Dhimmi Watch: Veil teacher was obeying a fatwa

October 29, 2006

Veil teacher was obeying a fatwa

Aishah Azmi, I think

Aishah Azmi Update from the TimesOnline, with thanks to Dragon:

THE Muslim teacher who insisted on wearing a veil in class has been following a fatwa issued personally to her by a Islamic cleric belonging to a hardline sect.
Aishah Azmi found herself in the middle of a national row about integration when she took her school to an employment tribunal after it suspended her for refusing to remove the veil in class.

Tony Blair joined the debate about the wearing of veils — opened by Jack Straw, the Commons leader — and supported the school’s actions.

Azmi, 24, has maintained that her decision to wear the veil was driven entirely by her personal beliefs, rather than the advice or instruction of a third party. But this weekend it emerged that she refused to take the veil off at school after receiving a fatwa, or religious ruling, from Mufti Yusuf Sacha, a Muslim cleric in West Yorkshire.

Her legal team revealed that the advice Sacha issued to Azmi ruled that it was obligatory for women to wear the niqab (face-veil) in the presence of men who were not their blood relatives.

Sacha is one of several hundred Islamic clerics in Britain with the status of mufti, entitling him to issue fatwas based on Islamic law. Although Muslims are expected to follow fatwas, they are not obliged to do so, particularly if they live in a non-Muslim state....

Whittingham said that Azmi, who had been wearing the niqab since the age of 15, asked Sacha whether women had a choice whether or not to wear the niqab. She was told it was obligatory, Whittingham said.

Azmi, who was employed as a bilingual support worker helping British Pakistani children learn English, was told to remove the veil because pupils found it difficult to understand her as they could not see her lips move....

During Azmi’s employment tribunal, Sacha was asked to give a written statement. He set out his reasons for insisting that the niqab was obligatory for women.

Whittingham said: “I know she went to Sacha for advice before starting the job. And at the tribunal Sacha also set out the religious position, which was accepted by both sides. It said that she is required to wear it in the presence of men who are not her blood relatives, or whom she can potentially marry.”

The tribunal ruled that Kirklees council — which runs the school — was within its rights to suspend her from work. But Azmi was awarded £1,100 on the grounds of victimisation....

Sacha follows the teachings of the Tablighi Jamaat, a hardline Muslim group, elements of which are suspected by western intelligence agencies of having links with terrorism. The majority of Tablighis are, however, regarded as moderate.

A colleague of Sacha, who did not want to be named, said that the cleric teaches at the Tablighi mosque in Dewsbury, which has become the organisation’s European headquarters.

Mohammad Sidique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer, two of the London bombers, are said to have been regular worshippers there.

Sacha’s ruling on the veil is disputed. Mufti Abdul Kadir Barkatullah, who is affiliated to the Muslim Council of Britain, said: “I am 100% sure that wearing the niqab is not obligatory on Muslim women — it is a matter of choice. It’s more about habit than religion. The Tablighis observe the niqab very strictly.”

Posted by Robert at October 29, 2006 7:18 AM
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Azmi, who was employed as a bilingual support worker helping British Pakistani children learn English, was told to remove the veil because pupils found it difficult to understand her as they could not see her lips move....

Hmm, that’s something new that wasn’t duly reported in the media. We would think that even people who are not fully informed of what true Islam is should have some common sense to not accept her for this position in the first place.

I am sure that if I wore a ninja outfit to a job interview, I would be refused the job immediately.

Posted by: Steve Cheng

at October 29, 2006 7:54 AM

"Azmi, who was employed as a bilingual support worker helping British Pakistani children learn English..."
-- from the article above

"British Pakistani children" -- who are these children? Are they born in England, or are they recent arrivals? If they are recent arrivals, why are they in England, where beginning with the sums spent to teach them English and make it easier for some of them to circulate, to rise high, to promote or have their own children promote, the goals of Islam (who knows when a "moderate" will become "immoderate" or what the children or grandhcildren will do or wish? Should policy be made on the basis of a few delightful and charming exceptions, or on the basis of likelihood, of statistics, of probabilities intelligently calculated from all the date we already possess, of the behavior and attitudes of Muslims within the nation-states of Western Europe?

The immigration from Muslim lands ought to have been turned off at once, and it still can be. No nonsense, no sentimentality, only a desire to prevent, in the end, far worse. People in England have a right to defend themselves physically and civilizationally. They keep misunderstanding this right, they are still prisoners to the mind-forged manacles that they have slipped on themselves, and that inhibit them. Do what you reasonably and with perfect justification, to prevent further anguish and chaos and then if not terror in the strets, the rapid decline into something like a quasi-Muslim state (for examples, look around the world), have a right to do. Slip off those mind-forged manacles, just in time (that time is now) and, retaining all your amused and intelligent Western ways, without becoming any kind of monster -- did Western man become a monster during the Cold War? During World War II? Did the Czechs become monsters when in 1946 they put into place the Benes Decrees? -- do what you must.

But first, you have to slip out of those mind-forged manacles, that you yourself, with a little help from the damned Zeitgeist and the sappy-sentimentalism of this incredible age, put on long ago.

Every man his own Hephaestus should become: Every man his own Houdini.

