Government plans to tackle extremism. Lessons in the Islamic faith and culture will become part of the formal training for recruits. – But critics expressed concern that the plan could foster division, rather than combat it.    It comes after the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, said the adoption of certain aspects of Sharia law in the UK "seems unavoidable". He later said his remarks had been misinterpreted.    Shadow Home Secretary David Davis added: "Of course it is sensible for the police to have an understanding of the Koran and Sharia law as long as we do not allow the situation to slip so that Sharia law is regarded on an equal basis with British law. British law is and always must be pre-eminent." –    Police will not have to learn the "depth and complexity" of Sharia law but would be expected to understand Islamic culture.    But critics have described the plan as "politically correct thinking". Philip Davies, Conservative MP for Shipley, said: "Police officers are not there to implement sharia law. They are there to implement British law. This idea is misguided. We will only get community cohesion when everybody signs up to being British and following British law."    – 'Bobbies will be taught sharia law and the Koran in "secret" plan to counter terror at local level' James Slack, London Daily Mail, March 1, 2008

   Prosecuting war, regulating the market place, raising taxes, settling law - all these took place (at least in theory) under the legitimizing penumbra of the caliph's authority (in formative Islam) or, later, that of the law (the shari– a), which he safeguarded. ³
   If politics is a complex science in the 21st century West, should we be surprised to discover that it is more complex and even more multi-faceted in Islam, a way of life still firmly rooted in the 7th - 10th centuries? Should we be surprised to find that political Islam on the ground makes no bones about the centrality of violence in its political process? ⁴
   Secondly, where 'conflicts' arise between the views of non-Islamic and Islamic communities on the nature and role of civil law {e.g., as I write, in the UK, Holland, some Scandinavian countries and France, to mention but a few} then any discussion of issues arising from them must take into account the existence of non-negotiable factors within Islam. These non-negotiable factors exist in all political systems, and, understandably, in all religions.
   Shari– a {for Sunnis, especially of the Hanbali/Wahhabi/Salafi persuasion}, ⁵ has been locked in a time warp since the fourth century of the Muslim era.  This is because of their belief that the infallible Ijma' {the most important foundation of Shari– a} ceased upon the death of the mujtahidun - the early Muslim founders of legal schools authorized to pass judgements binding on Muslims.
   There is as well a general belief among Sunnis that the right of IjtihÄ�d in Islam {finding a solution to legal problems from first principles} no longer exists. ⁶   Protagonists of this view see Shari– a as set in concrete, and oppose all change. What is required of the believer is taklid or unquestioning acceptance of the decision of the approved schools.
   History teaches us that attempts by non-Muslims to dialogue with Muslims without {1} recognizing the all-pervasive political nature of Islamic Shari– a, and without {2} identifying beforehand which constitutive elements of Islam are non-negotiable are, it seems to me - and it must also seem thus to all Muslims who are alert - a sign of weakness, and doomed to fail.
   Also doomed to fail are attempts by non-Muslim societies to avoid provoking radical Islamists by caving in to them. Compromise will lead inevitably to further demands. And if these be not met, then intimidation and violence will result.

Shari– a and Violence WHEN YOU MEET unbelievers {Arabic words} behead them {Arabic words} until you have made much slaughter amongst them {Arabic words}.  Then shackle them with tight fetters.  After that it will be time either for benevolence or the payment of ransom.    – Qur'an, Sura 47:4

   What is needed is encouragement by Western democracies of open, frank, across the board and non-intimidatory debate by Muslims on controverted politico-religious elements within the Shari'a. This would be a conditio sine qua non for Muslims who wish to do so to be able to assimilate into a genuinely civil society where disputes are settled by intellectual debate and the ballot box, and not by resorting to violence.
   The Archbishop's talk, Civil and Religious Law in England: a Religious Perspective, was influenced by Tariq Ramadan's Western Muslims and the Future of Islam, a book the Archbishop described as 'groundbreaking'.
   Dr Williams is in dubious company. Tariq Ramadan, grandson of the founder of the Muslim Brothers and of the modern Islamist movement, has also been praised as 'the future of Islam' by Hassan al Turabi the controversial Sudanese Islamist. ⁷ For almost four decades al Turabi - a friend of Usama bin Laden and Abu Nidal - has dominated and had a malign influence on Sudanese Islamism.
   The West and the non-Islamic world generally are not well served by politicians, bureaucrats, media and non-Islamic religious spokesmen whose ignorance would condemn us all, non-Muslims and Muslims alike, to a grim future.
   Others who know recognize that so-called pure Islamism, with its 'divinely sanctioned violence' as a means of bringing about God's reign on earth, is 'theoretically bankrupt, and politically impossible'. ⁸

1. Shorter Encyclopaedia of Islam, H.A.R.Gibb and J.H.Kramers, eds, Leiden, E.J.Brill, 1974, 'Shari– a' p. 525.
2. ibid.
3. Chase F. Robinson, Islamic Historiography, Cambridge University Press, 2003, p.128
4. Islamism and Its Enemies in the Horn of Africa, Alex de Waal ed, Shama Books, Addis Ababa, 2004, p.24
5. Though the Wahhabis, loosely identified with puritan Hanbalis {Ibn Hanbal died 855 AD}, theoretically accept only Ijma' from the time of the Ash�b or 'Companions' i.e the first generation of Muslims.
6. By around 900 AD the 'Gate of Ijtih�d' had been closed, because it was held that all essential questions had been discussed and there was no one with the necessary qualifications for independent reasoning in law. See J. Schacht, 'Idjtihad,' Encyclopaedia of Islam {Electronic ed.}.
7. ' – although Turabi speaks of persuasion, perseverance and other peaceful means to propagate Islam, he does not rule out force, as is implicit in his statement that if peaceful means fail, "you storm through using other means until you reach the people." – Mahmood Ibrahim, reviewing The Making Of An Islamic Political Leader: Conversations With Hassan Al-Turabi, by Mohamed Elhacmi Hamdi, Boulder, CO., 1998, in Al-Jadid, vol.4, No.25, Fall, 1998.
8. Islamism and Its Enemies in the Horn of Africa ed. cit., p. 22. # ANNALS AUSTRALASIA     3-4     MARCH 2008

ANNALS AUSTRALASIA     16     MARCH 2008
Islam
Heightening of intolerance and hatred of Christians in Pakistan

CONVERT OR DIE

 
By John Newton and John Pontifex PAKISTAN'S leading Catholic prelate has called on the new government to crack down on extremists after warning, of a rise in militant groups which threaten to kill Christians if they do not convert to Islam.
   In a statement coinciding with last week's presidential elections, Archbishop Lawrence Saldanha of Lahore described the growing "hatred and intolerance" of groups who, he said, were contravening Pakistan's constitution by trying to force Christians to turn to Islam.
   Archbishop Saldanha, President of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of Pakistan, highlighted the case of a young Catholic father of four who was kidnapped and threatened with death.
   The kidnapping followed his promotion to bank manager, which is said to have sparked jealousy among his colleagues.
   During his captivity, last month, the banker, whom the Archbishop calls Haroon, was ordered to phone his wife and tell her that he would be killed if she dared to inform the police.
   Mr Haroon, from Narang, 30 miles north of Lahore, in Pakistan's northeastern Punjab Province, only escaped after his captors left him unguarded one morning.
   By then, he had been moved to a number of different locations, finally ending up in a farmhouse 300 miles from Lahore in the south of the province.
   His kidnappers, Jamaat-ul-Dawah, have been branded a terrorist organisation by the UK, Pakistan and other countries.
   Stressing how religious freedom is enshrined in Pakistan's constitution, Archbishop Saldanha called on the government to crack down on extremism.
  [Picture] Archbishop Lawrence Saldanha examines the remains of a presbytery in Sangla Hill destroyed during extremist violence.  
   He wrote: "Haroon's story illustrates a new trend that underlines the difficulties and pressures of living in a land where extremism is growing and there is little tolerance for people who are non-Muslims.
   "Especially Christians who live in remote and isolated towns are vulnerable. Here the level of hatred and intolerance is even more intense.
   "Fortunately Haroon is an educated man and strong in his Catholic faith. He was able to resist his attackers."
   The Archbishop described how after his escape from captivity, Mr Haroon managed to reach the main road and take a bus to town where he found his way to a Catholic mission station.
   In the message, sent from his office in Lahore, Archbishop Saldanha goes on to describe the plight of Christian girls who are abducted and forced to marry Muslim boys and change their religion.
   These events follow warnings issued by Archbishop Saldanha last May that Muslim extremists were now trying to force Christians to convert by threatening violence.
   In an interview with Aid to the Church in Need, the Archbishop highlighted a case in which about 500 Christians had received anonymous letters warning of violent retribution if mass conversion to Islam did not follow within 10 days.
   At the time, Archbishop Saldanha said: "It distresses us that Christians are threatened in an attempt to force them to convert to Islam. This is something that has never happened before."
   He added, "We Christians are citizens, just like everyone else, and wish to have the same rights."
   Helping Christians in Pakistan is a priority for Aid to the Church in Need {ACN}, where annually the charity provides nearly £400,000 to support key projects - seminarians, sisters, catechists and religious education literature (bibles and catechisms) in the national tongue Urdu and provincial languages.
   After the violence unleashed following the 2006 prophet Mohammed cartoon controversy, ACN offered support for repairs to churches and other buildings which were fire-bombed.
   The charity also helped increase security at Christ the King Major Seminary in Karachi after they were warned of a possible attack by Islamic extremists.
   Directly under the Holy See, Aid to the Church in Need [ACN| supports the faithful wherever they are persecuted, oppressed or in pastoral need.
   ACN is a Catholic charity - helping to bring Christ to the world through prayer, information and action. It works in about 145 countries throughout the world. Since the initiative's launch in 1979, 45 million ACN Child's Bibles have been distributed worldwide.
   For more information and to assist in the work, contact Phillip Collignon, Director, Aid to the Church in Need, Sydney, NSW; Phone/Fax [021 9679-1929. #

ANNALS AUSTRALASIA     28-30     MARCH 2008
Confronting terror
Intellectual and Moral Rot undermining High Places

KNOWING THE ENEMY

 
By Andrew Bostom B ILL GERTZ, Washington Times national security columnist, reports (4/1/08) that the Pentagon has fired Stephen Coughlin, its most knowledgeable specialist on Islamic Law, and jihad terrorism.  As Gertz observed aptly, the Pentagon thus ended the career of its most effective analyst attempting to prepare the military to wage ideological war against jihadism.
   This past September, 2007, I lectured with Mr. Coughlin, a US Army Reserves Major, at The Naval War College, and witnessed his brilliant, tour de force presentation which elucidated the reliance of contemporary jihadism on Islamic Law.  Coughlin demonstrated meticulously that "Jihad fi Sabil Allah" – "Jihad in the cause of Allah," is the animating principle which underlies the threat of global jihad terrorism, and how this understanding should form the basis for rational, effective threat development assessment, and war planning.
   That Coughlin's analyses would even be considered "controversial," or worse still lead eventually to his firing – perhaps, as Gertz strongly suggests, at the behest of a Muslim aide, Hesham Islam, within the office of Deputy Defence Secretary Gordon England – is pathognomonic of the intellectual and moral rot plaguing our efforts to combat global jihadism.
   There is no evidence that Mr. Islam – distinctly unlike Mr. Coughlin – has any specific expertise on the theory or historical practice of jihad; indeed Gordon England's Egyptian Muslim aide is touted for his public relations skills – a sort of English-speaking Muslim Dragoman to the global Islamic umma.  According to Deputy Secretary England,    Coughlin's reasoned conclusions simply update and complement, exquisitely, what serious scholars of jihad have long argued about revivalist movements throughout Islamic history. For example, forty years ago (in 1967), John Ralph Willis observed regarding the 19th century jihadist movements in West Africa, specifically, and such historical movements in general,    Stephen Coughlin's modern predicament is eerily similar to what befell another courageous, unabashed American patriot, William Eaton, two hundred years ago, during our nation's first encounter with jihad terrorism. "Victory in Tripoli," Joshua London's compelling narrative of America's initial conflict with jihadists – the Barbary wars – highlights, appositely, William Eaton's experiences. Eaton's triumphs and travails during his tenure as consul to Tunis (1799-1803), and later U.S. naval agent to the Barbary states, mirrored those of the young American nation he served.
   Born on February 23, 1764 in Woodstock, Connecticut, the highly intelligent and strong-willed Eaton, when 16 years old, ran away from home, subsequently lying about his age to join Washington's Continental Army. He rose to the rank of sergeant in the Continental Army, which he served until 1783. Eaton graduated Dartmouth in 1790, and in 1791 was chosen clerk of the Massachusetts House of Delegates, where he remained until 1797, while he also served (beginning in 1792) the U.S. Army as both a fighter and negotiator during the frontier campaigns against the American Indians. Later, Eaton assisted then Secretary of War Timothy Pickering's espionage/treason investigations.

Hellenized Aramaic and Iranian Culture What we therefore call "Arab civilization" was Arabian neither in its origins and fundamental structure nor in its principal ethnic aspects.    The purely Arabian contribution in it was in the linguistic and to a certain extent in the religious fields.    Throughout the whole period of the caliphate the Syrians, the Persians, the Egyptians and others, as Moslem converts or as Christians and Jews, were the foremost bearers of the torch of enlightenment and learning just as the subjugated Greeks were in their relation to the victorious Romans.    The Arab Islamic civilization was at bottom the Hellenized Aramaic and the Iranian civilizations as developed under the aegis of the caliphate and expressed through the medium of the Arabic tongue.    – Philip Hitti, History of the Arabs from the Earliest times to the Present, Macmillan 1968, p. 174.

   When Pickering became Secretary of State, he chose Eaton to serve as U.S. consul to Tunis, initially under President John Adams.
   Eaton's consular journal recorded these brutally honest and comical impressions of his first diplomatic encounter (on February 22, 1799) with Dey Bobba Mustafa of Algiers, which would make the craven State Department mandarins of today, wince:    Despite such inauspicious beginnings, and the institutionalized Barbary corruption Eaton found so repugnant to his person, and nation, his negotiations eventually secured U.S. commercial interests (at least a temporary) immunity from the attacks of Tunisian corsairs.
   Eaton agonized over the gulf between the enormous potential and depressing reality of the Barbary states. He admired the Mediterranean coast of Tunis, "– naturally luxuriant and beautiful beyond description– I know not why it might not vie with the opposite continent in every thing useful, rich, and elegant", yet despaired of the stultifying religio-political institutions which arrested the region's progress.

