It's that time of year: Iran launches new dress code crackdown for "moral security"

Hot on the heels of last year's program's smashing success at making the Iranian government look busy while doing nothing about issues of corruption and domestic economics. "Iran launches new crackdown on dress code offenders," from Reuters:

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iranian police will launch a crackdown next month on small companies which fail to enforce strict religious dress codes, Mehr News Agency reported on Wednesday.

The move indicates an expansion of a clampdown on "immoral" conduct launched last year against women flouting rules to cover their heads and disguise the shape of their bodies in public, in line with Iran's Islamic system.

"In the first stage, police will only confront companies ... that are active in small buildings or complexes," the head of the moral security police, Ahmad Rouzbehani, was quoted as saying.

Mehr said the move was "to prevent social damage" and the hijab, or veil, "should be respected". It said the campaign would start from around May 4.

Iran's religious codes require women to cover their hair and wear long, loose clothing to disguise their bodies in public, including offices where they may work with male colleagues.

Police sometimes check offices to ensure the codes are upheld and can shut them down. Some coffee shops have been closed after police said workers or customers were not meeting standards.

Restaurants and other public places often have signs asking customers to respect the Islamic Republic's dress requirements.

The enforcement of "hijab" has been a cornerstone of the Islamic system introduced after the 1979 revolution.

The crackdown against what clerics see as "corrupt" Western influence coincides with rising pressure on Iran by the West over its nuclear program. The United States and its allies say Iran wants to build an atomic bomb, which Tehran denies.

"Everybody, both women and men, just as they want financial and physical security, like to have moral security," Rouzbehani said, adding that police had urged people "to come forward with their reports".

In the past, crackdowns tended to be launched at the start of Iran's hot summers and petered out soon after. But last year's extended into winter and included a drive against tight women's trousers and even men with spiky "Western" hairstyles.

Those who violate dress codes are usually cautioned on a first offence, sometimes after a brief visit to a police station. But they can be held for longer, taken to court and required to have "guidance classes" after repeat offences.

Dress codes are most often flouted in wealthier, urban areas. Conservative dress is the norm in poorer, rural areas.

United Nations vs. Human Rights: World Church Congress, Augsburg

Every man should think what he likes and say what he thinks – Spinoza

Report by David G. Littman:

On April 13, I was given the floor at the KIRCHE IN NOT – CHURCH IN DISTRESS
3rd International Congress of the World Church Meeting (Augsburg Germany, 11-13 April).
Theme: Europe’s Heritage, Europe’s Future / Where do we come from; where do we want to go?

An unfortunate mishap took place on this specific occasion – generating many complaints then and after. As the speaker has been asked by many persons for his full text, and also by the organisers – who were not responsible for what happened and expressed sincere regrets – he feels that it would be appropriate to provide a factual explanation which will permit readers to understand what actually occurred just before the closing panel at this distinguished Congress that was attended by over 1,000 persons. To present an exact record, the official video recording has been used, including moments of applause from the audience and the two interruptions by the moderator, including brief comments. See also note (*)

[The passages that were actually pronounced in full are in bold type. Those that could not be stated as a result of the interruptions – manifestly against the will of the vast majority of the audience – are in normal type. Passages in square brackets are those which the speaker did not intend to say, but were put in his edited text for documentation, and eventual publication. It was only prepared the day before, adapted from a text he delivered on 13 March 2008 at the European University in Rome: (Title: “Impact of Shariah-based Human Rights at the United Nations” in a Conference held on: Identity Crisis: Can European Civilization Survive); and for the Association for World Education at the Seventh Session of the UN Human Rights Council at the Palais des Nations, Geneva on 26 March 2008.

* * * * *

The United Nations versus Human Rights is my subject today.

“Will 2008 be the year when the United Nations celebrates the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and simultaneously destroys its own principles? There is, indeed, cause for great concern because the institution has lost its own way in recent years, becoming a caricature of itself?”

I am quoting from a statement by the Paris-based LICRA, the International League against Racism and Antisemitism, signed by thousands [including many eminent personalities such as Nobel Peace Laureate Elie Wiesel] that was published in the world press last month in Le Monde [Paris] and Le Temps [Geneva], and elsewhere.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ General applause from an audience of about 700 persons in the Congress Hall ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Let me provide two recent examples of shameful attempts to stifle freedom of expression by ludicrous challenges at last month’s 7th Session of the UN Human Rights Council, in Geneva – which is in Europe.

On 25 March there were 20 interventions by the Chinese delegate to disrupt any criticism about Tibet by Western States and NGOs (non-governmental organizations). This farce was backed by the usual dictatorial regimes on the Council, including Pakistan, speaking on behalf of 57 Muslim countries, all members of the OIC – the Organization of the Islamic Conference.

