Israel had a similar report a couple of months ago....the pieces are falling together.

Posted by: Kemaste at November 18, 2005 4:06 PM

Cousin-cousine marriages being made an issue in England, polygamy being made an issue in France -- this is creeping up, through the identifying of "cultural" practices associated with, and in the latter case certainly explicitly encouraged by, Islam.

Eventually it is going to bave to be Islam itself, and not merely these associated practices that might, and so frequently are by apologists, chalked up to "culture" and not "Islam," that is held up for closer inspection, analysis, and -- well, whatever reaction an Infidel sensibly cares to have.

Posted by: Hugh at November 18, 2005 4:08 PM

Does this mean the Islamization of West Virginia is next?

Posted by: Lisa at November 18, 2005 4:13 PM

Ia, what say you?

Wouldn't affect you, would it?

Posted by: sheik yer'mami at November 18, 2005 4:15 PM

In marrying his 13-year-old cousin, Jerry Lee Lewis managed not to be just a little bit country, or just a little bit rhythm and blues, but quite a bit both 7th century Arab and 21st century Pakistani. He came short of the real thing, of course -- his bride was 13, not 9 like Aisha. That was the 7th century Arabia part. And she was his cousin. That was the 21st century Pakistani (and Arab) part. He thus managed to exhibit both the beliefs (from the Sira) and the practices (from practice) of Muslims. Yet he never cracked a Qur'an, and I don't think he ever left this country except possibly to go on tour in Europe.

In his defense one must point out that Jerry Lee Lewis could play the piano with his elbows. And while his playing and singing his most famous song was something, the only "Great Balls of Fire" that Pakistanis in England have manged to produce so far are of quite a different kind, not on the piano, with or without elbows, but on the London Underground.

Posted by: Hugh at November 18, 2005 4:29 PM

KT: ♪♪ "Let's get it on!"

IA: [Soto Voce] ("It's just a nicer emotional feel.")

KT: ♪♪ "We are all sen-si-tive people...with so much love to give...understand me, sugar!"

Posted by: Mad_Jack at November 18, 2005 4:35 PM

Sotto Voce, that is:

"To sing quietly...but with passion."

Posted by: Mad_Jack at November 18, 2005 4:40 PM

"ASIANS"
Don't you just love the term.
they can't bring themselves to say moslems so they say "ASIAN"

Not Sikh,Hindu,Buddhist,Christian.
For anybody who is interested it is expressly forbidden for SIKH'S/HINDUS/BUDDHISTS indian tradition to marry anyone they may even be remotley related to.

I am sure others will confirm this but for the record We have four basic "Goths" (Surnames) that you cannot marry into.
Your own surname, your mothers maidenname and your grandmothers on either side.
Infact it is normal practice for non moslems in India to marry outside of their village.

Why does everybody have to use the word asian ?

Anyway I'm going to join my wife in bed now.
(she no relation honest)

Posted by: apostate_islam at November 18, 2005 4:45 PM

Re: "Great Balls of Fire"

The image of human teeth, flying free in perfect arcs also comes to mind -- a differnt kind of ivory tickling...

*********************

And remind me -- when did you stop beating your wife?

Yikes -- sounds like only bad choices are available when considering the Muslim sector -- improve their gene pool by forcing them to abandon their pathological practices and you only end up with more surviving and better equipped candidates for Islamic Jihad... What is more costly? Supporting the defective byproduct of their asinine tribalism, or fending off a healthier more intelligent jihadist?

Muslims in the West represent a lose lose proposition for the West... We can't win if we help them with aid, better practices, better technology -- this only translates into stronger enemies determined to annihilate us.

And we can't win if we hinder them... We are guilty of the "Islamophobia" "racism" "intolerance" and "hatred" that so effectively fuels their Jihad to annihilate us.

The simple presence of Muslims in infidel lands forces us to make one Sophie's choice after another... It is ALL unacceptable!