A Different Perspective on the Crusades STILL more striking is the case of the Crusades. For two centuries the Muslims of the Middle East were in intimate if hostile contact with groups of Franks established among them - yet they do not seem to have developed the least interest in them.    As Professor Gabrieli has pointed out, 'the Muslims, unlike the Christians, did not regard the Crusades as something separate and distinctive, nor did they single out the Crusaders from the long series of infidel enemies whom from time to time they fought'.    The chroniclers report in detail the smallest skirmishes between Muslims and Prankish troops - but they have little to say about the internal affairs of the Prankish states in the Levant and even less about their countries of origin.    The omission is the more remarkable in that the geographers and cosmographers have some information, mostly derived from western Muslim sources, about the Franks and their countries.    Yet with one or two minor exceptions, the historians of Islam made no attempt to relate their narrative of the Syrian wars to this information, to trace the invaders back to their countries of origin, or to inquire into the mighty yet invisible movement that had launched them.    – Bernard Lewis, Islam in History, Open Court, 1993

   Ultimately, Eaton concluded that Islam itself, certainly as practised in Barbary, was the source of this backwardness:    Appointed Naval Agent for the Barbary Regencies in 1804, Eaton then organized and led an expedition to unseat the predatory Barbary ruler Yusuf Qaramanli. Eaton's army arrived outside Derna. on April 25, 1805. When the bey of Derna refused his generous ultimatum, at 2 p.m. April 28, Eaton led a successful attack on the city, supported by U.S. naval gunfire. During the fighting Eaton – who had led his outnumbered force in a gallant bayonet charge – was wounded in the left wrist. As [Joshua] London recounts:    Subsequent diplomatic efforts stalled the expedition. Tobias Lear, the Consul General, reached an accommodation with Yusuf Qaramanli, which included ransom money for all American prisoners, the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Derna, and the betrayal of Eaton's key Arab ally, Ahmad Qaramanli. Eaton commented upon this treaty with predictable bitterness in a letter to Commodore John Rodgers:    Although the Senate ratified the Tripoli treaty in April 1806 by a vote of 21 to 8, as London notes,    Just over five years later, in Brimfield, Massachusetts, June 1, 1811, an alcoholic forty-seven year old William Eaton died virtually forgotten.
   The signing of the Treaty of Ghent (Christmas Eve, 1814) – subsequently ratified in the U.S. (February, 1815) - ended the so-called War of 1812 with Great Britain, and allowed President James Madison to address the problem of renewed Barbary jihad terrorism.
   Shortly afterward, President Madison commissioned two naval squadrons led by Commodores William Bainbridge and Stephen Decatur, and dispatched them to the Barbary States in May, 1815.
   By June/July 1815 the ably commanded U.S. naval forces had dealt their Barbary jihadist adversaries a quick series of crushing defeats. These U.S. victories were solidified by what [Joshua] London terms "unprecedented" treaty agreements forced upon the Barbary states, which "..made practically no concessions and stood very firm on every point"
   – the abolition of all tribute; release of all American prisoners currently held, and acknowledgement that no future American prisoners of war could be enslaved; the payment of indemnities; and the restoration of American properties held by the dey.
   Joshua London concludes his engrossing, carefully researched account of the Barbary wars with this insightful analysis:    Thirty years earlier, in 1786, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, then serving as American ambassadors to France and Britain, respectively, met in London with the Tripolitan Ambassador to Britain, Sidi Haji Abdul Kahman Adja.

Sufism at the service of Islamist Ideology Although Sufism is generally devalued by the new intellectuals, the image of Perfect Man that conditions their relationship to knowledge, action, and leadership is of mystical origin.    But this mysticism harks back to militant, conquering Sufism, defender of the sharia, more than to popular maraboutism {devotion to a 'saint' with allegedly 'supernatural' powers. Ed.}. Islamist vocabulary is often derived from the Sufi world: Da'wa ('call'), muballigh ('preacher'), and so on.    The objective is to create a total, wise, fighting man, and especially one who has undergone a kind of 'mental conversion': beyond education, this conversion consists in a new vision of the world. Ideological formation is more important than acquiring knowledge.    – The Failure of Political Islam, Olivier Roy, Harvard University Press, 1996 p.101.

   These future American presidents were attempting to negotiate a peace treaty which would spare the United States the ravages of jihad piracy – murder, enslavement (with ransoming for redemption), and expropriation of valuable commercial assets – emanating from the Barbary states (modern Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya).

Muhammad the Model The modern historian generally reads Prophetic sira {history} as a description of Muhammad's life; the medieval Muslim reader generally read it as a prescription for his own life.    – Islamic Historiography, Chase F. Robinson, Cambridge Universty Press, 2003, p. 122

   During their discussions, they questioned Ambassador Adja as to the source of the unprovoked animus directed at the nascent United States republic. Jefferson and Adams, in their subsequent report to the Continental Congress, recorded the Tripolitan Ambassador's justification:    Stephen Coughlin understands and enunciates what was stated openly to then Ambassadors John Adams and Thomas Jefferson – and what they apparently understood – by the Tripolitan Ambassador Adja.
   During his September 2007 presentation which I witnessed at US Naval War College, Coughlin updated this timeless Islamic formulation into its modern context:    And Coughlin, a well-trained lawyer, further argued that such understanding by our military leaders is obligatory if they are to uphold their essential commission:    Stephen Coughlin has been fired for reminding his peers of this basic obligation.
   Two hundred years after William Eaton's bitter, tragic experiences, and ultimate posthumous vindication, let us fervently hope that our contemporary military and political elites muster the intellectual courage to heed Major Stephen Coughlin's advice in a much more timely, and responsible manner.
____________________
ANDREW G. BOSTOM, MD, MS is an Associate Professor of Medicine at Brown University Medical School, and occasional contributor to Frontpage Magazine. He is author of The Legacy of Jihad - Islamic Holy War and the Fate of non-Muslims. Copyright © 2007 Andrew Bostom | All Rights Reserved: Reprinted with permission. # ANNALS AUSTRALASIA     30     MARCH 2008

ANNALS AUSTRALASIA     32     MARCH 2008

MEDIA MATTERS

 
By James Murray
Koranic Jesus    The Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting has produced a feature movie and a 20-episode series, Jesus, Spirit of God.  According to Variety earlier this year overall budget for the production, directed by Nader Talezbadeh, was a relatively modest $5 million.
   Cinema Media Intl managing director Mohammed Reza Ahbasian said: 'It is important to show our history before the Islamic revolution.  These episodes of religious history and Iranian history are very popular with Iranian audiences.  We want to show the opinions of Islam towards the prophet [Jesus].   The story came from the Koran without any changes.  You could call it Jesus through Islam's lens.'
   Indeed.  As reporter Ali Jaafar commented the movie sees Jesus saved from the cross by God and taken to heaven.  In other words, no resurrection from the dead, no ascension into heaven.
   Interesting to speculate how an equivalent truncating of the Koran or other Islamic texts would be received by Muslims.
   This might be a topic for the Vatican and Muslim thinkers invited by Pope Benedict XVI [Ratzinger] to create guidelines for dialogue [see Annals 1/2008].
   Another topic: edited or not, the narrative of Jesus Christ's life is persuasively eloquent.  Suppose a viewer of Jesus, Spirit of God is converted to Christianity by it.  Given its official provenance, will the viewer come under a death fatwa for apostasy? #

Islam overtakes Catholicism as world’s largest religion

   The Times Online (London), (Letters for publication to letters@thetimes.co.uk, www.timeson line.co.uk/ tol/news/ world/ article365 3800.ece , By Richard Owen of The Times in Rome, March 31, 2008
   VATICAN CITY – Islam has overtaken Roman Catholicism to become the world's largest single religious denomination, according to L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper.
   In an interview with the paper Monsignor Vittorio Formenti, compilier of the Annuario Pontificio, the Vatican yearbook, said "For the first time in history, we are no longer at the top: Muslims have overtaken us." He said that figures for 2006 showed that Catholics accounted for 17.4 per cent of the world population while Muslims accounted for 19.2 per cent.
   Asked for an explanation Monsignor Formenti observed that "While Muslim families, as is well known, continue to make a lot of children, Christian ones on the contrary tend to have fewer and fewer". He said the figure for the Muslim global population was derived from data submitted to the United Nations by Muslim countries.
   However Christians as a whole, including Catholics, Orthodox, Protestants and Anglicans make up 33 per cent of the world population. Mosnignor Formenti said Latin America remained "the stronghold" of Catholicism, and the American continent as a whole had nearly half the world's total. He noted the decline in numbers of Catholic priests, and said the number of nuns was also suffering a "drastic reduction".
   The figures were released as both the Vatican and Muslim leaders sought to pursue a recently initiated Muslim-Catholic dialogue despite tensions over Pope Benedict XVI's high profile baptism at Easter of Magdi Allam, a converted Italian Muslim journalist of Egyptian origin. Father Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, said the opinions of Mr Allam, an outspoken critic of Islam as inherently violent and repressive, were not in any way "the official expression of the positions of the Pope or the Holy See".
   The Vatican puts the number of Catholics in the world at 1.13 billion people, while the figure for Muslims is estimated at around 1.3 billion.
   Rome has Europe's largest mosque, opened in 1995 and paid for by Muslim countries, mainly by Saudi Arabia, which at present bans Christian worship but is reported to be considering allowing the construction of a church on Saudi soil as part of negotiations for the establishment of diplomatic relations.
   In a provocative short story entitled "The Last Christmas" (L'Ultimo Natale) the popular Italian writer Valerio Massimo Manfredi imagines a future in which Islam has become the dominant religion in Italy, with the Pope obliged to leave St Peter's and make way for an Imam. #

Delivered from bondage

   Challenge (the Good News paper; W. Australia), By ANDREW LANSDOWN, Pages 1 and 2, April 2008
   ANZAC DAY offers an opportunity to reflect on the wars that our nation has participated in. One war that deserves to be remembered is the first war that America and its allies (including Australia) fought against Saddam Hussein, the Butcher of Baghdad.
   On 2 August 1990, Iraq invaded the small Arab nation of Kuwait. The international community responded by placing a trade embargo on Iraq, and issued ultimatums through the United Nations for Iraq to withdraw. Iraq ignored all economic and diplomatic pressure, took hundreds of innocent Westerners hostage, and dug its troops in to the occupied territory.
   On 17 January 1991, after five months of diplomacy and blockade, a coalition of 38 nations, led by the United States of America, went to war with Iraq. Their aim was to liberate Kuwait from Iraqi occupation and to destroy Iraq's military power for the future safety of the gulf region.
   The monstrous intentions of the Iraqis, and in particular of their national leader, Saddam Hussein, became increasingly evident as the war progressed. They launched dozens of Soviet-made Scud missiles at residential areas in Israel, a neutral country.
   They opened the spigots of Kuwait's main supertanker-loading pier to pour millions of litres of crude oil into the seas of the Persian Gulf. They set fire to 600 oil wells throughout Kuwait. They destroyed hotels and government buildings at random, and looted everything of value.
   However, it was not until the war was won, some 43 days after it began, that the true horror of the Iraqi occupation became known.
   Torture was a common practice. The Iraqis tore off the fingernails of Kuwaitis who displayed pictures of their emir. They drilled holes in the kneecaps of resistance suspects - or inflated their intestines with air or cut off their ears or gouged out their eyes - before murdering them.
   Early on in the occupation, "the Iraqis killed so many young men – that the bodies were taken to a skating rink for short-term preservation" (The Bulletin/Newsweek, 12 March 1991). And they raped and humiliated Kuwaiti women at will.
   It is little wonder that the Kuwaitis could barely contain their joy when delivered them from Iraqi occupation. They came out in their thousands to kiss American soldiers and to sing "God bless America".
   The Americans and their allies liberated Kuwait and thereby saved many lives. […]

CORRECTIONS & CLARIFICATIONS

Mosque muddle

   The West Australian, www.thewest. com.au , p 23, Tuesday, April 1, 2008
   Mosque muddle: We jumped the gun on the application for a proposed mosque in the Swan Valley, wrongly writing that it was already being considered by the Swan Valley Planning Commission.  It is, in fact, still before the City of Swan and is yet to go to the commission (Mosque in lap of the planners, page 14, March 28).
  