The next day I took the floor for the Association for World Education under item 9 – covering Racism and related forms of intolerance. There were five attempts to stop me delivering my three minutes NGO statement: three times by Egypt, once by the Palestinian delegate, and once by Iran – who complained that I was “focusing on Islam and some Islamic countries by insulting them.” Allow me to read those opening comments which I made on the 26th March that were considered so insulting:

“Regarding the Report [A/HRC/7/19] of the Special Rapporteur on Racism, Doudou Diène, and his comments on defamation of religion, we note that once again he has failed to mention the greatest of all defamations of religion – when chapter and verse of holy texts are cited to justify calls to kill in the name of God or Allah. On 9 August 2007, we made an Appeal to the UN Secretary-General and the High Commissioner – and later to the Council [in a joint written statement to the 6th Session, A/HRC/6/NGO/5: Appeal to Condemn Calls to Kill in the name of God. We concluded: “In face of this cult of hate, death and destruction against ‘the other’, we are appealing to you]
“to condemn all calls to kill in the name of God or religion – any religion.”
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Sustained applause that grew even louder after the translation into German
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“This taboo subject is consistently ignored within the UN system, despite the fact that a policy of silence on the part of the international community, of Muslim spiritual and secular leaders, the OIC and the Arab League, is tantamount to condoning this great evil. Calls to kill in the name of Allah should be unequivocally condemned by senior Muslim theologians as a “defamation of Islam.”

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More sustained applause, which became much louder and longer after the German translation
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[Yet these calls have been justified by Al-Azhar Grand Sheik Muhammad Sayyed Tantawi, by Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradhawi, and by many others, including Osama bin Laden. The Special Rapporteur makes no clear reference to this global plague of our time, other than by a side reference to: “the stereotyped association of Islam with violence and terrorism – an association which is bolstered by intellectual constructs, used by political rhetoric and exaggerated in the media…” (§57)]

I also pointed out that “the Special Rapporteur refers to‘the writing and teaching of history’ and ‘the importance of fostering education in multiculturalism in schools, in the media and in the home’ Yet Judeophobia / Antisemitism – under the guise of ‘anti-Zionism’ – is now widely recognised as endemic in the Muslim world, being nourished by a general ‘culture of hate’ that is creeping into “Eurabia” and beyond. Clearly, many of the States [, the 47 countries of the OIC, ] that, since 1999, have sponsored the resolution combating ‘defamation of religions’ – adopted on 18 December 2007 by the UN General Assembly – do not believe it applies to them!”

[A recognised expert on racism, Director of Research at the CNRS, Pierre-André Taguieff has described all this in detail in two recent books – La Nouvelle Judéophobia (Paris, 2002) and a 1000 page volume, Prêcheurs de haine: Traversée de la judéophobie planétaire (Paris, 2004].

In 2005 we analysed in 3 NGO written statements to the United Nations what is being taught to Arab schoolchildren in Egypt and Saudi Arabia, and the same hatred is also being taught in Palestinian, Syrian and Iranian schools and elsewhere.

[E/CN.4/Sub.2/ 2005/NGO/2: The culture of ‘Jihad & Martyrdom’ in Egyptian school textbooks; E/CN.4/Sub.2 /2005/NGO/3: The culture of hate in Saudi Arabian textbooks and growing Arab reactions; and E/CN.4/Sub.2 /2005/ NGO/4: Arab Criticism of Muslim Extremist Activities in the West; also: “A Culture of Hate Based ‘Jihad and Martyrdom’: Saudi and Egyptian Schoolbooks Today” (Midstream, March-April 2005). In his conclusion: “The Special Rapporteur recommends that the Council draw the attention of member States to the importance of developing an intellectual front against racism and, consequently combating – through education, scientific research and information – ideas, concepts and images likely to incite or legitimize racism, racial discrimination or xenophobia.” This should be heeded by all.]

Nothing of this outrageous Judeophobia [being taught to children in the Arab/Muslim world, especially in what is to be a future Palestinian State] has been covered in the Reports of the Special Rapporteur on Racism or by any UN bodies or UNESCO, yet the proof of this endemic hate-mongering is easily available in original texts & translations by consulting the websites of MEMRI [Middle East Media Research Institute], PMW [Palestinian Media Watch] and CMIP [Center for Monitoring the Impact of Peace].

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE SPEAKER WAS STOPPED HERE BY THE MODERATOR WHO STATED, INTER ALIA,
“I am sorry to interrupt, but we must close soon.” (English & German). He replied that he could not just end there. This ‘cut’ occurred exactly here, only 12½ minutes after he had begun, although the moderator was informed the evening before that 10 minutes had been agreed for his text in English, and as much or more for the German translation. He therefore continued to read his text – unstopped.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I concluded with a simple appeal: “Is this Human Rights Council now ready to condemn calls to kill in the name of God, and the preaching of hate, or will it remain silent on such major issues for humanity?”

Needless to say, the Council remained silent, as it did on so many occasions, such as the genocide in Southern Sudan against Christians and animists – where Christian Solidarity International freed over 80,000 slaves – and for the last four years in Darfur, on which I spoke regularly for CSI and other NGOs. Even now as I speak to you, African Muslims are being killed and ethnically cleansed from their homeland – Darfur – in a genocide by the Arab-Islamist NIF regime of Khartoum.