Posted by: Hugh

at October 29, 2006 9:20 AM

This veil makes me think of those who beheaded Nick Berg--May G-d rest his soul--he or she looks identical to that group of murderers. I guess that is many Muslims' favorite outfit--the beheading gown--oh joy. I see this "look" and I think MUSLIM TERRORIST. I suppose there is something to be said for making it easier to recognize these ones--nahh.

You Muslims that think this is how it should be--sorry, take your jihadi show back to your caves.

Posted by: BB

at October 29, 2006 9:36 AM

The immigration from Muslim lands ought to have been turned off at once, and it still can be.

Hugh is clearly unfamiliar with the United Kingdom and the Blair Govt.

In May 1997 Anthony Charles Lynton Blair became Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. His Labour Govt began by abolishing The Primary Purpose Rule which was an immigration control. It relaxed all immigration controls

It subsequently removed Immigration Officers from many ports of entry to use them as mobile squads and reduced expenditure on the Immigration Service trying to computerise to save labour cost.............as with all govt computer schemes it crashed and burned.

Playing Saviour of the World Blair went to Kosovo and before long Britain had an Albanian population for the first time in its history.

So popular was this island in the North Atlantic with its free healthcare, free schooling, free English lessons, free housing, and living expenses that it became a popular destination and soon London had prisons with 73 languages and schools with even more.

When people became embarrassed at the huge number of asylum-seekers settling in Britain the Blair Govt gave them Work-Permits instead to disguise matters until Britain was issuing more Work Permits to foreigners than the USA and taking in more immigrants.

After working for 5 years in Britain they get automatic Permanent Residence and no longer appear as immigrants buut as British.

Now after 10 years of Blair and the largest wave of immigration in the history of the United Kingdom people are certaibly noticing how different many places are and ho it is hard to speak the local language.

All the major political parties tell us immigration is super and great for the country so it is hard to know where democracy went. Between the Eu and Westminster there has been a Putsch and the public has been dis-enfranchised in a country now run by the Elite, the Nomenklatura

Posted by: Voyager

at October 29, 2006 9:46 AM

Hmmm. A couple of points don't quite gell.

If she "had been wearing the niqab since the age of 15", how come she did NOT wear it to the job interview?

And if "she is required to wear it in the presence of men who are not her blood relatives, or whom she can potentially marry" what is stopping her taking it off in the classroom of a primary school? (Yes, I do realise that Muslim men can marry very young children, but I didn't think that applied to women. If that is the case she should have been sacked on child protection grounds).

Posted by: Paul

at October 29, 2006 11:46 AM

How do we know that's really her in the picture?

Posted by: EnglishBlondie

at October 29, 2006 12:48 PM

Tablighi Jamaat.

A colleague of Sacha, who did not want to be named, said that the cleric teaches at the Tablighi mosque in Dewsbury, which has become the organisation’s European headquarters.

Mohammad Sidique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer, two of the London bombers, are said to have been regular worshippers there.

Well just this morning while adding to my blog I came across a mention about Tablighi Jamaat.

Strange that this group should appear twice in one day,It seems they have a habit of targetting trains. Mohammad Sidique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer, two of the London bombers in this article,then in my blog,about the Godra train attack..

Simmering Tensions

http://illustratedpig.blogspot.com/

What is also interesting is that Tablighi Jamaat, an organisation which the Americans believe has been used as a recruiting ground for al-Qaida.

http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/2232

So this affair may have deeper implications than what many may think

Posted by: shiva

at October 29, 2006 1:00 PM

Tablighi Jamaat: Jihad's Stealthy Legions

There is also evidence that Tablighi Jamaat directly recruits for terrorist organizations. As early as the 1980s, the movement sponsored military training for 900 recruits annually in Pakistan and Algeria while, in 1999, Uzbek authorities accused Tablighi Jamaat of sending 400 Uzbeks to terrorist training camps.

The West is not immune. British counterterrorism authorities estimate that at least 2,000 British nationals had gone to Pakistan for jihad training by 1998, and the French secret services report that between 80 and 100 French nationals fought for Al-Qaeda.

A Trojan Horse for Terror in America?
Within the United States, the cases of American Taliban John Lindh, the "Lackawanna Six," and the Oregon cell that conspired to bomb a synagogue and sought to link up with Al-Qaeda, all involve Tablighi missionaries.

Other indicted terrorists, such as "shoe bomber" Richard Reid, "dirty bomber" Jose Padilla, and Lyman Harris, who sought to bomb the Brooklyn Bridge, were all members of Tablighi Jamaat at one time or another. According to Robert Blitzer, head of the FBI's first Islamic counterterrorism unit, between 1,000 and 2,000 Americans left to join the jihad in the 1990s alone. Pakistani intelligence sources report that 400 American Tablighi recruits received training in Pakistani or Afghan terrorist camps since 1989.

http://www.meforum.org/article/686

Posted by: shiva

at October 29, 2006 1:29 PM

Well i think we all knew this would occur.

US captures Al-Qaeda militant 'disguised as woman'

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20061028/wl_mideast_afp/iraqunrestus_061028105643

Posted by: Laststand

at October 29, 2006 2:49 PM

Maybe all the students in her class should wear paper bags over their heads so she'll feel more welcome.

That picture is really something. Reminds me that Hallowen is a year round business for those weirdos.

Posted by: ISLAMSFORLOSERS

at October 29, 2006 5:05 PM