Posted by: jsla at November 18, 2005 4:48 PM

http://fjordman.blogspot.com/2005/11/time-to-ban-marriages-between-cousins.html

A British MP is raising the issue of banning marriages between cousins, a practice that is common among Muslims in many parts of the world, and is widespread in Muslim immigrant communities even in Europe. Marriage between close relatives greatly increases the risk of birth defects and should be discouraged in every possible way. The claim that this has "nothing to do with Islam" is nonsense. Muhammad himself married his cousin, and married off his daughter Fatima to her cousin Ali:

Experts: Inbreeding main cause of Arab infant mortality

After lowering infant mortality rates among Arabs in western Galilee through the reduction of neonatal infections, early detection and encouraging abortions of fetuses with major and lethal congenital defects, public health experts are now focusing on the last main cause of babies' deaths in this population: inbreeding. Dr. Avshalom Strulov of the University of Haifa's Faculty of Social Welfare and Health Studies and of the Health Ministry's Northern District health office reports in the August issue of the Israel Medical Association Journal about efforts to discourage Arab first cousins and other close relatives from marrying. Such consanguineous marriages, he writes, "are not part of the Islamic religion" and are indeed harmful since they lead to the conception of fetuses with serious inherited diseases. The district health office has initiated a project in areas with large Arab populations that includes study days for health personnel, initiation of reports against inbreeding in the Arabic-language mass media, and encouragement of Muslim religious leaders to declare in mosques that this practice is likely to produce defective children. Most of the activity, however, recruits elementary and high-school teachers in the Arab sector who speak to pupils about the dangers of marrying close relatives.

Question: Is it better or preferable for a Muslim to marry someone he is not related to rather than a relative?

The basic principle is that marriage is permissible. The Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) married Zaynab bint Jahsh who was the daughter of his paternal aunt, and he gave his daughter Zaynab in marriage to Abu’l-‘Aas who was the son of her maternal aunt, and ‘Ali married Faatimah, and he was the son of her father’s paternal uncle.

Saudi Arabia Awakes to the Perils of Inbreeding

Across the Arab world today an average of 45 percent of married couples are related, according to Dr. Nadia Sakati, a pediatrician and senior consultant for the genetics research center at King Faisal Specialist Hospital in Riyadh. In some parts of Saudi Arabia, particularly in the south, where Mrs. Hefthi was raised, the rate of marriage among blood relatives ranges from 55 to 70 percent, among the highest rates in the world, according to the Saudi government. Widespread inbreeding in Saudi Arabia has produced several genetic disorders, Saudi public health officials said, including the blood diseases of thalassemia, a potentially fatal hemoglobin deficiency, and sickle cell anemia. Spinal muscular atrophy and diabetes are also common, especially in the regions with the longest traditions of marriage between relatives. Dr. Sakati said she had also found links between inbreeding and deafness and muteness.

Cousins, forced marriages and blind children

Habib Zada is a photographer but his two children, one-year-old Zaki and six-year-old Harez, will never see his pictures. Born from an arranged marriage between blood relatives, they are both blind - the victims of an ingrained tradition, like many handicapped youngsters in Afghanistan. The United Nations estimates between 800,000 and 2 million Afghans suffer from a disability. A quarter were caused by Afghanistan's 25 years of war but specialists are slowly coming to the conclusion that many of the rest result from arranged interfamilial marriages. Masooda Jalal, Afghanistan's new minister for women, who is also a pediatrician, said: "More than 13 years ago I remember a survey that said that hundreds of thousands of Afghans were mentally disabled." According to the survey "intermarriages were the first cause of this disability", she said. "Afghan culture is like this. The daughter should not go away," said her mother Rahila as she cuddles little Zaki. Poverty is another factor, with families marrying among themselves to avoid paying a large dowry, both Jalal and Azimi maintain.