Four months ago, on 10 December 2007 – “Human Rights Day” – Pakistan Ambassador Massoud Khan addressed the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva on behalf of the 57 countries of the Organization of the Islamic Conference. While speaking glowingly of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the positive contribution to its creation by many Muslim countries, he declared that the 1990 Cairo Declaration [on Human Rights in Islam]:
“is not an alternative, competing worldview on human rights. It complements the Universal Declaration as it addresses religious and cultural specificity of the Muslim countries”.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE SPEAKER WAS STOPPED AGAIN BY THE MODERATOR DESPITE CALLS AND MUCH APPLAUSE FROM THE AUDIENCE FOR HIM TO CONTINUE
This 2nd call to stop came after 4 minutes (total: 16½ minutes, with two minutes for interruptions). The moderator stated that she had controlled her watch carefully, but the speaker insisted he be allowed the 10 minutes granted – as at the United Nations. As this was not accepted – despite a vibrant appeal by a man going up to the podium – he was forced to conclude. (see bold below).
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Yet, the Cairo Declaration cannot be, in any sense, considered complementary to the Universal Declaration, as it makes no reference to it – while its Art. 24 and 25 explicitly state the contrary:

“All the rights and freedoms stipulated in this Declaration are subject to the Islamic Shari'ah” and

“The Islamic Shari'ah is the only source of reference for the explanation or clarification to any of the articles of this Declaration.” Many clauses in this Islamic Declaration limit the rights contained in the Universal Declaration, with references to Sharia’h, especially Articles 2, 7, 12, 16, 19, 22, 23.

As is well-known, under Shari’ah law Muslim women and non-Muslims are not accorded equal treatment with Muslim men. The Shari’ah, therefore, fails to honour the right to equality guaranteed under the Universal Declaration the international covenants, and thus denies the full enjoyment of their human rights to those living in States which follow Shari’ah law. By limiting rights to those permitted by the Shari’ah, the Cairo Declaration – rather than complementing the Universal Declaration undermines many of the rights they are supposed to guarantee.

When it comes to freedom of expression, the Cairo Declaration makes this freedom subject to the Shari’ah. Under its Article 22, a person may only express their opinion in a manner “as would not be contrary to the principles of the Shariah”, and freedom of expression may not be used to “weaken faith”. A resolution, “Combating Defamation of Religions” was adopted at the General Assembly on 18 December by 108 votes to 51 with 25 abstentions. Similar resolutions have been adopted automatically since 1999 at the Commission on Human Rights and by the new Human Rights Council, but this was the first time that such a resolution had been passed by the UN General Assembly. The resolution expresses once again “deep concern about the negative stereotyping of religions and manifestations of intolerance and discrimination in matters of religion or belief”. But the only religion mentioned by name is Islam. The resolution emphasizes that while everyone has the right to freedom of expression, this should be exercised with responsibility – and may therefore be subject to limitations, inter alia, “for respect for religions and beliefs”.

The implications of all such UN resolutions against freedom to criticise religious laws and practices are obvious. Armed with UN approval for their actions, States may now legislate against any show of disrespect for religion – however they may choose to define this “disrespect”. Islamic States see human rights exclusively in Islamic terms, and by sheer weight of numbers, or of oil, this view is becoming dominant within the system, but there are signs of resistance. On the same occasion on 10 December 2007, four months ago, German Ambassador Gunter Nooke expressed his regrets at:
“the tendency within some parts of the international community to roll back the principle of universality in order to make the enjoyment of fundamental rights dependent on factors such as tradition, culture, religion or the level of development.”

Yet, it is a sign of the times that the OIC’s ‘rules of the game’are slowly being accepted. The implications for the universality of human rights are ominous. The OIC is attempting to limit religious freedom by consistently promoting the Shari’ah-based Cairo Declaration, and also by rejecting wording in the Council resolution on the elimination of discrimination based on religion or belief that would permit individuals, including Muslims, to change their religion.

Creeping dhimmitude at the Council and other UN bodies should be denounced for what it is. Both States and human rights defenders worldwide should remain vigilant and actively resist any attempt by the OIC to give equal status to the Cairo Declaration or to any future Islamic Charter on Human Rights that limits the Rights enshrined since 1948 in the Universal Declaration.

* * * * *

I shall conclude by quoting from the renowned Jewish-born philosopher, Sir Karl Popper [best known for his philosophy of critical rationalism and his emphasis on the way in which we learn through the making and correcting of mistakes]. In his analysis of Plato’s criticism of democracy, he refers to a so-called “paradox of freedom” and “a paradox of tolerance”. His words shall be my conclusion today at the KIRCHE IN NOT Conference, in Augsburg:

“Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed and tolerance with them … We should therefore claim in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant. We should claim that any movement preaching intolerance places itself outside the law, and we should consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as criminal, in the same way as we should consider incitement to murder, or to kidnapping, or to the revival of the slave trade.” [David Miller (ed.), A Pocket Popper (Fontana Paperbacks, GB, 1983), chapter 25: The Paradoxes of Sovereignty (1945), pp. 319-325; pp. 445-46 (note 4, Plato, Republic, 564 A (Popper: “Less well known is the paradox of tolerance. Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of .…”)]

Let us meditate the words of Sir Karl Popper – NOW before it is too late! And I do regret that I was unable to explain to you the reasons – the very profound reasons – for that conclusion.
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Sustained applause expressing approval for the speaker and disagreement with his being silenced

* * * * *

TOTAL TIME: 19 MINUTES (LESS INTERRUPTIONS = ABOUT 17 MINUTES). THE WHOLE TEXT COULD HAVE BEEN COMPLETED (WITH GERMAN TRANSLATION) IN AGREED 21 MINUTES

(*) I feel that the public has a right to know exactly what took place – and not rely on hearsay – and am thus providing the necessary ‘facts’ that cannot be contested by anyone who was present then.