Rockets rain down on Iraq envoy complex

   The West Australian, www.thewest. com.au , p 28, Tuesday, April 1, 2008
   BAGHDAD – A volley of rockets smashed into the fortified Green Zone in Baghdad yesterday, hitting at least five people, including an Iraqi army major and two US soldiers, witnesses said.
   The rockets struck near a checkpoint in the complex, which is the seat of the Iraqi Government and home to most foreign embassies, said Muhanned al-Dulaimi, who said that he was lucky to have survived the attack.
   "The rockets hit the ground near the checkpoint," he said.
   "The sirens were sounding. I saw five people lying on the ground. Two of them were American soldiers, two were civilians and one was an Iraqi army major."
   He was not able to determine if the casualties were dead or wounded. There was no immediate confirmation of the attack from the US Embassy.
   The Green Zone, a maze of blast-wall-lined roads that once served as the late Saddam Hussein's presidential palace complex, has been subject to waves of mortar and rocket fire since March 23.
   Two US officials and two Iraqi guards of Sunni Vice-President Tariq al-Hashemi have been killed since the attacks began and at least 10 people have been wounded, not including the latest casualties.
   The top US commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, has blamed Iran for the rocket bombardments, saying the projectiles were "Iranian-provided, Iranian-made rockets".
   US commanders say the rocket fire originates from Sadr City, a bastion of the Mahdi Army militia of radical Shi'ite cleric Moktadar al-Sadr in east Baghdad, where Iraqi and US troops have been battling Shi'ite gunmen since last week.
   A key adviser to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said yesterday that military operations in a besieged southern city would finish before the end of this week.
   Sami al-Askari said most of the Basra area was under control.
   A nearly week-long Government crackdown on Shi'ite fighters there sparked fierce battles in Basra, other southern cities and Baghdad.
   Mr al-Askar was speaking a day after Mr al-Sadr called on his militia fighters to stand down.
   Mr al-Maliki had vowed to stay in Basra until the militia was crushed. But Mr al-Askari said the Prime Minister was expected to return soon to Baghdad, though he did not give a date. #

U.S. fails to halt Emirates’ dangerous trade

   International Herald Tribune, www.iht.com/ articles/ 2008/04/01/ mideast/ uae.php , By Eric Lipton, Tuesday, April 1, 2008
  [Picture] A worker at Port Rashid in Dubai, where Iranian traders said evidence was scarce that a new export control law was being enforced.    (Tamara Abdul Hadi for The New York Times)  
   WASHINGTON: Roadside bombings of American troops in Iraq were occurring with bloody regularity when military investigators made a disturbing discovery: American-made computer circuits sold to a trading company in the United Arab Emirates had turned up in the bomb detonators.
   That finding set off a clash with Washington last year when the Bush administration cited the diversion of the computer circuits to Iran, and eventually Iraq, as proof that the United Arab Emirates were failing to prevent American technology from slipping into the wrong hands. Administration officials said other so-called dual-use goods - including aircraft parts, specialized metals and gas detectors that have a potential military use - had also moved through Dubai, one of the emirates, to Iran, Syria or Pakistan.
   The diplomatic face-off, which drew little public attention, prompted the United States to threaten tough new controls on exports to the United Arab Emirates, an important ally. The restrictions would have deeply embarrassed a nation that had invested billions of dollars to become a global trading hub and had just begun a campaign to burnish its image in the United States after the uproar in 2006 over a proposed deal that would have allowed a Dubai company to manage some American ports.
   The Bush administration backed down only after the United Arab Emirates promised to pass their own export control law. But nearly a year after the confrontation, it is unclear that much has changed.
   Yousef al-Otaiba, an adviser to the crown prince of the United Arab Emirates, said his country was more closely monitoring goods that it re-exported while blocking items that might help Iran build weapons systems. But trade experts, a Commerce Department investigator and Iranian traders in Dubai said evidence was scarce that the new export control law was being broadly enforced.
   "It has virtually had no effect, to be honest," said Nasser Hashempour, deputy president of the Iranian Business Council in Dubai. "If someone wants to move something - get it to Iran - it is easy to be done."
   Relations with the United Arab Emirates have long been delicate for the United States. Dubai, for example, is the host for more navy ships than any other port outside the United States and is an important listening post for U.S. intelligence personnel. Emirates officials have complied with a Bush administration request to inspect American-bound ship containers for nuclear threats as they move through Dubai.
   But the country, which is made up of the emirates Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Sharjah, Ajman, Al Fujayrah, Umm al Qaywayn and Ras al Khaymah, has deep economic and cultural ties with Iran, which is only about 110 kilometers, or 70 miles, across the Gulf from Dubai. As many as 400,000 Iranians live in the Emirates, many of them traders who track down goods in the sprawling consumer bazaar of Dubai and then re-export them to Iran, at times ignoring United Nations trade sanctions related to Iran's nuclear program and a broader U.S. embargo.
   Nearly $12 billion worth of American goods flowed into the Emirates in 2007, which is nearly three times the 2004 figure, a surge that has been driven by the Emirates' booming economy. Officials in the Emirates say the United States - which prohibits American companies from directly selling most goods to Iran and bars foreign companies from reselling dual-use products there - has complicated efforts to follow the rules. The officials, with trade experts, blame American officials for overstating the potential dangers of certain goods or passing on tips about illicit shipments that are inaccurate or too vague to take any action.
   "They like to exaggerate, or at least try to point to some strategic significance of the item, like saying 'This software program could be used to design nuclear power plants,' even if someone is just buying it to draw puppies and flowers," said Clif Burns, an export control lawyer at Powell Goldstein in Washington.
   U.S. officials have been increasingly alarmed about trade in the United Arab Emirates since 2002, when the Commerce Department sent an inspector, Mary O'Brien, there. From her spot checks of factories, freight forwarders and other companies that had ordered American products subject to export controls, Commerce officials say, it was clear that dual-use goods, including computer equipment and specialized machine tools, were being diverted on a grander scale than imagined.
   An entity said to be a woodworking shop, for example, had ordered a sophisticated American machine for making metal parts. The device, O'Brien knew, could also shape components for a missile system. The supposed factory contained almost no sawdust, and the few employees could not explain how they intended to use the machine.
   "This is not right," O'Brien said she had said to herself, convinced that she had turned up her first "briefcase business" - open for inspection, but closed for good as soon as she walked out.
   At another stop, she pressed a Dubai pistachio wholesaler to explain why he had bought an American-made infrared camera, which can detect living objects in the dark, and where it had gone. Only later did she determine that he had arranged for the camera to be returned from Iran, where it had apparently been diverted, while he stalled her follow-up inspection.
   In nearly 40 percent of her inspections over four years, she found that regulated items were missing or that the recipient would not cooperate. Many of those companies were placed on a "red flag" list, warning American exporters to be careful when selling to them.
   "This was a huge sieve," said Lisa Prager, a former top Commerce official. "Almost nothing that said it was going to U.A.E. was staying in U.A.E."
   O'Brien's efforts helped jump-start criminal investigations into the diversion of American-made goods to Iran. As of last year, 58 inquiries, nearly half of the total, involved the United Arab Emirates, according a Commerce Department tally.
   Several companies were fined or charged criminally, including Mine Safety Appliances of Pittsburgh, which admitted late last year that its shipments of gas masks, chemical detection equipment and other goods had been rerouted by its agent in Abu Dhabi to Iran and Syria. (In this case, the company turned itself in.)
   The Bush administration also started to turn up the diplomatic heat, sending a series of top-level officials, including Frances Townsend, then the White House homeland security and counterterrorism adviser, to push Emirates' officials to confront the problem.
   In 2005, the discovery of a American-made computer circuit in an unexploded roadside bomb in Iraq transformed what had been a polite diplomatic exchange into a nasty dispute.
   By reading a serial number on the fingernail-size chip and studying shipping records, American investigators were able to determine that it had moved from the manufacturer, AMD of Sunnyvale, California, to Mayrow General Trading in Dubai. From there, it went to Iran before turning up in Iraq in "limited numbers" of roadside bombs, a U.S. official involved in the inquiry said. No known deaths have been linked to those bombs, said the official, who would speak only on condition of anonymity because the details were classified.
   Officials at the Commerce and Defense Departments would not discuss how they had connected Mayrow to the unexploded bomb. But Michael Turner, who until last year was director of the Commerce Department's enforcement office, said investigators uncovered evidence definitively connecting the two. A spokesman for AMD said the company cooperated with the inquiry, adding that its customers are bound by agreements not to re-export its products to Iran.
   American officials had no authority to act against Mayrow, a foreign company, and the Commerce Department had not required AMD to get a special export license restricting resale of the chip because it was not considered particularly powerful. But American officials were angry that their counterparts in the United Arab Emirates had not immediately moved to shut down Mayrow.
   "The Mayrow case is just one example of an alarming lack of export oversight by the government of the U.A.E.," Christopher Padilla, a senior Commerce Department official, said in a December 2006 speech in Washington. "We continue to discuss this issue with U.A.E. authorities, but time for action is running short."
   To back up that threat, the Commerce Department proposed a new set of export controls for "governments unwilling or unable to cooperate with the U.S. in interdiction efforts."
   The rules would mandate special reviews before certain dual-use American products could be exported to those nations. Emirati diplomats and a team of lobbyists fought back, by appealing to officials in the State Department and White House, and promising the Commerce Department that the Emirates would adopt their own export control law, a commitment they carried out by August.
   Otaiba, the international affairs director for the crown prince, said that the Emirates' officials now had a clearer legal ground to intercept dual-use goods being exported to Iran or elsewhere - and that they had already started to do so.
   Late last year, his government shut down more than a dozen companies suspected of exporting goods illegally or money laundering. It also recently arrested a Jordanian businessman who was trying to import a metal that is widely used in nuclear reactors, with the intention of selling it to another country.
   At the Commerce and State Departments, officials said they had seen some early signs that the law would make a difference and cited improved cooperation by the Emirates' authorities.
   "We would like to see it faster," said Patricia McNerney, acting assistant secretary of state for international security and nonproliferation. "But we were satisfied they are making progress."
   The Commerce Department, however, declined requests by this newspaper and congressional investigators in recent months to release any updated figures on how frequently inspections by American authorities turned up problems.
   Turner, who still works in the export control field, said he still was awaiting evidence that the new law was being enforced. "I still don't see any real change in what the U.A.E. is doing," he said.
   Nasir Khan, the Commerce Department investigator who has the job once held by O'Brien, said in a brief interview that he, too, had seen little change. "Things are still very nascent," he said.
   Executives at several of the so-called red flag companies, those suspected of violating American export controls, said they had faced no increased scrutiny in Dubai.
   S.M. Mir Ebrhimi, chief executive of Reza Nezam Trading, which operates mostly out of Iran, said he continued sending products with American-made components as usual.
   Similarly, Mohammad Kazem, supervisor at Al Musafer Tourism and Cargo, said he had not even known his business was on the warning list. He said that the company followed the law, disputing any suggestion by American authorities that he had shipped prohibited items to Iran. He also said that he had seen no additional inspections or spot checks by Emirati authorities.
   "There is no problem in Dubai," he said.
   Nada El Sawy contributed reporting from Dubai. #

Muslim baptised by Pope says he wanted to show others not to fear

   The Record (R.C. Perth, W. Australia, weekly), By Cindy Wooden, CNS, Pages 1 and 2, Wednesday, April 2, 2008
  [Picture] Welcome: Journalist Magdi Allam, centre, was baptised a disciple of Jesus by Pope Benedict XVI. The baptism has caused controversy because Allam was born a Muslim; he has lived under threat of death for the last five years.  
Journalist opted for public ritual as a sign to inspire others.
   ROME (CNS) – The Muslim-born journalist baptised by Pope Benedict XVI [Ratzinger] at the Easter Vigil said he wanted a public conversion to convince other former Muslims not to be afraid of practicing their new Christian faith.
   But a representative of a group of Muslim scholars who recently launched a new dialogue with the Vatican said the prominence given to the baptism of Magdi Allam, a frequent critic of Islam, raises disturbing questions.
   Allam, 55, was one of seven adults baptised by the Pope on March 22 in St Peter's Basilica.
   Aref Ali Nayed, a spokesman for the 138 Muslim scholars who initiated the Common Word dialogue project last October and who established the Catholic-Muslim Forum for dialogue with the Vatican in early March, said conversion is a private matter, but the very public way in which Allam was baptised appeared "deliberate and provocative."
   In a front-page editorial on March 25, the Vatican newspaper said Allam's baptism was given no greater emphasis during the vigil than the baptism of the other six adults Pope Benedict received into the church that night.
   Allam's decision to be baptised and the Vatican's decision to include him in the papal ceremony did not carry with it any "hostile intention in the face of a great religion like Islam," said the article signed by Giovanni Maria Vian, the editor of L'Osservatore Romano.
   "For decades the Catholic Church has shown a desire to meet and dialogue with the Muslim world despite a thousand difficulties and obstacles," he wrote.
   "But difficulties and obstacles must not obscure what we have in common." In a March 25 interview with Il Giornale, an Italian newspaper, Allam said thousands of Italian Christians have converted to Islam with no repercussions.
   "On the other hand, if a Muslim converts it is the end of the world and he is condemned to death for apostasy.  In Italy there are thousands of converts who live their faith in secret for fear they will not be protected," Allam said. ut of the catacombs, live your faith openly. Do not be afraid'," he said.
   In a March 23 article in Corriere della Sera, the newspaper for which he writes, Allam said, "His Holiness has launched an explicit and revolutionary message to a church that, up to now, has been too prudent in converting Muslims."
   He said Catholics were "abstaining from proselytism in countries with a Muslim majority and being silent about the reality of converts in Christian countries out of fear - the fear of not being able to protect the converts in the face of their condemnations to death for apostasy and for fear of reprisals against Christians living in Islamic countries."
   "Well, with his witness today, Benedict XVI tells us we need to conquer our fear and not be afraid to affirm the truth of Jesus even to Muslims," Allam wrote in Corriere. Journalist convert wanted to show others should not fear    Allam told Il Giornale that although his mother was a devout Muslim she sent him to Catholic preschool, elementary and high schools. In the Corriere article, he said he even had gone to Communion once, which demonstrates how he had been attracted to the church for a long time.
   He told Giornale his mother later regretted sending him to Catholic schools "because I never shared a certain zeal in practicing Islam; I always had a lot of autonomy. And, so, I became aware that Catholicism corresponded perfectly to the values that I held."
   Allam also said his Easter baptism marked a total and definitive turning from "a past in which I imagined that there could be a moderate Islam."
   He said Islamic "extremism feeds on a substantial ambiguity found in the Quran and in the concrete actions of Mohammed." While he moved definitively away from Islam five years ago, Allam said it was Pope Benedict's teaching that convinced him to become a Catholic.
   "He has said the basis for accepting a religion as true is how it accepts the basic rights of the person, the sacredness of life, freedom, choice (and) equality between men and women," Allam said.
   In a written statement reacting to Allam's baptism by the Pope at the globally televised Easter Vigil, Nayed said, "It is sad that the intimate and personal act of a religious conversion is made into a triumphalist tool for scoring points."
   In addition, he said, "It is sad that the particular person chosen for such a highly public gesture has a history of generating, and continues to generate, hateful discourse."
   Nayed said it would be important for Pope Benedict and the Vatican to distance themselves from Allam's stance on Islam.
   "The whole spectacle with its choreography, persona and messages provokes genuine questions about the motives, intentions and plans of some of the pope's advisers on Islam," he said, adding that the Muslim scholars would continue their dialogue with the Vatican.
   Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, president of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, told the Italian news agency ApCom on March 23 that he did not know how Allam came to be among the people baptised by the Pope at the Easter Vigil "or who promoted it."
   However, he said, freedom of conscience is a basic right and "to whomever knocks the door of the church is always open." #