Dhimmitude in Holland: No ban on marriages between cousins

"Despite a higher risk of birth defects, marriages and eventual offspring from unions between nephews and nieces will not be banned in the Netherlands." Why not? "Marriages between cousins are particularly common in Turkish and Moroccan communities and [Health Minister Hans] Hoogervorst said a ban would be 'disproportionate' and impossible to enforce."

Posted by: Fjordman at November 18, 2005 4:49 PM

jsla, you bring up a good point.

Why encourage muslims to have physically healthy (but still mentally defective) children who will only turn around and kill us? Yes, it's a [yet another] burden on the healthcare system but do we want to give anyone grounds to overcome family objections and marry a healthy infidel 'revert' to breed future jihadists?

Posted by: 3812Michelle at November 18, 2005 5:01 PM

I had this discussion with a Pakistani colleague around the time his parents were trying to arrange the marriage of his younger brother. He had married the daughter of a friend of his uncle. Middle brother had married the daughter of a neighbour, and had had a hand in the match. Young brother had resisted the idea of an arranged marriage until his relationship with a Swiss girl ended badly, and his Mum decided that the best way to mend a broken heart was a nice wife.
It was quite an eye opener for me. I was single then and feeling a little disillusioned with the courting process myself. I always thought that at least with an arranged marriage (any culture, I had Greek and Jewish acquaintances who allowed their parents to organise their partners) the parents went for the solid virtues and that there was someone for everyone out there, no matter how gauche.
Wrong!
Parent after parent of potential brides turned the lad down. Not a professional (maintenance engineer, quite solid in my opinion), too cockney (not a fault in my eyes), finally too short. We cannot deny our daughter the hope of tall sons. So their Mother called home and arranged a marriage with one of her nieces.
My colleague said "I didn't fancy a first cousin marriage myself but they are OK so long as it's with your Mothers family. Because, it's from your father that you inherit your blood "
And this intelligent man, with a responsible job would not have it that genes were inherited equally. How did he think his son got his mother's complexion!!!!

Posted by: Granny Weatherwax at November 18, 2005 5:02 PM

Is this an "Islamic" practice, meaning that there is something in the Koran, hadith, etc., that promotes such intermarriage, or is it more of a "cultural" practice, meaning that Pakistanis and Arabs might practice it, but Moslems in Indonesia, etc. do not?

Just curious if anybody had a religious reference. Never saw a Sura that mentioned the classical arabic equivalent of "nothing says lovin' like making it with your cousin."

Posted by: Darius LaMonica at November 18, 2005 5:08 PM

Marrying cousins has the advantage that a family's wealth stays in the extended family. It is therefore essentially a tribal custom, and comes from the tribal nature of islam.

Now it will most certainly will be claimed that this custom, like other gruesome practices in muslim cultures, is not islamic. However apostate_islam has written, the custom of marrying cousins is not part of the culture of the sub-continent. If Pakistanis and I presume, Bangladeshis as well, practice it, it can only come from islamic tradition.

Now I'm going into dangerous waters.

So what have we here. A religion which is essentially tribal in the way it sees the world. This causes it to conduct wars on all. Its marital practices also give rise to an unusually high number of genetic birth defects. Now I will hazard a guess, that there must be an unusually high number of Pakistani/muslim children, who though not visibly genetically damaged, have a low IQ. This may be the cause of the failure of Pakistani and Bangladeshi children in schools, despite the dumbing down of education in Britain.

Posted by: DP111 at November 18, 2005 5:09 PM

jsla posted: The simple presence of Muslims in infidel lands forces us to make one Sophie's choice after another... It is ALL unacceptable!

Except one.

Posted by: DP111 at November 18, 2005 5:17 PM

To be facetious, imagine your most obnoxious uncle, irritating aunt and whining cousins. Every family has them. And then they become your mother and father in law, brothers and sisters in law, and spouse.

God gave you your relatives.
Thank God you can chose your friends.