On Friday evening I learned from one of the organisers that there had been three cancellations out of the seven speakers for the 1st panel on Sunday morning (9:00-10:15) on Europe. I offered to prepare a text in regard to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. This was accepted, and I was told to keep to 10 minutes (with a German translation to follow). Subsequently, two others persons joined the panel, bringing the total to six. The friendly moderator was informed by me in detail the night before, that I had taken considerable time to prepare my text and would need the 10 minutes for my English presentation that had been mutually agreed (with a German translation to follow). I informed her that many panels had started late and most finished late – some over half an hour and more – but she expressed a desire to start on time and wished to finish at 9:15. Knowing that this was impossible, I asked her not to put me as the last speaker.

As usual, the panel began a little late and the moderator introduced the speakers until 9:13 a.m. The 1st and 2nd speaker spoke for roughly 9 and 10 minutes each. Then a Muslim Russian delegate spoke and was translated into German paragraph by paragraph (a total of 15 minutes). I was then given the floor at roughly 9:48 and was stopped for the 1st time by the moderator at about 10:00, and for a 2nd time at 10:04, concluding at 10:06 – a total of 19 minutes – of which two were taken by the interruptions and my replies. The two last spiritual speakers were very brief and everything ended almost on time without any Q & A. As usual, the last panel of the Congress – with bishops and clerics – started after 10:45, more than quarter of an hour later than scheduled. Everyone waited patiently for nearly ½ an hour, while over 20 persons came to the podium for my statement. There would have been no difficulty for the 1st panel ending at 10:30, instead of at 10:15 sharp.

Despite the ‘politically incorrect’ passages in my statement when the 2 interruptions occurred, I do not think that this was intentional – as has been suggested – rather, it might have been simply an unfortunate coincidence, and the reason was merely the desire of the moderator to finish on time.

Originally, I had been asked to read my statement in English, to be followed by the translation. However just before I was due to speak the efficient translator explained to me that it would be easier for her, and for the audience, if the German translation proceeded paragraph by paragraph. In accepting her suggestion, out of courtesy, I erred as the moderator could not have interrupted my 10 minute address, nor considered cutting the translation into German – a total of 21 minutes.

The organisers sincerely regretted this unusual incident, which caused general consternation toward the end of the Congress,. This was especially so, as I was the only speaker (from the twenty panels) to be abruptly interrupted, whereas many speakers had exceeded their time without such a drastic reaction from the moderator.
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* * * * *

David G. Littman is a historian, who published Arab Theologians under Jews and Israel in 1971 (Geneva, Editions de l’Avenir) under the pen-name: D.F. Green (with Yehoshafat Harkabi). He has published several articles on Jews and Christians (dhimmis) under Islam, mainly in the 1970s and 1980s. Since 1986 he has been
a human rights defender for several NGOs at the United Nations in Geneva, and a representative for the last 10 years of the Association for World Education and since 2001 for the World Union for Progressive Judaism (WUPJ), for whom he was main representative from 1986-1991. Nearly 100 of his earlier oral and written statements to the Commission and Sub-Commission on Human Rights were published in “Human Rights and Human Wrongs at the United Nation” (WUPJ, 1986-1991, N° 1 to N°11). He has edited articles on comparative and current human rights themes, which were published with more recent oral and written NGO statements – in “Human Rights and Human Wrongs at the United Nations,” Part 5 (pp. 305-472), edited by Robert Spencer, The Myth of Islamic Tolerance: How Islamic Law Treats Non-Muslims (New York: Prometheus Books, 2005, p.593).

Valencia: Immigrants must "respect the laws, the principles and the customs of Spain and Valencia"

Not that much of anything will happen if they don't: the contract "will have no consequences from a legal point of view." And the principles and customs are not clearly defined. Still, this is a small step in the right direction.

"Spain: Valencia To Adopt Contract For Immigrants Integration, " from ANSAmed (thanks to Insubria):

(ANSAmed) - MADRID, APRIL 29 - The municipality of Valencia will impose an "integration contract" to the immigrants, inspired by the one proposed by Peoplés Party leader Mariano Rajoy in the latest election campaign, which however will have no consequences from a legal point of view. Announcing the initiative, published today by the media, sources from the regional government, headed by Francisco Camps from the Peoplés Party, admitted that in case of violation of the "chapters" of the contract there will be no consequences on the immigrants given the fact that the autonomous municipalities have no authority in ordering deportations or other types of coercive measures. By signing the contract, which will be part of a law on immigration that is being drafted by the regional government, the immigrant pledges "to respect the laws, the principles and the customs of Spain and Valencia", which are not specified any further. The announcement made by Rajoy during the election campaign triggered harsh criticism for the difficulties to identify the Spanish customs, which could include the bullfighting, the afternoon siesta or the flamenco. (ANSAmed).