Sister beats knife attack in convent

   The Record (R.C. Perth, W. Australia, weekly), By Cindy Wooden, CNS, Page One, Wednesday, April 2, 2008
   LAHORE, Pakistan (CNS) – A member of the Sisters of Charity of Jesus and Mary has survived a knife attack at her convent in the southern outskirts of Lahore.
   Two young men broke into Sister Nuzrat Shafi's convent and slashed her throat on March 8. The convent is in Youhanabad, the largest Christian area in Pakistan, on the outskirts of Lahore. The 34-year-old nun received nine stitches and has badly damaged vocal cords.
   Sister Shafi told the Asian church news agency UCA News that she was alone in the convent when she heard a knock on her door at about 3 pm.
   Suddenly, two young men, about 25 years old, burst into the room.
   "First they asked for money and then for keys to the cupboards of other nuns. When I told them I was the youngest and had no idea where money is kept, they became furious, wrecked my cupboard and then slapped me. I cried for them not to touch me but was thrown on the bed,"she said.
   She said the last thing she recalls before passing out was hearing her attackers say "Finish her."
   Other attacks have occurred in Youhanabad. Last year, in separate incidents, a religious sister was beaten and had her teeth broken, and a missionary priest was attacked and tortured. #

Bomb plot to sacrifice babies

   The West Australian, www.thewest. com.au , p 19, Monday, April 7, 2008
   LONDON – A gang of Muslim fanatics discussed "sacrificing" their wives and babies on an alleged suicide mission to blow up transatlantic jets, a London court was told.
   The martyrdom plot was just "a couple of weeks" from fruition and included plans to attack nuclear power stations, oil refineries and skyscrapers at Canary Wharf in London, it is alleged.  Excerpts from six chilling alleged suicide videos were played on Friday in which the defendants said they would "scatter body parts" over the streets in revenge for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
   Posing before black flags with white Arabic writing, they were filmed promising to unleash "volcanoes of anger and revenge' and "rain terror and destruction" down on "non-believers".
   They said the deaths of "so-called innocents" were justified -because British taxpayers, who funded the army, did not care about the fate of Muslims because they were more interested in drinking, watching EastEnders and "complaining about the World Cup".
   Woolwich Crown Court was told earlier that up to 18 suicide bombers were to bring down simultaneously seven or more flights to the US and Canada from Heathrow Airport.
   If successful, hundreds and possibly thousands of people would have died in what would have been the worst terrorist atrocity since the September 11 attacks on America in 2001.
  [Pictures] Assad Sarwar     Umar Islam  
   The defendants are Abdulla Ahmed Ali, 27, Ibrahim Savant, 27, Arafat Waheed Khan, 26, and Waheed Zaman, 23, all from Walthamstow, east London, Tanvir Hussain, 27, of Leyton, east London, Mohammed Gulzar, 26, of Barking and Assad Sarwar, 27, and Umar Islam, 29, both of High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire.
   All deny conspiracy to murder and commit violence likely to endanger an aircraft between January 1 and August 11, 2006.
   In August 2006, the alleged conspirators were recorded covertly discussing their plans, prosecutor Peter Wright told jurors.
   When Mr Ali was asked "how long till the event?", he replied: "A couple of weeks." Mr Islam added: "This is really going to happen, isn't it?"
   Mr Islam was allegedly asked whether his wife might go with him on the "operation" and replied: "I think if I was to say to her that this was a significant operation she might even find it in herself to do that."
   Mr Ali asks: "What about the babies?  Maybe she'd take them with her?"
   Mr Islam replies: "Maybe, you know what I mean. She'd like to do it though."
   Mr Wright said: "Such a sacrifice is beyond contemplation for those who are the target of an attack such as this but not those who are about to carry them out."
   As the full scope of the alleged terror plot was disclosed, the jury heard that information had been gathered on the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster. The plotters may also have intended to bring down the internet by hitting Britain's main web server, according to information seized at the home of Assad Sarwar.
   Mr Wright said: "The horizons of Mr Sarwar in respect of his terrorist ambitions were, we say, limitless."
   The alleged plotters bought a flat in east London to use as a bomb factory, Mr Wright said. They bought material to assemble liquid-based bombs that could be smuggled on to aircraft disguised as soft drinks. The case continues. #

  Minister can’t say on website bans  

   The Record (R.C. Perth, W. Australia, weekly), By Paul Gray, p 6, Wednesday, April 9, 2008
   AUSTRALIA – A senior federal government figure with responsibility for multiculturalism says he is "disgusted" by the existence of websites promoting anti-semitic and racist hatred, but can't predict whether the government will move to ban them.
   Laurie Ferguson, who is the parliamentary secretary for Multicultural Affairs and Settlement Services, was responding to calls from a Jewish anti-defamation group for the outlawing of websites that spread racial and religious vilification.
   The B'nai B'rith Anti-defamation Commission said last week that Australia's commitment to enhancing multiculturalism and combating racism requires strong action to combat internet sites engaged in racial vilification.
   "We have laws banning race hatred and we have laws for certain kinds of violent and pornographic material on the internet but we have no system to police race hatred on the internet," said the Commission's chairman John Searle.
   "Its inconsistent and leads to the abuse of minorities."
   The Commission had released details from several so-called "mission islam" websites which claimed Jews have distinctive characteristics such as liking to "spread mischief and corruption."  The sites said Jews "are people of indignity, disobedience and transgression."
   The websites also published as true a notorious Czarist-era forgery alleging an international Jewish conspiracy, the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion."
   Asked for the likelihood of government action against the websites, Mr Ferguson told The Record he was concerned, and "more than concerned, quite frankly, disgusted," by the sites in question.
   But he could not predict the course of the Government's decision-making on the issue as it lay within the provinces of the Commonwealth Attorney-General and of the Communications Minister, and he could not foresee their actions. #

  Prayer for Jews is ‘not a step back’  

   The Record (R.C. Perth, W. Australia, weekly), CNS, p 8, Wednesday, April 9, 2008
   VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Pope Benedict XVI's [Ratzinger's] revised prayer for the Jews for use in the Tridentine-rite Good Friday liturgy does not indicate any form of stepping back from the teaching of the Second Vatican Council, the Vatican said.
   "The new formulation of the prayer, which modifies certain expressions of the 1962 Missal, in no way intends to indicate a change in the Catholic Church's regard for the Jews, which has evolved from the basis of the Second Vatican Council" said an April 4 Vatican statement.
   In early February, the Vatican published Pope Benedict's revision of the Good Friday prayer, which is used only in the liturgy celebrated according to the Tridentine rite.
   The new prayer removed language referring to the "blindness" of the Jews, but it prays that Jews will recognise Jesus, the saviour, and that "all Israel may be saved."
   The statement said some members of the Jewish community felt the new prayer was "not in harmony with the official declarations and statements of the Holy See regarding the Jewish people and their faith which have marked the progress of friendly relations between the Jews and the Catholic Church over the last 40 years."
   In particular, some Jews, and some Catholics, felt the prayer contained an explicit call to attempt to convert Jews to Christianity.

Deadly mosque bombing linked to sectarian strife

   The West Australian, www.thewest. com.au , p 24, Monday, April 14, 2008
   TEHRAN – Ten people were killed and 160 wounded at the weekend when a bomb blast ripped through a mosque in the Iranian city of Shiraz, the apparent result of friction between Islamic sects. .
   The massive bomb explosion occurred on Saturday during an evening prayer sermon by a prominent local cleric about the dangers of Sunni extremists, the semi-official Pars news agency reported.
   The explosion shattered shop windows and damaged buildings in a 1500m area of the ancient city. Ambulances and firefighters rushed to the scene to rescue the wounded, who flooded city hospitals.
   Pars reported that a mid-ranking cleric named Anjivinejad was delivering a speech about the "misleading and corrupted cults" of the Wahhabi Islamic school that inspires Osama bin Laden as well as the Baha'i faith when the blast went off. The cleric survived with slight injuries, Pars reported.
   Shiraz is an old southern city that once was home to famous Persian poets. In recent weeks, the city has experienced student unrest.
   Videos posted on the YouTube file-sharing website show hundreds of student activists chanting slogans against Government policies. #

Netanyahu would strike Iran to protect Israel

   The West Australian, p 24, Monday, April 14, 2008
  [Picture] Benjamin Netanyahu  
   JERUSALEM – The man leading the polls to become Israel's next prime minister says his country is on the front line in a battle with militant Islam.
   Former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu hinted that he would not hesitate to attack Iran to protect the Jewish state.
   "We had nazism, which has been defeated, a totalitarian creed of race," he said at the weekend. "We had communism, which has been defeated, a totalitarian creed of class. And now we have militant Islam which is a totalitarian creed of creed, of religion and fanaticism. This too will pass. But the question is, when? And by the time it passes, how many people will it kill? How many terror actions will it have committed? And this is something we face here, simply because we are the front line."
   Mr Netanyahu's Likud Party is expected to triumph over the shaky ruling coalition of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, which is widely expected to crumble, leading to elections, within the year.
   Mr Netanyahu also said the US-backed Middle East peace process would not bring a sustainable agreement with Palestinians. He said moderate Palestinian leaders could not deliver real peace. #

Hamas MP sees Islamic conquest ‘very soon’

Lawmaker for group meeting Carter envisions takeover of Western civilization    WorldNetDaily, © 2008, Posted 2:00 pm Eastern, April 14, 2008
   A member of the Palestinian parliament representing Hamas declared in a televised message that Islam "very soon" will conquer Rome, spread throughout Europe then take over the Americas.
   Yunis Al-Astal, a Muslim cleric, said in the April 11 broadcast on Hamas' Al-Aqsa TV, "Very soon, Allah willing, Rome will be conquered, just like Constantinople was, as was prophesied by our prophet Muhammad."
   A segment of the address was taped and translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute, or MEMRI.
   MEMRI also reported Abbas Zaki, the Palestinian Authority's ambassador to Lebanon, declared on Lebanese television last week that Israel would be conquered.
   "When Israel's ideology will collapse, and after we take Jerusalem, Israel's ideology will collapse altogether, and then we will proceed with our own ideology, inshallah {if Allah wills}, and we will throw them out of all of Palestine," Zaki said.
   The Hamas leader Al-Astal told Palestinians, "Allah has chosen you for himself and for his religion, so that you will serve as the engine pulling this nation to the phase of succession, security, and consolidation of power, and even to conquests thorough Da'wa (propagation of Islam) and military conquests of the capitals of the entire world."
   The Palestinian lawmaker called Rome the "capital of the Catholics," or "the Crusader capital, which has declared its hostility to Islam, and has planted the brothers of apes and pigs in Palestine in order to prevent the reawakening of Islam … ."
   Many Muslim clerics, citing language in popular English renditions of Islam's holy book, the Quran, teach that the Jews descended from apes and pigs.
   As WND reported, Hamas leaders, ahead of a controversial visit with Jimmy Carter, called the former U.S. president a "noble person" whose planned meeting with the terrorist organization would help it "engage with the world community."
   Hamas is listed by the State Department as a terrorist group. It's responsible for scores of deadly suicide bombings, and thousands of shooting attacks and rocket firings against civilian population centers.
   Al-Astal said Rome will one day "be an advanced post for the Islamic conquests, which will spread through Europe in its entirety, and then will turn to the two Americas, and even Eastern Europe."
   "I believe that our children or our grandchildren will inherit our jihad (holy war) and our sacrifices, and Allah willing, the commanders of the conquest will come from among them," he said. "Today, we instill these good tidings in their souls, and by means of the mosques and the Quran books, and the history of our prophets, his companions, and the great leaders, we prepare them for the mission of saving humanity from the hellfire on the brink of which they stand."
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‘Terrorists planned to attack grand final’

   The West Australian, www.thewest. com.au , p 7, Wednesday, April 16, 2008
   MELBOURNE – The 2005 AFL grand final at the MCG was the original target for a terrorist attack by an alleged terror group, a Victorian Supreme Court jury was told yesterday.
   Witness Izzydeen Atik said the group's alleged leader, Abdul Nacer Benbrika, told him of the targets he intended to attack.
   Mr Benbrika allegedly said the grand final was the original target, but attacks had to be put off until the following year because of police and Australian Security Intelligence Organisation raids, security reasons and funding problems.
   "The next targets were the NAB Cup and the Crown Casino building on Grand Prix weekend (in 2006)," Mr Atik said.
   Mr Atik said he had taken religious instruction from Mr Benbrika – known as "the Sheikh" and "the Chief" – after meeting him in early 2004. He said Mr Benbrika told him about a month after the raids in 2005 that funds had been taken during the police and ASIO actions.
  ‘ We'll damage buildings, blast things.’ After 11 September, it’s not easy.     SECRET RECORDING  
   In secretly recorded conversations between Mr Atik and Mr Benbrika, which were played to the jury and Justice Bernard Bongiorno, Mr Benbrika said: "We'll damage buildings, blast things. Has to be proper because it is very difficult to get them. I mean, especially the product. After 11 September, it's not easy." The conversations were allegedly held on March 4, 2005.
   Mr Atik said Mr Benbrika and another accused man, Aimen Joud, had each shown him videotapes of beheadings. The video shown at Mr Benbrika's house depicted a non-Muslim man being beheaded … after a short sermon … by a masked man standing behind him.
   He said Mr Benbrika had told him: "This is the type of things we should learn."
   Mr Atik was giving evidence at the trial of 12 men, including Mr Benbrika, charged with intentionally being members of a terrorist organisation involved in the fostering or preparation of a terrorist act.
  [Picture] Final attack: The 2005 AFL grand final was a terrorist target, a Melbourne jury was told yesterday.  
   It is alleged that the act or threat involved the use of a bomb or weapons in pursuit of violent jihad with the intention of coercing or intimidating the Government or the public. Ten of the men also face other terror-related charges. The accused have all pleaded not guilty.
   Late yesterday, Mr Atik told Remy Van de Wiel, for Mr Benbrika, during cross-examination he had received psychiatric treatment after hearing voices and apparent hallucinations.
   He said he had stopped taking medication for schizophrenia and stomach ulcers. Mr Van de Wiel asked if Mr Atik said last August that one of the voices was called Andrew, and that (Andrew) told Mr Atik to do bad things.
   Mr Atik said: "I don't know. If you say so … Well, I have since then been doing very well … And I don't have no hallucinations, I don't hear no voices."
   He denied Mr Van de Wiel's suggestion that he lied about his symptoms to be treated differently by the NSW courts.
   Mr Atik agreed with Mr Van de Wiel that he had dishonesty convictions, had been unfaithful to his wife, had had a gambling problem and had suffered memory loss after a head injury.
   Earlier, he told prosecutor Richard Maidment that he had engaged in credit card fraud in 2004 and 2005 to help members of the alleged terror group.
   He said Mr Joud had asked him to get at least 10 firearms – handguns or semi-automatic weapons – and explosives, for the group, but he did not. The trial continues. #

[Extracts from] Rudd Labor signals focus on religious values

   The Record (R.C. Perth, W. Australia, weekly), by Paul Gray, Extract from pp 1 and 6, April 16, 2008
   A senior strategist in the Australian Labor Party has given voice to the Rudd Government's recognition of the place of religion and religious education in national life.
   … senior Labor MP Bob McMullan has commended the religious role in promoting respect for human dignity, fairness and justice.
   Australia is a secular nation, one in which there is dynamic religious and cultural diversity [… ]
   … he led the Australian delegation to the Fourth International Dialogue on Interfaith Co-operation for Peace and Harmony, held in the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh this month.
   The Dialogue was initiated in 2004 by then-Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, in a joint initiative with the Government of Indonesia.
   It was designed to bring about faith-to-faith consultation between Muslims in Indonesia and people of other faiths, at a time of rising concern over Islamic extremism. [… ]
   … to this end Australia co-hosted a Regional Youth Interfaith Forum in December. [… ]
   Mr McMullan said [… ] People at the grassroots level … need to be encouraged to be open to other faiths … become involved in interfaith co-operation.