Posted by: Granny Weatherwax at November 18, 2005 5:19 PM

apostate_islam,

"Not Sikh,Hindu,Buddhist,Christian.
For anybody who is interested it is expressly forbidden for SIKH'S/HINDUS/BUDDHISTS indian tradition to marry anyone they may even be remotley related to."

How about sending a letter to the Telegraph about their persistent errors as the result of their use of the term "Asian."

Posted by: Archimedes at November 18, 2005 5:24 PM

I heart Darwin

Posted by: Kim Hartveld at November 18, 2005 5:26 PM

This is a little far fetched, but...

An old paki man wanted snatch
so he set about to find a match
A young girl was found,
but before she'd be bound
she blew up a bus with dispatch...

I wonder if the new wave of young female suicide bombers has anything to do with various heinous marriage arrangements being made with yucky older male relatives?

Posted by: jsla at November 18, 2005 5:34 PM

Jerry Lee Lewis could play the piano with his elbows.

That's as may be, but he couldn't hold a candle to Joseph Pujol. This would, in any case, be unwise if great balls of fire are to be avoided. My natural delicacy prevents me from going into detail about Pujol's particular talent, which is hidden in the decent obscurity of a hyperlink. People said he was long winded, but this is unfair. He is best summed up in this comment:

In remembering him, his eldest surviving son, Louis said: 'In the course of his long life, he had given of his best.'

Ann Cryer, as I have said on another thread, spoke out bravely not just against cousin marriages, but also the practice of importing spouses from 'back home'. Less well known, because it seems rather dull, is her opposition to the postal vote. The secret ballot is a cornerstone of our democracy. A postal vote, being a witnessable vote, is open to intimidation and corruption, and nowhere more than amongst Muslim communities who have yet to understand the concepts of democracy and individual citizenship. Muslim men vote the way their local Imam tells them. Muslim women vote the way their husbands tell them. The secret ballot protects against this, because if a vote is not witnessed, it cannot be bought or sold. A man can intimidate his wife all he likes into saying she will vote this way or that, but he cannot force her. This is a hobby horse of mine, not just in the context of British Muslims.

Posted by: Interested at November 18, 2005 6:01 PM

OMG -- what a font of mirth you are, Interested....

Posted by: jsla at November 18, 2005 6:05 PM

BTW -- perhaps he belongs more rightly in the "International caricatures" posting above this one???

Posted by: jsla at November 18, 2005 6:08 PM

I remember him! Leonard Rossiter played him in the biopic, pre Rigsby and Reggie Perrin.

As I have posted before I have respect for all the Cryer family.

Posted by: Granny Weatherwax at November 18, 2005 6:38 PM

Granny W - there's a biopic? I thought he was just dust in the wind. And Leonard Rossiter to boot? I've just died and gone to heaven. Any links, names etc?

Don't try this at home - there are health and safety issues.

Posted by: Interested at November 18, 2005 6:45 PM

Let me do a quick google.

Posted by: Granny Weatherwax at November 18, 2005 6:46 PM

There are plenty of wanted ads for it, and a few reviews. I don't know what equipment you have, or would nead but with the right gear it is apparently available to download on this site
http://www.leonardrossiter.com/Videos.html#Petomane
I had been courting my husband about 3 months when he sat me down to watch it on TV (it's short about half hour) one wet saturday afternoon.
And, Dear reader, I married him.
So I only have myself to blame.

Posted by: Granny Weatherwax at November 18, 2005 6:52 PM

I don't know what equipment you have

That's what M Pujol's audience kept asking, only in French.

Hey, that is one real love story you just told.

To paraphrase St Augustine, give me maturity and a disdain for childish humour. But not yet.

Posted by: Interested at November 18, 2005 6:59 PM

Time for bed, said Zeberdee. Boooiiiiing

Posted by: Granny Weatherwax at November 18, 2005 7:07 PM

Boooiiiiing

Posted by: Interested at November 18, 2005 7:17 PM

Hey, I married my first cousin. Our daughter was bright enough to get a full ride scholarship to College. For brains, not for atleticism, or for poverty.