Punishment for flirting: a haircut

"The decision doesn't include men who spend their free time in public places without hurting anyone." Oh. All right, then.

"Saudi governor orders haircuts for men who hit on women," from AP (thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist):

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia - A governor in northern Saudi Arabia has ordered authorities to punish men who flirt with women in public places by cutting their hair, local media said Tuesday.

Prince Fahd bin Badr, governor of the northern al-Jof region, ordered police to carry out the punishment after seeing a group of men with long hair pestering female students as they left school in the northern al-Qurayat province, Al-Hayat newspaper said.

It said the prince told a gathering at his palace in the northern town of Skaka on Sunday he has instructed police to apply the punishment to all youths guilty of flirting, including "the sons of senior military and civil officials."

"The decision doesn't include men who spend their free time in public places without hurting anyone," the paper quoted the prince as saying.

Saudi Arabia has long imposed a strict Islamic lifestyle in which men and women are segregated in public. That lifestyle is enforced by the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, a government body that runs the country's powerful religious police.

Its members patrol public places to make sure women are covered and not wearing make up, the sexes don't mingle, shops close five times a day for Muslim prayers and men go to the mosque and worship.

Many clergymen in this conservative Gulf country say men should not have long hair because Islam prohibits the sexes from emulating each other....

"They should not turn me into a Salman Rushdie"

Malaysian opposition leader gets death threats for saying that Malaysia should not become an Islamic state. "‘Killing me not going to solve problems,’" from ExpressIndia (thanks to Nicolei):

Kuala Lumpur, April 27: An ethnic-Indian Opposition leader has claimed that he has received a death threat for resisting calls to declare multi-ethnic Malaysia an Islamic state.

Karpal Singh, Democratic Action Party (DAP) national chairman, said he has not insulted Islam and he should not be ‘turned into a Salman Rushdie’.

Singh, who on Saturday filed a police complaint in Penang state against a death threat made against him on a web site, said he was just standing up for what was stated in the country's Constitution-- that Malaysia was a secular state.

"The person who made the threat had alleged that it was permissible under Islam to kill Singh because he allegedly opposed Malaysia being turned into an Islamic state," Bernama news agency reported.

"They should not turn me into a Salman Rushdie," Singh, who has been criticised in blogs, said....

"Killing me is not going to solve the problems faced by PAS," Singh said referring to the Islamic party.

"What I have been against and will continue to be against is attempts by Islamic party PAS to turn this country into an Islamic state," he was quoted as saying by local media....

BBC censors criticism of jihad-linked group

"There is...evidence that Tablighi Jamaat directly recruits for terrorist organizations." How dare you imply they're not moderate!

"BBC ‘censored Christian party broadcast,’" by Andrew Norfolk for the Times (thanks to all who sent this in):

The BBC is facing a High Court challenge over its decision to censor a party political broadcast in the run-up to Thursday’s local elections.

A Christian party has begun legal action after the corporation insisted on changes to a short film in which the party voiced opposition to the building of Europe’s biggest mosque next to the site of the 2012 Olympics.

Tablighi Jamaat, the Islamic missionary group behind the £75 million Abbey Mills mosque, opposes inter-faith dialogue and preaches that non-Muslims are an evil and corrupting influence. One of its British advocates has said that it aims to rescue Muslims from the culture and civilisation of Jews and Christians by creating “such hatred for their ways as human beings have for urine and excreta”.

The Christian Choice election broadcast would have described Tablighi Jamaat as “a separatist Islamic group” before welcoming that some “moderate Muslims” were opposed to the mosque complex.

Alan Craig, the party’s candidate in the London mayoral election, also on Thursday, said that he was forced to change the wording at the insistence of lawyers at the BBC and ITV, which will also feature in the court action.

The BBC refused to accept “separatist” — the corporation asked for “controversial” instead — and barred the use of “moderate Muslims” because the phrase implied that Tablighi Jamaat was less than moderate.

ITV went a step farther, demanding that the adjective “controversial” be used merely to describe the planned mosque and not the group itself....

Iranian official warns of "Westoxication" and "destructive cultural and social consequences" of Barbie, Batman, Spiderman, and Harry Potter

It's not difficult to see where Barbie and Harry Potter would be verboten in Iran. And Batman is the Caped Crusader, after all. But what about Spiderman? At any rate, he's an infidel. "Iran official sees 'destructive' Barbie influence," from Reuters:

TEHRAN - Imports of Barbie dolls and other Western toys will have destructive cultural and social consequences in Iran, the Islamic Republic's top prosecutor was quoted as saying on Monday.

Iran's conservative clerical establishment often rails against the perceived dangers of U.S.-inspired culture and consumerism, branding it "Westoxication."

But young Iranians are often keen consumers of such music, films and other goods from the West. Iconic toy brands can be bought in children's shops in the capital Tehran and elsewhere.

"The appearance of personalities such as Barbie, Batman, Spiderman and Harry Potter and ... computer games and movies are all a danger warning to the officials in the cultural arena," said Prosecutor General Ghorban Ali Dori Najafabadi in a letter to Vice President Parviz Davoudi published in the Mardom Salari daily.