Indonesia to ban Islamic sect amid pressure from hard-liners

   International Herald Tribune, www.iht.com/ articles/ap/ 2008/04/17/ asia/AS-GEN- Indonesia- Islamic- Sect.php , Published: April 17, 2008
   JAKARTA, Indonesia: A government team has recommended that Indonesia outlaw a Muslim sect that has come under attack from hard-liners as heretical, angering human rights activists who accuse authorities of cowing to pressure from extremists.
   The Ahmadi movement has faced bans and persecution in Muslim countries around the world for its belief in another prophet after Muhammad. The group insists it should be considered part of Islam.
   A government team of prosecutors, religious scholars and home affairs department officials concluded that the sect "had deviated from Islamic principles" and recommended Wednesday that the government ban it.
   "Their activities are causing unrest among Muslims," team leader Wishnu Subroto said Thursday.
   The government was to meet Thursday to discuss the recommendation, media reports said. The team recommended Ahmadi followers be charged with "insulting a religion" … a charge that carries a five-year jail term.
   A prominent human rights activist said any ban "cannot be justified and should be regarded as a serious violation of the constitution," referring to clauses guaranteeing freedom of religion.
   "This recommendation shows that board's members do not understand the real function of the state," said Hendardi, who goes by a single name.
   Hard-liners have led an increasingly vocal campaign against Ahmadi in recent years, often vandalizing its mosques and the homes of its followers. In many cases, police made no attempt to stop the attackers.
   "We are the victims here, yet we are being banned," Yan Hussein Lamardi, a lawyer for the group, told Koran Tempo newspaper.
   The Ahmadi sect is believed to have around 200,000 followers in Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation. It was founded at the end of the 19th century in Pakistan where it is banned.
   Indonesia is a secular country, with a long history of religious tolerance. But in recent years, a hard-line fringe has grown louder and the government … which relies on the support of Islamic parties in parliament … has been accused of cowing to it.
   Technorati Tags: Ahmadiyya, Ahmadi #

Chaldean envoy lashes out at US

   The Tablet (RC paper, Britain), www.thetablet. co.uk/articles/ 11332 , "Church in the World," by Ellen Teague, April 19, 2008
   Lack of American government planning for Iraq and a weak Iraqi Government are behind the huge numbers of Iraqis fleeing the country, according to the Chaldean Catholic Church's representative to the Vatican, writes Ellen Teague.
   "The US and coalition troops are not showing they have any strategy for the future of this country," Mgr Philip Najim told the news agency of the Italian Bishops' Conference last week, ahead of Pope Benedict XVI's visit to the United States.
   He said that inadequate schools, hospitals, transport and other services were worrying Iraqis and, in the face of ongoing violence, "the Iraqi Government is unable to guarantee security and respect human dignity".
   He challenged the US-led coalition and Iraqi leaders to account for expenditure of oil income. The haemorrhaging of more than two million people from Iraq in the last five years includes a high percentage of Christians repeatedly targeted in sectarian violence.
   Cardinal Renato Martino, president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, said last week that the papal visit to the US should "absolutely not" be seen as support of President George W. Bush and his stance on Iraq. #

Honour killing’s Aussie link

   The Weekend Australian, ausletr@news corp.com.au , www.the australian. news.com. au/story/ 0,25197,236 00452-601, 00.html , by Sian Powell, pp 1 and 2, April 26-27, 2008
   MORTALLY wounded and bleeding profusely, Pela Atroshi covered her head with her hands, pleading "please don't shoot me, please don't shoot me".  As her sister and her mother screamed, her uncle Rezkar Atroshi raised his gun and killed her. The family's honour had been cleansed.
   Rezkar had already shot Pela twice in the back in the upstairs room. Helped downstairs by her mother and her younger sister, the 19-year-old Kurdish Swede was confronted by four resolute men – her father and his three brothers. The men pulled the women apart. Her youngest uncle then finished the job, shooting Pela in the head. The bullet went through one of her fingers and into her brain.
   The decision to kill her was made by a council of male relatives, led by Pela's grandfather, Abdulmajid Atroshi – a Kurd who lived in Australia.
   One of his sons, Shivan Atroshi, helped pull the women away from Pela so his younger brother could get a clean shot. Shivan, too, lived in Australia.
   It is the first time an officially confirmed honour killing with a connection to Australia has ever publicly come to light, but it is likely there have been other Australian-connected honour crimes that have been kept hidden within the tight-lipped Australian Kurdish community.
   Pela Atroshi's murder in Dohuk, in Iraqi Kurdistan, was officially deemed an honour killing by both Iraqi and Swedish authorities.
   The Swedish detective inspector who investigated the murder, Kickis Aahre Algamo, said she had since heard of another honour crime with a connection to Australia – this time the attempted killing of an Australian Kurd that went awry when the girl escaped.
   She told The Weekend Australian that from 2000 the Swedish authorities were in communication with Australian authorities and the Swedish embassy in Canberra about the 1999 murder of Pela Atroshi.
   Breen Atroshi, Pela's younger sister, Inspector Algamo said, was still prepared to testify in any prosecution of her Australian grandfather or uncle. But it is unclear whether Pela's grandfather and uncle still live in Australia.
   An Interpol investigation in 2000 found that Shivan Atroshi was not at the time living in Australia, although he may have since returned. One person in Sydney's Kurdish community said he believed the Atroshi grandfather – once a freedom fighter – had hidden in Kurdistan, but had sporadically returned to Australia in recent years. Abdulmajid Atroshi had travelled to Stockholm with his son Shivan in 1999 to finally decide on Pela's fate.
   She had made the mistake of leaving home for a time, frustrated by her family's adherence to restrictive Kurdish traditions.
   "Pela's uncle, the oldest son of Abdulmajid, said if any of the unmarried girls is away from home for one night, she has to be killed," Inspector Algamo said on the phone from Stockholm.
   Pela was an intelligent and good-looking girl. When she emigrated with her family to Sweden in 1995, she took to Swedish ways – eventually leaving the family home in January 1999. But after a time she missed her parents and six younger brothers and sisters and returned, agreeing to an arranged marriage in Kurdistan. It was a front – the men in her family had decided to kill her in their home town of Dohuk, northern Iraq, where honour killings were considered minor crimes, and where the Atroshi clan commanded immense respect.
   The UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women, Yakin Erturk, in a report last year to the Human Rights Council, said she had been told that a "family council of male relatives living in Sweden and Australia decided that Pela had to die to cleanse the family honour".
   The men of the family – Pela's father, Agid, and her three uncles, Australian Shivan, and Swedish Rezkar and Dakhaz – arranged for Pela to go to Kurdistan in June 1999 so they could kill her. Her grandfather remained in Sweden, saying, according to the testimony of Pela's younger sister Breen, "I will not set foot in Kurdistan until Pela is dead".
   In October 1999, in Iraq, Agid and Rezkar were convicted of her murder, and sentenced to one-year suspended jail terms. The court referred to a medical report that said "her hymen was broken" and to the "defendants' honourable motivation".
   A higher court later ordered that the sentences be served, but by that time, the two Swedes, Rezkar and Dakhaz, had returned to Stockholm, where they were arrested. Inspector Algamo and a fellow officer had travelled to Turkey to bring a key witness, Pela's sister Breen, back to Sweden. Breen was the first to raise the alarm, ringing the Swedish police from Dohuk to report her sister's murder.
   Breen was brought by a delegation of Kurds to the Swedish embassy in Ankara, Turkey. "I got a couple of minutes alone with her, and she said, 'I want to go home and I want to testify for my sister Pela'," said Inspector Algamo, who is now compiling a report on honour crimes.
   "We rushed her away to a waiting embassy car and drove as fast as possible to the airport."
   In Sweden, Breen testified in the trials of her uncles – who had been arrested in January 2000 and who were liable to prosecution because Pela's murder was planned in Stockholm. Breen condemned her elders in court. She now lives in hiding.
   On January 12, 2001, the Stockholm City Court convicted both men of murder and sentenced them to life imprisonment. Their sentences were confirmed on appeal. Pela's father Agid remained in Kurdistan. He is still wanted for murder in Sweden.
   "When we counted all the ones involved in the planning (of Pela's murder) there were 11," Inspector Algamo said. "But some of them were Australian citizens and some of them were Iraqi citizens – we could only prosecute three of them."
   Swedish deputy chief prosecutor Agnetha Hilding Qvarnstrom explained that while there had been contact with the Australian authorities regarding the Atroshi case it had not culminated in an official extradition request.
   Since the murder was planned in Sweden and committed in Iraq, it also seems unlikely Australia could take any action.
   In Australia, Muhammad Kamal, a lecturer in philosophy at Melbourne University, remembers Pela's grandfather, Abdulmajid Atroshi – the patriarch.
   In the early 1990s, Dr Kamal had been broadcasting a Kurdish program on SBS radio, and Atroshi was behind a campaign to have the program taken off air because he believed it was preaching immorality.
   "He was a practising Muslim and a tribal man," Dr Kamal said, adding that religious leaders in Kurdistan never condemned honour crimes because they believed it was an essential bulwark against immorality. "I haven't heard any statement from clergy in the region to say honour killing is wrong," he said.
   In recent years, with the diaspora from tribal regions, there are honour killings connected to a number of nations in Europe – and now to Australia. Inspector Algamo has also been told that in 2004 or 2005 an Australian girl connected to the Atroshi clan was in the same position as Pela.
   "I was told by my informers that the Australian girl was taken to Kurdistan in the summer on vacation," Inspector Algamo said. "She had a forbidden love or something, they were also planning to kill her." The girl discovered the plans and fled, assisted by an American soldier who helped to smuggle her out of the country.
   She said the Australian Kurdish community staged two demonstrations in front of the Swedish embassy in Canberra insisting on the Atroshi men's innocence.
   Unni Wikan, a Norwegian academic who has written a recent book on honour crimes titled In Honour of Fadime, has looked carefully at the Atroshi case. She said the horrors persisted. "In Sweden there is a development now called balcony suicide," she said, adding the deaths were really camouflaged honour killings.
   Inspector Algamo said her research into honour crimes had been difficult. "So many murders, so many girls who fall from the balcony, so many false suicides," she said.
   "There is huge pressure on girls to take their own lives. They don't have the right to their own bodies, because their bodies are owned by the clan."
   powells@theaustralian.com.au #

Hilali tells Christian women to wear veils

   The Weekend Australian, ausletr@news corp.com.au , www.the australian. news.com.au/ story/0,251 97,23599263- 5006784, 00.html , By Natalie O'Brien | p 2, April 26-27, 2008
   AUSTRALIA –
Outspoken cleric writes book on veils
The Bible 'mandates' Christian women wear them
Anglican bishops says comments are misleading
OUTSPOKEN Muslim cleric Taj al-Din al-Hilali says the Bible "mandates" the wearing of the veil by Christian women.
   Writing in a new book, Sheik Hilali, who lost his job as mufti of Australia after comparing scantily clad women to uncovered meat, argues that the Bible and the Koran make similar demands of a woman's modesty.
   Sheik Hilali, who remains the head of Australia's largest mosque, in the southwestern Sydney suburb of Lakemba, says the purpose of the book is to show the commonalities of Islam with the Jewish and Christian faiths when it comes to women's modesty and clothing.
   In the soon to be published The Legitimacy of the Veil for Women of the Scripture - Evidence of the Veil in the Bible, the cleric points to references in the Old and New Testaments to women wearing a veil.
   "Through this I hope to raise awareness and understanding and eliminate apprehensions and misunderstandings about the veil," he writes.
   The Anglican Bishop of South Sydney, Robert Forsyth, challenged Sheik Hilali's comments about the veil being "mandated" in the Bible, saying they were misleading.
   "The New Testament does call upon people to dress modestly," he said. "But there is no understanding that women are commanded to wear the veil. But it is mandated that you should dress appropriately for your social context."
   Sheik Hilali also says the Virgin Mary is often depicted with a veil covering her head.
   "The veil upholds the modesty and protects the dignity of women, whether Muslim or non-Muslim," he writes. "Wearing the veil creates the most realistic similarity with the Virgin Mary, the mother of Christ."
   Sheik Hilali caused an uproar with a Ramadan sermon in 2006 in which he talked about immodestly dressed women being like "uncovered meat" and made remarks about Sydney's notorious gang rapes.
   He has used the book to hit back at criticisms of his comments, which were given during a lesson to Muslim men and women on theft and adultery, and which he says were misinterpreted with "ill-intent" and with the intention to "slander" him.
   He has included an "explanatory statement" to clarify his position, saying that rape is a heinous crime and the perpetrator deserves the maximum punishment. He also says women in Australia, or any Western society, have absolute freedom to wear whatever they like.
   "The Muslim has no right to impose the rules of his religion on others. My religious duty is to advise the Muslim woman to be modest and to wear the Islamic dress. It is her choice whether to comply or not."
   He said his comments about uncovered meat were drawn from an analogy used by the Arab writer Al-Rafii that uncovering flesh publicly may be degrading to the woman and may make her vulnerable to those with a diseased heart.
   "Through these words I wanted to protect women from rapists who have lost their humanity, lost their minds and religion.
   "Whilst I believe that the rapists are responsible for their crimes, I wanted to protect my daughters by encouraging them to adopt all available lawful means of protection," he writes.
   Sheik Hilali concedes that the uncovered meat example was not correct or appropriate for the Western mentality.
   "I did not mean this analogy to denigrate immodestly dressed women; rather I meant to denigrate those men who set aside their humanity and turn into predators." #