Not too shabby, but I know that part of the reason was because my first wife is smarter than me. I just read a lot.

If kids with bad recessive genes should be removed from the gene pool, would you volunteer to be the one that kills them? If not, then don't presume to tell others what to do.

Even if you presume the presence of a deleterious recessive gene in a mutual ancestor, the probability of that gene being expressed is 1 in 50. Heck, we only had 3 kids.

Deleterious recessive genes also get revealed and purged from the gene pool by cousin marriages. If you ban cousin marriages, over time more and more people will carry bad recessive genes.

Please recall that the Egyptians had a 2000 year dynasty based on brother-sister marriage.

Posted by: Don Meaker at November 18, 2005 9:10 PM

Don,

No. The average person walks around with, as I recall, about 6-7 lethals by current estimate. Penetrance may have indeed very little to do with it. (Incidentally, penetrance by definition varies from 1-100%...feeling lucky? Or punky? Good luck.) I couldn't tell you the average penetrance for all recessives (because where it does vary, it varies by disease, population genetic background, environment, and so forth) but it is NOT 2% on average. Definitely not. For one disease or another...maaaaaaybe. But at 2% incidence assuming standard 5% type I error rate globally - well, you do the math. We wouldn't be able to detect it.

A bare minimum mean would be about 40%, is my best guess (sampling a couple of papers using mouse models, looks like 30-80%...note: that's for ONE gene. One. Not an overall genomic mean. Make it mean performance on two genes and you're talking 90% chance or more of something really, really bad happening to you). I'm happy for you and your family, but I caution you that there exists quantifiable risk.

Taking out recessives via purging seems to me a spectacularly bad idea in human populations, with our access to medical treatment of all but the most extreme ailments, and the fact that LETHAL recessives aside, there are probably hundreds of DETRIMENTAL recessives kicking around in our genomic neighbourhood. Ergo, you may not end up having flippers or simply dropping dead, but after a few dozen generations, you're looking at Tay-Sachs, minor congenitals and never quiiiiite seeming right. This is bad. Bad.

I also recall that the Egyptian bloodlines were plagued by serious inbreeding problems, and that they switched lines more than a few times throughout their period.

Also, what in hell does: "If kids with bad recessive genes should be removed from the gene pool, would you volunteer to be the one that kills them? If not, then don't presume to tell others what to do." refer to? Who here is calling for the termination of people with recessives? We're just asking you don't concentrate them via inbreeding. That so hard?

Geoff

Posted by: Geoff at November 18, 2005 9:49 PM

Don,
In an isolated incident, the genetic odds are pretty good one can get away with this. When it is endemic over generations, well, Mother Nature can be a bitch.

In some tribal areas in Saudi Arabia, more than half the people are carriers of the thallasemia gene.

I read of an interview in the Arab News with a young couple. Their baby had thallasemia. Mother remarked, "But my husband and I are not related!" Apparently they were both carriers due to family trees without enough limbs.

And the "inshAllah" fatalism does not help.

jay

Posted by: jay at November 18, 2005 10:12 PM

I saw a whole tribe of albinos in Siwa, Egypt. Imagine being a man living in the most uncovered desert in the Middle East who can't go into the sunlight. What is there to do but make more albino kiddies?

There are five or six articles below on the effects of inbreeding among residents of the Middle East, everything from diabetes to ablinism and more and worse.

http://nodhimmitude.blogspot.com/2005/08/road-to-oblivion_28.html

Posted by: sonofwalker at November 18, 2005 10:45 PM

For what it's worth, I work with the developmentally disabled. Years ago, when we were still located in an institutional setting, as opposed to the group homes of today, I noticed a high percentage of Jewish residents compared to Protestant and Catholic, sometime 50% of a ward. Interestingly, Downs syndrome was not the primary cause. I live near the 3 largest communities of Hasidic Jews in the world, communities that are very big on arranged marriages. Just anecdotal, no science to offer.