Najafabadi, a high-ranking cleric, said Iran was the world's third biggest importer of toys and suggested this posed a threat to the "personality and identity" of the new generation.

"The unrestrained entry of this sort of imported toys ... will bring destructive cultural and social consequences in their wake," he wrote.

He added many toys were smuggled into Iran and accused importers of concentrating on profits at the expense of cultural values.

Bruce Bawer: "We need to recognize that the cultural jihadists hate our freedoms because those freedoms defy sharia, which they’re determined to impose on us"

Bruce Bawer, author of the essential While Europe Slept, has written an equally essential piece at City Journal (thanks to all who sent this in), "An Anatomy of Surrender": a comprehensive overview of the ongoing voluntary and self-imposed reduction of the West to dhimmi status.

Islam divides the world into two parts. The part governed by sharia, or Islamic law, is called the Dar al-Islam, or House of Submission. Everything else is the Dar al-Harb, or House of War, so called because it will take war—holy war, jihad—to bring it into the House of Submission. Over the centuries, this jihad has taken a variety of forms. Two centuries ago, for instance, Muslim pirates from North Africa captured ships and enslaved their crews, leading the U.S. to fight the Barbary Wars of 1801–05 and 1815. In recent decades, the jihadists’ weapon of choice has usually been the terrorist’s bomb; the use of planes as missiles on 9/11 was a variant of this method.

What has not been widely recognized is that the Ayatollah Khomeini’s 1989 fatwa against Satanic Verses author Salman Rushdie introduced a new kind of jihad. Instead of assaulting Western ships or buildings, Kho­meini took aim at a fundamental Western freedom: freedom of speech. In recent years, other Islamists have joined this crusade, seeking to undermine Western societies’ basic liberties and extend sharia within those societies.

The cultural jihadists have enjoyed disturbing success. Two events in particular—the 2004 assassination in Amsterdam of Theo van Gogh in retaliation for his film about Islam’s oppression of women, and the global wave of riots, murders, and vandalism that followed a Danish newspaper’s 2005 publication of cartoons satirizing Mohammed—have had a massive ripple effect throughout the West. Motivated variously, and doubtless sometimes simultaneously, by fear, misguided sympathy, and multicultural ideology—which teaches us to belittle our freedoms and to genuflect to non-Western cultures, however repressive—people at every level of Western society, but especially elites, have allowed concerns about what fundamentalist Muslims will feel, think, or do to influence their actions and expressions. These Westerners have begun, in other words, to internalize the strictures of sharia, and thus implicitly to accept the deferential status of dhimmis—infidels living in Muslim societies.

Call it a cultural surrender. The House of War is slowly—or not so slowly, in Europe’s case—being absorbed into the House of Submission.

The Western media are in the driver’s seat on this road to sharia. Often their approach is to argue that we’re the bad guys. After the late Dutch sociologist-turned-politician Pim Fortuyn sounded the alarm about the danger that Europe’s Islamization posed to democracy, elite journalists labeled him a threat. A New York Times headline described him as marching the dutch to the right. Dutch newspapers Het Parool and De Volkskrant compared him with Mussolini; Trouw likened him to Hitler. The man (a multiculturalist, not a Muslim) who murdered him in May 2002 seemed to echo such verdicts when explaining his motive: Fortuyn’s views on Islam, the killer insisted, were “dangerous.”

Perhaps no Western media outlet has exhibited this habit of moral inversion more regularly than the BBC. In 2006, to take a typical example, Manchester’s top imam told psychotherapist John Casson that he supported the death penalty for homosexuality. Casson expressed shock—and the BBC, in a dispatch headlined imam accused of “gay death” slur, spun the controversy as an effort by Casson to discredit Islam. The BBC concluded its story with comments from an Islamic Human Rights Commission spokesman, who equated Muslim attitudes toward homosexuality with those of “other orthodox religions, such as Catholicism” and complained that focusing on the issue was “part of demonizing Muslims.”

In June 2005, the BBC aired the documentary Don’t Panic, I’m Islamic, which sought to portray concerns about Islamic radicalism as overblown. This “stunning whitewash of radical Islam,” as Little Green Footballs blogger Charles Johnson put it, “helped keep the British public fast asleep, a few weeks before the bombs went off in London subways and buses” in July 2005. In December 2007, it emerged that five of the documentary’s subjects, served up on the show as examples of innocuous Muslims-next-door, had been charged in those terrorist attacks—and that BBC producers, though aware of their involvement after the attacks took place, had not reported important information about them to the police.