Uni chief lifted Islam text from Wikipedia

   The Weekend Australian, http:// www.the australian. news.com.au/ story/0,25197, 23600451- 12332,00. html , ausletr@news corp.com.au , by Michael Sainsbury, pp 1 and 4, April 26-27, 2008
   QUEENSLAND – GRIFFITH University vice-chancellor Ian O'Connor has admitted lifting information straight from online encyclopedia Wikipedia and confusing strands of Islam as he struggled to defend his institution's decision to ask the repressive Saudi Arabian Government for funding.
   Professor O'Connor also appears to have breached his own university's standards on plagiarism as they apply to students' academic work – a claim he denies. And he appears to have ignored his own past misgivings about Wikipedia and internet-based research.
   In September, The Australian revealed that the Queensland university had accepted a grant of $100,000 from the Saudi Government. Last week, it was revealed that Griffith had asked the Saudi embassy in Australia for a $1.37 million grant for its Islamic Research Unit, telling the ambassador that certain elements of the controversial deal could be kept a secret.
   Griffith – described by Professor O'Connor as the "university of choice" for Saudis – also offered the embassy a chance to "discuss" ways in which the money could be used.
   Professor O'Connor's response to The Australian's revelations, which was published as an opinion article in the newspaper on Thursday, contained whole passages of text "cut and pasted" from Wikipedia.
   Continued Page 4; Editorial Page 16; Inquirer Page 22 University chief admits lifting Islam text from Wikipedia    "The primary doctrine of Unitarianism is Tawhid, or the uniqueness and unity of God," Professor O'Connor wrote. "Wahhab also preached against a perceived moral decline and political weakness in the Arabian peninsula and condemned idolatry, the popular cult of saints, and shrine and tomb visitation."
   The Wikipedia entry for Wahhabism reads: "The primary doctrine of Wahhabism is Tawhid, or the uniqueness and unity of God . He preached against a 'perceived moral decline and political weakness' in the Arabian peninsula and condemned idolatry, the popular cult of saints, and shrine and tomb visitation."
   Professor O'Connor, whose academic credentials are in social work and juvenile justice, appears 'to have substituted the word Unitarianism for Wahhabism.
   He has now admitted that the substitution, which came under fire from religious commentators, was not appropriate.
   In a statement issued yesterday, Professor O'Connor acknowledged his article "relied on several sources, and requires further clarity on Unitarianism".

Wikipedia Wahhabism The primary doctrine of Wahhabism is Tawhid, or the uniqueness and unity of God … He preached against a 'perceived moral decline and political weakness' in the Arabian peninsula and condemned idolatry, the popular cult of saints, and shrine and tomb visitation. A Wikipedia entry for Wahhabism

The primary doctrine of Unitarianism is Tawhid, or the uniqueness and unity of God.Wahhab also preached against a perceived moral decline and political weakness in the Arabian peninsula and condemned idolatry, the popular cult of saints, and shrine and tomb visitation. Griffith University vice-chancellor Ian O'Connor writing in an opinion piece published in The Australian on Thursday

   "The article was based on material provided by senior staff and in pulling it together, a small number of sentences were not directly attributed; this was not intentional," he said in the statement. "It was prepared as a newspaper article for Thursday's Australian aiming to put the issue into context and communicate to the public the importance of the work of Griffith's Islamic Research Unit."
   In September, Professor O'Connor expressed concern over Wikipedia and web-based research.
   "I am somewhat more ambivalent about Wikipedia: it and other sites in the world wide web seem to be changing social negotiation and the transfer of knowledge," he said in a paper presented with fellow academic Gavin Moodie.
   Wikipedia itself advises "special caution" when its material is used as a source for research projects.
   Professor O'Connor denies that by lifting sentences from Wikipedia he has breached his university's guidelines on plagiarism as it relates to academic research.
   The Griffith University council, of which Professor O'Connor is an ex-officio member, considers plagiarism an example of academic misconduct.
   The policy – approved by the council on March 5 last year – defines plagiarism as "knowingly presenting the work or property of another person as if it were one's own".
   It gives an example of plagiarism as "word for word copying of sentences or paragraphs from one or more sources which are the work or data of other persons (including books, articles, thesis, unpublished works, working papers, seminar and conference papers, internal reports, lecture notes or tapes) without clearly identifying their origin by appropriate referencing".
   Professor O'Connor yesterday tried to distance himself from the university's standards.
   "It was not as a piece of academic scholarship, therefore did not follow normal citation methods used in academic publications," he said.
   On Wednesday, Professor O'Connor published a full copy of his opinion piece on the Griffith website. Yesterday, the university added references to Wikipedia as footnotes.
   Griffith University council member 0wight Zakus, senior lecturer at the university's Department of Tourism, Leisure, Hotel and Sports Management, said he "strongly discouraged" his students from using Wikipedia as an academic reference.
   "I think there are other, better sources," said Dr Zakus, who was elected to the council in October 2006.
   He said it was "problematic" for Professor O'Connor not to acknowledge he used Wikipedia as a source for his piece for The Australian.
   Griffith rival, the University of Queensland, frowns on the use of Wikipedia as an academic source.
   UQ's School of Political Science and International Studies essay guide states that "online user-updated encyclopedias (such as Wikipedia)" should not be cited in an essay.
   "If you do find useful information from a doubtful site, try to find the same information from a more reputable source," the guide says. "If you can do so, then use the reputable source as your reference. If you cannot, then do not use the information at all."
   Professor O'Connor's use of the term Unitarianism has also drawn criticism from ABC religion journalists and commentators Rachael Kohn, John Cleary and Stephen Crittenden, as well as the Henry Thornton website.
   "Ian O'Connor's equation of Wahhabism and Salafism with Unitarianism is utter nonsense," the ABC commentators wrote.
   "Unitarianism emerged as a liberal Christian movement and gained ground in the early years of American democracy."
   Professor O'Connor now admits the term was misused.
   "Responding to today's Australian article, which criticised my use of the word Unitariaism in the article, I draw on the expertise of Dr Mohamad Abdalla, director of our Islamic Research Institute, who is one of Australia's most highly regarded Islamic scholars, to clarify the issue," Professor O'Connor said.
   "Dr Abdalla confirms the more correct label is Muwahiddun, rather than the popular but problematic term Wahhabism," he said.
   Additional reporting: Sarah Elks #

   Barnabas Aid magazine, www. barnabas fund.org , Pull-out Supplement, May-June 2008

This series of pull-out supplements is intended to provide background information for Christians seeking to understand the nature of Islam and its contemporary expression.  One aspect of this relates to understanding the reason for the oppression and persecution of Christians in various Islamic parts of the world, and another to the growing challenge which Islam poses to Western society, culture and Church.

Da'wa - Islamic mission, Pt. 1

 

Part 1: What is Da'wa?

   Islam, like Christianity, has a missionary dimension, and actively seeks to make converts.  Da'wa (literally meaning "call" or "invitation") is the name Muslims give to their missionary work i.e. a call or invitation to Islam.  Muslims are active in da'wa all around the world, in Muslim contexts and in non-Muslim contexts, particularly Africa.  There is also much da'wa work taking place in the West.
   Yahya (Jonathan) Birt, son of Lord Birt, former Director of the BBC, and a convert to Islam, told the London Asharq Alawsat newspaper in August 2006 that there were 16,000 converts to Islam in Britain. He claimed that there were many celebrities among them. Some observers think the numbers are much higher; one suggestion is 60,000. Well known British converts to Islam include Yusuf Islam (Cat Stevens) the former pop singer who converted in 1977; Jemima Goldsmith, socialite millionaire's daughter who married Pakistani cricket star Imran Khan in 1995; Yvonne Ridley, a journalist captured by the Taliban who converted on her release in 2001; and world snooker champion Ronnie O'Sullivan, who converted in 2003.
   A similar trend of conversion to Islam is noticeable in all Western states. A study financed by the German Federal Ministry of the Interior and conducted by the Islam-Archive Central Institute found that approximately 4,000 Germans converted to Islam in 2006 alone. In the USA it is estimated that the number of converts to Islam could be as high as 1.2 million; of these some 55% are thought to be African-Americans.
   A significant number of converts in the West are white women, some disillusioned with the breakdown of community and spirituality in Western society. Others fall in love with Muslim men and want to marry them. ¹ 
   In Islam, marriage to non-Muslim women is a legitimate means of da'wa. Some Muslim men deliberately target vulnerable Western women for marriage, sometimes to obtain visas, other times for temporary companionship and sexual gratification while they are away from their home country.
   Some converts in the West are male prisoners, often of African or Caribbean origin, who seem to embrace Islam as a way of retaliating against the society that locked them up. One example is Richard Reid, the 2001 "shoe-bomber".
   A multitude of books, pamphlets and internet websites give guidance on how to become a Muslim. These stress the simplicity and ease of the act of conversion, which consists of reciting the Islamic creed (the shahada): "There is no god but God and Muhammad is the apostle of God."

   All one needs to do is pronounce the "Shahada", the testimony of faith, without further delay. The "Shahada" is the first and most important of the five pillars of Islam. With the pronunciation of this testimony, or "Shahada", with sincere belief and conviction, one enters the fold of Islam. ²

Da'wa in the Islamic source texts
   The term da'wa, in the sense of a call and an invitation to Islam, is used more than a dozen times in the Qur'an. A key verse is:

Invite (all) to the way of thy Lord with wisdom and beautiful preaching; and argue with them in ways that are best and most gracious: for thy Lord knoweth best who have strayed from His Path and who receive guidance. (Q 16:125)

   The hadith traditions, which record Muhammad's words and deeds, establish da'wa as a main activity of Muhammad's work and therefore to be replicated by his followers. For example, one hadith records that Muhammad sent one of his followers to Yemen to convert its people to Islam:

Narrated by Ibn Abbas
Thy Prophet sent Muadh to Yemen and said, "Invite the people to testify that none has the right to be worshipped but Allah and I am Allah's Apostle, and if they obey you to do so, then teach them that Allah has enjoined on them five prayers in every day and night (in twenty-four hours), and if they obey you to do so, then teach them that Allah has made it obligatory for them to pay the Zakat from their property and it is to be taken from the wealthy among them and given to the poor." (Sahih Al-Bukhari, Hadith 2.478)

The wide scope of da'wa
   Da'wa has two dimensions, external and internal. External da'wa is the call to non-Muslims to accept Islam, while the internal da'wa targets Muslims in an effort to revive their faith and commitment. Da'wa is not limited to efforts at converting individuals. It includes efforts at converting whole societies so as to establish Islamic states or at least enclaves ruled by Islam. The idea is that these will serve as a model to non-Muslims of Islam's power and benefits, as well as a base for further expansion.
   Da'wa is not just the duty of individual Muslims, but also of Muslim states who are responsible for converting non-Islamic states to Islam following Muhammad's model.
____________________
¹ For more about problems faced by women converting in order to marry a Muslim, see Rosemary Sookhdeo, Stepping into the Shadows: Why Women Convert to Islam, 2nd edition, Pewsey, Wiltshire: Isaac Publishing, 2007. This title can be purchased from your national Barnabas Fund office or by visiting www.barnabas fund.org/_ shop/barnabas books.php
² "The religion of Islam - How to convert to Islam and become a Muslim", http://www. islamreligion. com/articles/ 204/ , viewed 7 March 2008.