Posted by: t-ham at November 18, 2005 11:38 PM

sonofwalker:

Still waiting on that coffee, too! Can we have one cyber-style?

I have a postcard showing a group of rural Turkish women -- and they all look very much the same. Obviously all are from the same village, and varying vastly in age and builds, but their faces look almost identical. First cousins marriage doesn't produce this strking effect immediately -- it takes many generations to reduce the gene pool to get these results, I would imagine. And that's why a previous poster's offspring from a first-cousin marriage was healthy. But each successive generation of first-cousin marriage increases the risk of genetic disability because the available gene pool is smaller.

Posted by: Jen at November 18, 2005 11:39 PM

Cyber coffee it is, Jen.

Here's lookin' at you.

Dag.

Posted by: sonofwalker at November 19, 2005 12:52 AM

What racism, what islamophobia! How dare the West interfere with Muslims' internal affairs, even if for their own good! Those infidels of little faith, don't they realize Allah knows best?!

Posted by: US_infidel at November 19, 2005 3:14 AM

AI

Speak for youyrself... Indian culture is not limited to Punjabi, Hindi culture (i know Yadavs dont marry anyone remotely related to them). I must confess the fact that many of my ancestors especially from the Marathi side of my family indeed partook in the practice of marrying maternal uncle's daughter. Though with modernistaion and education, this practise has been by large discontinued in Maharshtra but just the other day i read that it is live and kicking in South India. I seriously think this kind of thing is not only limited to Muslims, its just that educated and sophistaced Hindus in the west dont take part in this.

Posted by: Vikrant_Camberleykar at November 19, 2005 3:26 AM

BTW Indian Zoroastrians were known to even marry their own sisters out of deperation. They by large wrote "the book" on incest relationships in India.

Posted by: Vikrant_Camberleykar at November 19, 2005 3:29 AM

Could you please articulate what the hell this has to do with dhimmitude?

Posted by: Haidon at November 19, 2005 5:40 AM

It doesn't, except insofar that rasing the issues of polygamy (as did the official in France) and inter-breeding and the problem of consanquineity among Pakistanis in England (not to mention in Pakistan), are examples of approaching slowly the matter of Islam itself. Not quite there yet.

Even those making the statements may not quite realize that they have taken a step that doesn't quite get to the issue of Islam directly. They are now discussing matters either related to Islam in its "cultural practices" (as some like to call it) form. In the case of polygamy, of course, which has received its permanent legitimacy in the texts of Islam, in the practice of Muhammad and his Companions, they are getting closer to Islam.

Eventually someone in Europe, some official, is going to have the brilliant idea of actually suggesting that perhaps Infidels should read those texts, and see what it is that Muslims learn.

What an idea. An idea whose time has come.

Posted by: Hugh at November 19, 2005 8:21 AM

If these people are developmentally damaged in some cases, could this be why they do not have an aversion to the tenets of Islam? I still can't figure out what the attraction is to this religion.

Posted by: Isabellathecrusader at November 19, 2005 9:09 AM

Haidon said:
"Could you please articulate what the hell this has to do with dhimmitude?"

Perhaps not dhimmitude, but it has some related elements: Most broadly, a predominantly non-Muslim culture (Britain) must pay for the considerable medical and other burdens imposed primarily as a consequence of adherence to Islamic cultural practices. A contributing factor to this is that traditional Islamic families (and indeed the core doctrines) require that a Muslim woman must marry a Muslim man.

For those who find all this talk of inbreeding distasteful, consider that jokes on this subject are told openly about the royal family.

Posted by: Archimedes at November 19, 2005 12:03 PM

We know that inbreeding can lead to both physical and mental defects. We also know that insanity can be caused by inbreeding. I've seen Muslim fanatics on television who strike me as totally irrational and completely insane.Could the Islamic practice of inbreeding be another cause of the insanity that seems unique to the ME?

Posted by: Roxane at November 19, 2005 10:22 PM