Press acquiescence to Muslim demands and threats is endemic. When the Mohammed cartoons—published in September 2005 by the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten to defy rising self-censorship after van Gogh’s murder—were answered by worldwide violence, only one major American newspaper, the Philadelphia Inquirer, joined such European dailies as Die Welt and El País in reprinting them as a gesture of free-speech solidarity. Editors who refused to run the images claimed that their motive was multicultural respect for Islam. Critic Christopher Hitchens believed otherwise, writing that he “knew quite a number of the editors concerned and can say for a certainty that the chief motive for ‘restraint’ was simple fear.” Exemplifying the new dhimmitude, whatever its motivation, was Norway’s leading cartoonist, Finn Graff, who had often depicted Israelis as Nazis, but who now vowed not to draw anything that might provoke Muslim wrath. (On a positive note, this February, over a dozen Danish newspapers, joined by a number of other papers around the world, reprinted one of the original cartoons as a free-speech gesture after the arrest of three people accused of plotting to kill the artist.)

Last year brought another cartoon crisis—this time over Swedish artist Lars Vilks’s drawings of Mohammed as a dog, which ambassadors from Muslim countries used as an excuse to demand speech limits in Sweden. CNN reporter Paula Newton suggested that perhaps “Vilks should have known better” because of the Jyllands-Posten incident—as if people who make art should naturally take their marching orders from people who make death threats. Meanwhile, The Economist depicted Vilks as an eccentric who shouldn’t be taken “too seriously” and noted approvingly that Sweden’s prime minister, unlike Denmark’s, invited the ambassadors “in for a chat.”

The elite media regularly underreport fundamentalist Muslim misbehavior or obfuscate its true nature. After the knighting of Rushdie in 2007 unleashed yet another wave of international Islamist mayhem, Tim Rutten wrote in the Los Angeles Times: “If you’re wondering why you haven’t been able to follow all the columns and editorials in the American press denouncing all this homicidal nonsense, it’s because there haven’t been any.” Or consider the riots that gripped immigrant suburbs in France in the autumn of 2005. These uprisings were largely assertions of Muslim authority over Muslim neighborhoods, and thus clearly jihadist in character. Yet weeks passed before many American press outlets mentioned them—and when they did, they de-emphasized the rioters’ Muslim identity (few cited the cries of “Allahu akbar,” for instance). Instead, they described the violence as an outburst of frustration over economic injustice.

When polls and studies of Muslims appear, the media often spin the results absurdly or drop them down the memory hole after a single news cycle. Journalists celebrated the results of a 2007 Pew poll showing that 80 percent of American Muslims aged 18 to 29 said that they opposed suicide bombing—even though the flip side, and the real story, was that a double-digit percentage of young American Muslims admitted that they supported it. u.s. muslims assimilated, opposed to extremism, the Washington Post rejoiced, echoing USA Today’s american muslims reject extremes. A 2006 Daily Telegraph survey showed that 40 percent of British Muslims wanted sharia in Britain—yet British reporters often write as though only a minuscule minority embraced such views.

After each major terrorist act since 9/11, the press has dutifully published stories about Western Muslims fearing an “anti-Muslim backlash”—thus neatly shifting the focus from Islamists’ real acts of violence to non-Muslims’ imaginary ones. (These backlashes, of course, never materialize.) While books by Islam experts like Bat Ye’or and Robert Spencer, who tell difficult truths about jihad and sharia, go unreviewed in newspapers like the New York Times, the elite press legitimizes thinkers like Karen Armstrong and John Esposito, whose sugarcoated representations of Islam should have been discredited for all time by 9/11. The Times described Armstrong’s hagiography of Mohammed as “a good place to start” learning about Islam; in July 2007, the Washington Post headlined a piece by Esposito "Want to understand Islam? Start here."

Don't fail to read it all.

"I know I have done wrong by marrying many wives and begetting many children but I think I deserve help from the government"

A glimpse into the future -- and, in many areas, the present reality -- of Europe: polygamists living off the government dole, so that the demographic jihad proceeds at the expense of the government the jihadists hope to topple, and the taxpayers they hope to subjugate.

"'Polygamy doesn't work' says father of 77," by Aislinn Simpson for the Telegraph (thanks to Isabella the Crusader):

An Ethiopian man who has 77 children by 11 wives has urged others not to get married and has taken to dispensing advice on family planning to his neighbours.

Ayattu Nure, 56, says he used to be a wealthy man and married out of a desire to share his money around but claims he is now peniless because of the competing demands of his brood.

"I want my children to be farmers but I have no land, I want them to go to school but I have no money," he says.

Seven of Mr Ayattu's wives live in run-down huts around the compound while the other four live on the other side of the valley in Giwe Abossa village, 300 kilometres from the capital Addis Ababa.

In total, they have given birth to more than 100 children but 23 have died.

Mr Ayattu says he tries to share his time equally between his wives and children but is at a loss to keep them happy and often cannot feed them all.

"I feel like killing myself when I see my hungry children whom I cannot help," he says.

"People see me as a funny man, but there is no fun in my condition. I am a desperate man struggling to survive," he says.

He blames Ethiopia's government for failing to support him and his children.

The local authority of the school which 40 of his children attend is requesting photographs of each one for their files but Mr Attayu says he has not got the money.

"I know I have done wrong by marrying many wives and begetting many children but I think I deserve help from the government."...

UK: Convert from Islam to Christianity threatened -- police tell him to "stop being a crusader"

And they did nothing, while the house next door to the convert's was burned down. What kind of protection is Hussein receiving now, if any? British authorities should see the protection of this man and his family as a matter of national identity and national survival. But of course, they do not, and given the enveloping multiculturalist fog, they will not.