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{ii}   [Picture of a sword stabbing through a cross, with blood dripping] The Missionary Invasion; Published by Al-Muhajiroun; The Voice, the Eyes and the Ears of the Muslims  
This graphic image from a British Muslim group indicates the negative attitude of most Muslims to Christian mission and evangelism
   This is the impetus behind the intensive missionary efforts of Muslim states such as Saudi Arabia (see below).
   For some contemporary Muslims, the priority of da'wa at this time in history is the establishment of true Islamic states in Muslim countries. Therefore they strive to change the regimes of most Muslim states, to replace them with true Islamic states, ruled by shari'a.
Da'wa and jihad
   Da'wa is also linked to jihad, as both have the same aim: to spread Islam and its-dominion. Da'wa can be seen as a call to jihad against tho'se who reject Islam. In classical Islam, the Islamic state issued a call (da'wa) to its non-Muslim enemies to submit to Islam either by converting to Islam or by accepting dhimmi status with all its demeaning regulations. If they refused both options, jihad was waged against them. Jihad then created the conditions in which conversion to Islam could easily take place, supported by state institutions and without opposition from enemy forces.
   While da'wa can be propagated by peaceful means of persuasion, jihad enables it to function freely to its fullest extent. Da'wa is most effective when the state enforces shari'a and supports da'wa with all its resources. Thus Islamist movements like the Muslim Brotherhood see themselves as committed to both da'wa and jihad, or rather see both as different stages in the same enterprise. Fathi Yakan, leader of the Lebanese branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, explains the synergy between jihad and da'wa:

{Da'wah} is a call for Jihad since it calls for preparation for Jihad by all its forms and means so that truth may have the force to protect it and that the Da'wah may be able to face the challenges and surmount the barriers.  Force is the surest way to establish the truth and how beautiful it would be if truth and force went side by side. Thus Jihad for the spread of Islam and the protection of the holy places of Islam is another obligation which Allah made compulsory on the Muslims

Contemporary forced conversions as part of da'wa-jihad
   There are sadly many contemporary examples of forced conversions to Islam in the context of jihad.  Examples include the civil war in Sudan (1983-2005) and the anti-Christian atrocities in the Indonesian Malukus and Central Sulawesi (1998-2002).  In Iraq, since the downfall of the Saddam regime in 2003, Christians, Mandeans and Yazidis have faced the threat from radical Islamists of being killed unless they convert to Islam.
   This attitude is also evident in the many cases where Muslims offer aid and relief to non-Muslim victims of natural disasters or war on condition that the recipients convert to Islam.  Such incidents have taken place in Sudan during the civil war, in Indonesia following the December 2004 tsunami, and in Pakistan following the 2005 earthquake.
   In Peshawar, Pakistan, a threatening letter was distributed among the Christian community in August 2007, calling on them to convert to Islam or face death and ruin:

God is Great
Long live Islam
Long live Jihad (Holy war)
Death to Infidels
All the residents are openly invited to abandon the infidel religion, that is Christianity, embrace Islam and become Muslims, and you will make home for yourself in heaven.
Otherwise
your colony will be ruined. You will be responsible for the death and destruction of your families.
Be prepared.
This is not just a threat, our suicide attackers will eliminate you.

   In post-Saddam Iraq, similar letters have been sent to Christians by both Sunni and Shi'a radical militias, demanding their conversion to Islam or the payment of the jizya tax (a sign of dhimmi status), and threatening those who refused with death unless they fled.
Converts as a security risk
   A very different kind of link between da'wa and jihad is found in the number of converts to Islam who are active in violent jihad. One of the perpetrators of the July 2005 London suicide bombings, Germaine Lindsay, had converted to Islam five years earlier. Muriel Degauque, a Belgian convert to Islam, attacked American troops in a suicide attack near Baghdad in November 2005. Of 14 people arrested because of their links to her, half were converts to Islam. Three of the suspects in the 2006 plot to bomb transatlantic airliners were recent converts to Islam. Two of the three suspects arrested in Germany in September 2007 on charges of plotting to detonate large bombs made with concentrated hydrogen peroxide were converts to Islam. Filipinos who have converted to Islam while working in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf and then returned home have formed the extremist Rajah Solaiman Movement based in Manila and northern Luzon. It has been linked to established Islamist terrorist groups in the south and has helped them gain a foothold in urban areas. Pages (iii) and (iv) yet to be scanned and tidied
   © Barnabas Fund, 2008
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   www.barnabasfund.org , Source: Barnabas Aid March/April 2008

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  LIFE LINES  

[Robert Collins warned the world: Died.]

   The West Australian, www.thewest.com.au , "Life Lines," p 45, Thursday, May 1, 2008
Robert Collins,75. US academic co-wrote Alms for Jihad: Charity and Terrorism in the Islamic World (2006), which was threatened with a defamation lawsuit.  UK publisher Cambridge University Press apologised to Sheikh Khalid bin Mahfouz and destroyed unsold copies. Died: April 11.

Muslims condemn explicit’ course

   The Weekend Australian, ausletr@news corp.com.au , by Natalie O'Brien, p 7, May 3-4, 2008
   AUSTRALIA – ANGRY Muslim groups have attacked the University of Western Sydney over an Islamic studies course they claim is too sexually explicit, promotes lesbianism and derides the Koran as misogynistic.
   Students, community members and the Australian National Imams Council have complained about the content of the course, Women in Arabic and Islamic Literature, being taught at the Centre of Excellence for Islamic Studies. They say it gives a negative view of women in Islam.
   The imams council has circulated a petition recording its "deep concern with regards to the course structure and content, saying it involved repeated and unjustified attacks upon Islam".
   Another group, Muslims for Peace, has branded the centre as "evil" and demanded lecturer Samar Habib be dismissed and the course abolished.
   "Now that its wicked nature should be crystal clear for all to see, Muslims should fear Almighty Allah and break all connections with this diabolical centre of Kufr (non-believers)," a bulletin on the Muslims for Peace website reads.
   Dr Habib has declined to comment.  UWS executive dean of the College of Arts Wayne McKenna said that, although the university was yet to receive a direct complaint, it was examining the content of the course.
   The National Centre of Excellence for Islamic Studies, set up last year with funding from the federal Government, operates out of three universities: the University of Melbourne, Griffith University in Queensland and UWS.
   It was established to advance knowledge and understanding of Islam and to play a leadership role in public debates on contemporary Islam.
   The course includes excerpts from The Perfumed Garden by Sheik Nafzawi, a book on Arabian erotica written in the 16th century and translated into English in 1886 that has been likened to the Indian Kama Sutra.
   Dr Habib, who has written her PhD thesis on female homosexuality in the Middle East and has written an introduction in an erotic lesbian novel published overseas entitled I Am You, has been accused of promoting lesbianism.
   Homosexuality is forbidden in the Koran for both sexes.
   Dr Habib has also been accused by Muslims for Peace of teaching that it is not obligatory to wear the hijab, that the Hadiths (sayings of the Prophet Mohammed) are just Chinese whispers and that Muslim scholars can be ignored because they are males.
   University of Melbourne's Sultan of Oman professor of Arab and Islamic studies, Abdullah Saeed, said concerns about the course had been raised at the centre's community consultative committee meeting this week.
   "Everyone has a right to express their opinion and views and that is what is happening," Professor Saeed said.
   "One of the essential things is to uphold academic freedoms and intellectual freedoms of students and the staff."
   The imams' council does not believe the course represents the normative traditional Islam as practised by most of the world's Muslim population.
   "The subject's emphasis on sexuality and its explicit sexual content is not reflective of normative Islam, which is what we thought the National Centre of Excellence in Islamic Studies would, attempt to portray," ANIC president Sheik Moez Nafti wrote.
   Inquirer -- Page 19

Is this a turning of the tide?

Islam’s ‘Public Enemy #1’

   Fidelity R.C. magazine (Australia), admin@j23.com.au , (To read the article quoted, visit National Review, "Islam's 'Public Enemy #1'; Coptic priest Zakaria Botros fights fire with fire," By Raymond Ibrahim, March 25, 2008); pp 16-18, (List as if May 15/08) Issue of May 2008
He's a Coptic priest in Egypt, and little known in the West. But he's been making huge waves in the Islamic world and, through his Arabic channel TV show of Christian apologetics, he's drawing scores of Muslims– secretly– into Christianity.
Coptic priest Zakaria Botros – named Islam's "Public Enemy Number 1" by the Arabic newspaper, al-Insan al-Jadid – is famous throughout the Islamic world. Or notorious, as the case may be.
   He's a commentator on religious affairs and theological ideas on the Arabic channel al-Hayat (i.e., "Life TV"). Along with colleagues, many of whom are converts from Islam, Botros addresses controversial topics. He has managed to remain immune (so far) from the censorship imposed by Islamic authorities or self-imposed through fear of the zealous mobs who fulminated against the cartoons of Mohammed published in Danish newspapers. Nevertheless, his forays into obscure sections of Islamic law and tradition have vexed the Islamic leaders of the Arab world.
   Raymond Ibrahim notes in his recent National Review piece:

Botros is an unusual figure onscreen: robed, with a huge cross around his neck, he sits with both the Koran and the Bible in easy reach. Egypt's Copts – members of one of the oldest Christian communities in the Middle East – have in many respects come to personify the demeaning Islamic institution of "dhimmitude" (which demands submissiveness from non-Muslims, in accordance with Koran 9:29). But the fiery Botros does not submit, and minces no words. He has famously made of Islam "ten demands," whose radical nature he uses to highlight Islam's own radical de-mands on non-Muslims. The result? Mass conversions to Christianity – if clandestine ones. The public conversion of high-profile Italian journalist Magdi Allam – who was baptized by Pope Benedict in Rome [at Easter] – is only the tip of the iceberg. Indeed, Islamic cleric Ahmad al-Qatani stated on al-Jazeera TV a while back that some six million Muslims convert to Christianity annually, many of them persuaded by Botros's public ministry. More recently, al-Jazeera noted Life TV's "unprecedented evangelical raid" on the Muslim world.

   Ibrahim lists the factors that account for Botros's success:
   First, the new media – particularly satellite TV and the Internet (the main conduits for Life TV) – have made it possible for questions about Islam to be made public without fear of reprisal. It is unprecedented to hear Muslims from around the Islamic world – even from Saudi Arabia, where imported Bibles are confiscated and burned – call into the show to argue with Botros and his colleagues, and sometimes, to accept Christ. Secondly, Botros's broadcasts are in Arabic – the language of some 200 million people, most of them Muslim. While several Western writers have published persuasive critiques of Islam, their arguments go largely unnoticed in the Islamic

world. Botros's mastery of classical Arabic not only allows him to reach a broader audience, it enables him to delve deeply into the voluminous Arabic literature – much of it untapped by Western writers who rely on translations – and so report to the average Muslim on the discrepancies and affronts to moral common sense found within this vast corpus. Irrefutable    A third reason for Botros's success is that his polemical technique has proven irrefutable. Each of his episodes has a theme – from the pressing to the esoteric – often expressed as a question (e.g., "Is jihad an obligation for all Muslims?" "Are women inferior to men in Islam?" "Did Mohammed say that adulterous female monkeys should be stoned?" "Is drinking the urine of prophets salutary according to sharia?"). To answer the question, Botros meticulously quotes – always careful to give sources and reference numbers – from authoritative Islamic texts on the subject, starting from the Koran; then from the canonical sayings of the prophet – the Hadith; and finally from the words of prominent Muslim theologians past and present – the illustrious ulema.    Typically, Botros's presentation of the Islamic material is sufficiently detailed that the controversial topic is shown to be an airtight aspect of Islam. Yet, however convincing his proofs, Botros does not flatly conclude that, say, universal jihad or female inferiority are basic tenets of Islam. He treats the question as still open – and humbly invites the ulema, the revered articulators of sharia law, to respond and show the error in his methodology. He does demand, however, that their response be based on "al-dalil we al-burhan" – "evidence and proof," one of his frequent refrains – not shout-downs or sophistry.    More often than not, the response from the ulema is deafening silence – which has only made Botros and Life TV more enticing to Muslim viewers. The ulema who have publicly addressed Botros's conclusions often find themselves forced to agree with him – which has led to some amusing (and embarrassing) moments on live Arabic TV.    Botros spent three years bringing to broad public attention a scandalous – and authentic hadith stating that women should "breastfeed" strange men with whom they must spend any amount of time.

ST FRANCIS - JUST DIALOGUE? No! CONVERSION? YES! Far from being a pacifist, St Francis not only supported the Fifth Crusade, but also personally accompanied the Crusaders – not merely to "dialogue" with the Muslims, but to convert them. Describes in stunning detail the meeting between St Francis and the Sultan of Egypt. [SFACM] St Francis of Assisi & the Conversion of the Muslims; F. Rega, 152 pp, Tan Books, $19.50.    WHEN THE MIGHT OF ISLAM THREATENED HIS WORLD – Carefree young Guido finds himself fighting the Moslem armada in the Battle of Lepanto. In this historic novel of Catholic heroism, courage and holiness, readers of all ages will be reminded that when the Faith is threatened, extraordinary valour may be demanded of any one of us– even the very young. [BRC] The Blood-Red Crescent; Henry Garnett Sophia, 170 pp, $22.00.    The Two Faces of Islam Stephen Schwartz analysis beliefs of the ruling Saudi families: Wahhabism - a violent, fanatical perversion of the pluralistic Islam practiced by most Muslims. He argues that this extremist position, vigorously exported with the help of Saudi oil money, is what incites Palestinian suicide bombers, Osama bin Laden and Islamic terrorism throughout the world. [TFI] The Two Faces of Islam; Stephen Schwartz, 346 pp, pb $30.00.

A leading hadith scholar, Abd al-Muhdi, was confronted with this issue on the live talk show of popular Arabic host Hala Sirhan. Opting to be truthful, al-Muhdi confirmed that going through the motions of breastfeeding adult males is, according to sharia, a legitimate way of making married women "forbidden" to the men with whom they are forced into contact – the logic being that, by being "breastfed," the men become like "sons" to the women and therefore can no longer have sexual designs on them.
   To make matters worse, Ezzat Atiyya, head of the Hadith department at al-Azhar University – Sunni Islam's most authoritative institution – went so far as to issue a fatwa legitimatizing "Rida' al-Kibir" (sharia's term for "breastfeeding the adult"), which prompted such outrage in the Islamic world that it was subsequently recanted.
   Botros played the key role in exposing this obscure and embarrassing issue and forcing the ulema to respond. Another guest on Hala Sir-han's show,- Abd al-Fatah, slyly indicated that the entire controversy was instigated by Botros: "I know you all [fellow panelists] watch that channel and that priest and that none of you [pointing at Abd al-Muhdi] can ever respond to him, since he always documents his sources!" Responses Demanded    There is a rumoured $5 million bounty on Fr Botros's head. How else do the Moslem leaders oppose him? By suggesting he is a lackey of international Jewry, and that his "lies" are not worth refuting. But Ibrahim notes that more and more Muslims are unsatisfied with this evasion.

The most dramatic example of this occurred on another famous show on the international station, Iqra. The host, Basma – a conservative Muslim woman in full hijab – asked two prominent ulema, including Sheikh Gamal Qutb, one-time grand mufti of al-Azhar University, to explain the legality of the Koranic verse (4:24) that permits men to freely copulate with captive women. She repeatedly asked: "According to sharia, is slave-sex still applicable?" The two ulema would give no clear answer – dissembling here, going off on tangents there. Basma remained adamant: Muslim youth were confused, and needed a response, since "there is a certain channel and a certain man who has discussed this issue over twenty times and has received no response from you."
   The flustered Sheikh Qutb roared, "low-life people like that must be totally ignored!" and stormed off the set. He later returned, but refused to admit that Islam indeed permits sex-slaves, spending his time attacking Botros instead. When Basma said "Ninety percent of Muslims, including myself, do not understand the issue of concubinage in Islam and are having a hard time swallowing it," the sheikh responded, "You don't need to understand." As for Muslims who watch and are influenced by Botros, he barked, "Too bad for them! If my son is sick and chooses to visit a mechanic, not a doctor – that's his problem!"
   But the ultimate reason for Botros's success is that – unlike his Western counterparts who criticize Islam from a political standpoint – his primary interest is the salvation of souls. He often begins and concludes his programs by stating that he loves all Muslims as fellow humans and wants to steer them away from falsehood to Truth. To that end, he doesn't just expose troubling aspects of Islam. Before concluding every program, he quotes pertinent biblical verses and invites all his viewers to come to Christ.
   Botros's motive is not to incite the West against Islam, promote "Israeli interests," or "demonize" Muslims, but to draw Muslims away from the dead legalism of sharia to the spirituality of Christianity. Many Western critics fail to appreciate that, to disempower radical Islam, something theocentric and spiritually satisfying – not secularism, democracy, capitalism, materialism, feminism, etc. – must be offered in its place. The truths of one religion can only be challenged and supplanted by the truths of another.
   And so Father Zakaria Botros has been fighting fire with fire.

www.nationalreview.com

Motorist told flag could be racist

   Wiltshire Times, www. wiltshire times.co.uk/ news/latest headlines/ display.var. 2288512.0. motorist_ told_flag_ could_be_ racist.php , May 24, 2008
   ENGLAND – A TEENAGE motorist was told to remove an England flag from his car by a police officer because it could be offensive to immigrants.
   Ben Smith, 18, was driving back home to Ingram Road in Melksham on Thursday evening after filling up with petrol, when the officer stopped him on a routine patrol.
   He checked the tax disc and tyres on his Vauxhall Corsa but when he noticed the flag of St George on the parcel shelf he told Mr Smith to take it down.
   Mr Smith, who works for G Plan Upholsterers on Hampton Park West, said: "He saw the flag and said it was racist towards immigrants and if I refused to take it down I would get a £30 fine.
   "I laughed because I thought he was joking, but then I realised he was serious so I had to take it down straight away. I thought it was silly - it's my country and I want to show my support for my country."
   Mr Smith had recently installed new speakers in the parcel shelf of his car and wanted to cover them up so they did not get stolen.

‘Preyed-upon’ Islam convert in UK blast

   The West Australian, www.thewest. com.au , p 36, Saturday, May 24, 2008
   LONDON – A Muslim convert with a history of mental illness who was "preyed upon and radicalised" injured himself when a device he was carrying exploded in a busy shopping centre in Exeter, south-west England, The Times newspaper reported yesterday.
   Nicky Reilly, 22, received serious facial injuries on Thursday when the device went off at lunchtime in a family restaurant at the new £230 million ($470 million) Princesshay shopping centre, the paper said. Another device was defused by bomb disposal teams.
   Devon and Cornwall Deputy Chief Constable Tony Melville said Mr Reilly had been "preyed upon, radicalised and taken advantage of", The Times said.
   Police searched his home in Plymouth and he was under guard in hospital on Thursday night while he was treated for cuts to an eye and some facial burns.
   Diners at the Giraffe chain said they heard three explosions in the restaurant toilets. Peter Lacey, 63, from Exeter, said: "I heard a noise which sounded like a gunshot. About a second afterwards there was another identical sound and maybe a second later a third. The staff tried to get into the toilet but it was locked and they must have called the police. They evacuated us very calmly."
   Bomb disposal units found a second device outside the restaurant.
   Mr Reilly's neighbours described him as "naive and easily led".
   The Times quoted Daniel Turner, 20, as saying: "He changed his name to Mohammed Rasheed about a year ago at a registry office. He was brain-washed into becoming a Muslim by local men."
   Mr Melville said Mr Reilly's injuries were not life-threatening. "Investigation into Reilly shows he has a history of mental illness and had adopted the Islamic faith," Mr Melville said. "We believe that despite his weak and vulnerable state he had been preyed upon and radicalised and taken advantage of."
   Devon and Cornwall Chief Constable Stephen Otter said: "There were two devices, one on the cafe and one nearby. We do not know … how bad it could have been if they had gone off but it would have been quite serious."
   The Times said police were concerned that it may be a new situation in Britain of extremists taking advantage of mentally or physically disabled people.
   A suicide bomber in a wheel-chair killed an Iraqi general in central Iraq this year. In a separate incident, two women identified as having received psychiatric treatment blew themselves up in Baghdad, killing nearly 100 people. #

ANNALS AUSTRALASIA     38     JUNE 2008
Reaction to Archbishop Williams’ Address

IMPACT OF SHARI‘A

  T HERE has already been a great clamor {and argument} between supporters and opponents of these statements, so I thought that I, as a Muslim citizen of Europe, would take up this thorny subject and attempt to understand this statement and its implications.  {I do this} in order to shed light on what would happen in Europe if its countries were to adopt the kinds of measures that the English archbishop is demanding.
   I do not think that this demand that some laws from Islamic shari‘a be adopted into European law is {meant} to include shari‘a criminal law - that is, punishments such as killing the apostate (a Muslim who converts to another religion), amputating a thief's hand, cutting off a brigand's opposing hand and foot … stoning the adulterer to death, publicly flogging wine drinkers, killing homosexuals by throwing them from a high place, or allowing a relative of a {murder} victim to deal with the murderer, instead of the state.
   I imagine that the archbishop is referring {only} to Islamic shari‘a laws regarding personal status.  So let us imagine these laws being implemented in European courts.
   First of all, on the procedural side, there would need to be Islamic courts in European countries to adjudicate in all disputes involving European Muslim citizens - or else a large number of European judges would have to be sent to the Taliban to learn shari‘a thoroughly enough to implement its laws.
   Also, European countries seeking to implement shari‘a would need to submit their reservations regarding any international conventions they may have signed.  This is because they will have to:

1. Permit polygamy for European Muslim citizens, and not punish them for it - {even though} this is considered criminal under European law;
2. Permit European Muslim citizens to beat their wives to discipline them, as the Koran urges;
3. Allow men to unilaterally decide to divorce without requiring any court proceedings, as this is a right guaranteed {to men} by shari‘a;
4. Give daughters {only} half the inheritance rights that sons have, while widows receive only an eighth of the inheritance;
5. {Not} consider women's testimony the equal of men's in shari‘a courts;
6. Deprive a divorced woman of custody of her children if she remarries;
7. Allow European Muslim citizens to marry in traditional marriages without the need to officially register these marriages;
8. Eliminate adoption, since it is contrary to shari‘a;
9. Force a woman whose Muslim husband converts to another religion to divorce him, because he is an apostate;
10. Prevent European Muslim women from marrying non-Muslims… "

- Muhammad ‘Abd Al-Muttalib Al-Houni in the Arab liberal e-journal Elaph, February 26, 2008.

Bin Laden’s ‘right hand man’ on bail

   The West Australian, www.thewest. com.au , http://www. thewest.com. au/aapstory. aspx?Story Name=491259 , AFP, 8:37 WST, Wednesday, June 18, 2008
   LONDON – A radical Muslim cleric once described as "Osama bin Laden's right-hand man in Europe" will soon be released, but on strict conditions including a ban on attending mosques, officials have said.
   The British Home Office announced in May that Abu Qatada, who first arrived in Britain in the early 1990s but disappeared before new anti-terror laws came in after September 11, 2001, would be freed on bail.
   On Tuesday, the Special Immigration Advisory Commission (SIAC) published the detailed bail and curfew conditions, including wearing an electronic tag and being subject to a 22-hour-a-day curfew at an undisclosed location.
   "He will be released today or tomorrow," said a SIAC press officer, releasing the eight-page bail conditions.
   The document notably bans Qatada from attending "any mosques", as well as from leading prayers, giving lectures, or "providing religious instruction" to anyone except his wife and children.
   Qatada, who has been convicted of terrorist offences in Jordan, is also banned from associating with a list of named people, including Osama bin Laden, as well as the Al-Qaeda leader's deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri.
   Qatada - who was labelled bin Laden's "right hand man" by a leading Spanish anti-terror judge - is also banned from publishing any document or making any statement without the British Home Secretary's approval.
   Born Omar Mahmud Mohammed Otman in Bethlehem, Qatada arrived in Britain in 1993 on a forged United Arab Emirates passport and claimed asylum, gaining refugee status in 1994.
   He disappeared before new anti-terror laws came in after the September 11 attacks in 2001, but was arrested in October 2002 and spent three years in the high-security Belmarsh prison in south-east London.
   At the end of the prison term he was released, although made subject to a control order, but returned to jail in August 2005 as part of a crackdown against Islamist extremism after London bombings.
   Qatada appealed against his planned deportation to Jordan - where he has been sentenced in his absence to life imprisonment for terrorist offences - at the SIAC court in May last year.
   The British Home Office is appealing against a decision to block the cleric's deportation, based on the risk of mistreatment to him in Jordan. -- AFP Have Your Say

Muslims tuning in

   The Record (R.C. Perth, W. Australia, weekly), Letter from Mildura, Victoria, Australia; p 8, Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Muslims worldwide are tuning in to Father Zakaria Botrous on the Internet.
   Father Botrous, a priest of the Coptic Christian Church, sits there dressed in black robes, a huge cross around his neck and within reach a Bible and a Koran.  Referring to these, he encourages Muslims to convert to Christianity.
   Being on the net allows Muslims to access this information about Christianity safely - even in countries like Saudi Arabia where converts can be in danger.  Father's internet broadcasts are in Arabic with Italian, French and English transcripts accessible.
   Arabic-speaking Muslims - up to 20 million of them - now have a chance to hear the Christian Gospel in understandable words.  Father often challenges Muslim authorities to disprove his comments about Islam and the Koran. They never succeed.
   He has been declared Islam's "public enemy number one " by Arabic newspaper "al-Insan al-Jadid".  Yet he never tries to turn Westerners against Islam.  He simply tries to draw Muslims towards the love of the God revealed by Jesus Christ.
   Father's website is at http://www.fatherzakaria.net . #

Muslim-Christian contact brings new set of problems

   The Record (R.C. Perth W. Australia weekly), by Paul Gray, p 7, June 25, 2008
  [Picture] Analysis: British Archbishop Michael Fitzgerald, a specialist in Christian-Muslim dialogue, will give a series of lectures at Murdoch University in July.    PHOTO: CNS  
Greater proximity means more problems - but also opportunities, key Church expert says
By Paul Gray
   CLOSER contact between Christians and Muslims - and an exclusive and violent attitude on the part of some Muslims - are creating new challenges in Christian-Muslim relations, a senior Vatican diplomatic official has told The Record.
   Archbishop Michael Fitzgerald, who was appointed by Pope Benedict as the Vatican's ambassador to Egypt and Delegate to the League of Arab States in 2006, will give lectures at Murdoch University next month.
   He will be the inaugural Murdoch international theologian, an initiative to bring leading religious thinkers to Perth within the university's Theology Program.
   In an email interview with The Record, the English Archbishop said that religious differences between Christians and Muslims remain the same today as they have always been.  "While Christians and Muslims are united in their belief in one God, they are divided in their understanding of this God," he said.
   "The biggest difference is that Christians believe in a God who has become Incarnate, that is, has entered into the world in the person of Jesus Christ.  Muslims reject the Incarnation as being incompatible with the exalted nature of God.  This changes the whole perspective of religion," Archbishop Fitzgerald said.
   But apart from the religious differences, there are separate challenges in Christian-Muslim relations today. These are caused, first, by the greater proximity between the two religions almost everywhere in the world. "Christians and Muslims are necessarily coming into contact. They have to find ways of living in harmony, and also of working together on behalf of the rest of humankind."
   A further problem has emerged with the growth of an exclusive attitude on the part of some Muslims. In some cases this exclusive attitude is "turning to violence".
   The Archbishop says through modern communications, radical extremist Muslim groups are in contact with one another.  This makes the tendency more dangerous, both for Christians and Muslims, and makes the problem harder to combat.
   In response to questions from The Record, Archbishop Fitzgerald gave his views on a number of important questions touching on the relationship between Christians and Muslims today.
   Explaining the Church's teaching on the reasons for religious divisions in the world, he cited a Second Vatican Council document, Nostra Aetate, which says that all humankind is engaged in a common search for answers to fundamental questions of existence.
   These questions include 'What is the meaning and purpose of life?', 'What is upright and what is sinful behaviour?', 'What is the cause and purpose of suffering?' and 'What happens at death?'
   The Church teaches that all humans are united in their searching of such questions, and that this search is ultimately a search for God. While people are divided in their answers to these existential questions, "it is in this reality that divine revelation takes place, culminating in Jesus Christ," Archbishop Fitzgerald said. Inherent human weakness and also sinfulness help to perpetuate the religious divisions, but "it is important to recognise the positive aspects of the different religions and not only concentrate on the divisions," the Archbishop said.
   Asked if it is a duty of all Christians to engage in inter-faith dialogue, Archbishop Fitzgerald cited Pope John Paul Us encyclical letter Redemptoris Missio.
   The late Pope said all members of the faithful and all Christian communities are called to practise dialogue, although not always to the same degree and in the same way.
   Archbishop Fitzgerald said inter-religious dialogue and ecumenism are "really only specific ways of loving one's neighbour, trying to build up a society where there is peace, harmony and co-operation."
   Questioned about the Vatican's number one priority in relation to the Arab and Muslim world at the moment, Archbishop Fitzgerald said the Holy See's concern is always for the wellbeing of Christian communities.
   "So it could be said that its priority is to see that religious liberty is truly respected," he said.
   A just solution to conflict between Israel and Palestine must be considered a priority also, he said.
   Archbishop Fitzgerald will deliver the I. J. Kiernan Memorial Lectures on July 8, 9, and 10 on
Christian-Muslim relations in a changing world,
Religious pluralism: a theological consideration,
and Witnessing to Christ, ecumenism and religious dialogue.
For further information, contact Murdoch #