"British Muslim 'bullied' for converting to Christianity," by Ruth Gledhill for the Times (thanks to MFM):

A British citizen who converted to Christianity from Islam and then complained to police when locals threatened to burn his house down was told by officers to “stop being a crusader”, according to a new report.

Nissar Hussein, 43, from Bradford, West Yorkshire, who was born and raised in Britain, converted from Islam to Christianity with his wife, Qubra, in 1996. The report says that he was subjected to a number of attacks and, after being told that his house would be burnt down if he did not repent and return to Islam, reported the threat to the police. It says he was told that such threats were rarely carried out and the police officer told him to “stop being a crusader and move to another place”. A few days later the unoccupied house next door was set on fire.

Christian Solidarity Worldwide, a British human rights organisation whose president is the former Cabinet minister Jonathan Aitken, is calling on the UN and the international community to take action against nations and communities that punish apostasy.

Its report, No Place to Call Home, claims that apostates from Islam are subject to “gross and wideranging human rights abuses”. It adds that in countries such as Britain, with large Muslim populations in a Westernised culture, the demand to maintain a Muslim identity is intense. “When identities are precarious, their enforcement will take an aggressive form.”

"Uncovered meat" Sheikh: Christian women should wear veils

They will, too, once Sharia is in place.

"Hilali tells Christian women to wear veils," by Natalie O'Brien for The Australian (thanks to all who sent this in):

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.

No, it won't, except among the terminally multicultural. Why is it that no Christian groups are calling upon women to wear a veil? They just haven't noticed this in the Bible until the Uncovered Meat Man came along to explain it all for them?

State Department gives grant to unindicted co-conspirator in jihad terror funding case

From the Islamic Society of North America website:

Through a US State Department grant the Islamic Society of North America and the National Peace Foundation have co-sponsored a citizen exchange project between the United States and the Middle East. This program brings young professionals from the Middle East, specifically from Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, to the United States. The goal of this project is to explore Islam, the functions of Islamic institutions in the United States, and the activities of interfaith work. In return American professionals from the three Abrahamic faiths; Christianity, Judaism and Islam, will visit these countries in the Middle East to explore Islam and interfaith work as it is done in the respective countries. This program will run through 2009, with several upcoming exchanges in progress.

From "Islamic Groups Named in Hamas Funding Case," by Josh Gerstein in the New York Sun, June 4, 2007:

Federal prosecutors have named three prominent Islamic organizations in America as participants in an alleged criminal conspiracy to support a Palestinian Arab terrorist group, Hamas.

Prosecutors applied the label of "unindicted co-conspirator" to the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the Islamic Society of North America, and the North American Islamic Trust in connection with a trial planned in Texas next month for five officials of a defunct charity, the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development.

While the foundation was charged in the case, which was filed in 2004, none of the other groups was. However, the co-conspirator designation could be a blow to the credibility of the national Islamic organizations, which often work hand-in-hand with government officials engaged in outreach to the Muslim community.

Apparently it isn't a blow to ISNA's credibility at all.

Madness.

Pipeline News and Andy McCarthy have more.

Honor killing in Australia: "The decision to kill her was made by a council of male relatives"

"I haven't heard any statement from clergy in the region to say honour killing is wrong."

"Honour killing's Aussie link," by Sian Powell in The Australian (thanks to all who sent this in):

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. [...]

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....

Honor killing in Iraq: Father murders 17-year-old girl for loving British soldier

"You are in a Muslim society and women should live under religious laws. The father has very good contacts inside the Basra government and it wasn't hard for him to be released and what he did to be forgotten."

"Girl, 17, killed in Iraq for loving a British soldier," by Sadie Gray in The Independent (thanks to Morgaan Sinclair):

A 17-year-old Iraqi girl was murdered by her father in an honour killing after falling in love with a British soldier she met while working on an aid programme in Basra, it has been claimed.

Rand Abdel-Qader was stamped upon, suffocated and stabbed by her father, then given an unceremonious burial to emphasise her disgrace. Police released her father without charge two hours after his arrest.

"Not much can be done when we have an honour killing case," said Sergeant Ali Jabbar of Basra police. "You are in a Muslim society and women should live under religious laws. The father has very good contacts inside the Basra government and it wasn't hard for him to be released and what he did to be forgotten."

A total of 47 young women died in honour killings in the city last year, Basra Security Committee told an investigation into Ms Abdel-Qader's case by The Observer. This is believed to be the only case of an honour killing involving a British soldier.

The MoD had no official advice for troops on how to behave with Iraqi women. The serviceman involved would not have been told that any relationship with her could put her life at risk, the paper said.

Ms Abdel-Qader, a student of English at Basra University, had struck up a friendship with a 22-year-old British infantryman known only as Paul five months before her murder in March.

She was believed to have last seen him in January, and the pair, whose relationship was innocent, only ever met while working at the aid station. The soldier was helping deliver relief to displaced families as part of his regimental duties. Ms Abdel-Qader was a volunteer worker....

Fjordman: Socratic Dialogue vs. Islamic Dialogue

The European essayist Fjordman, whose work we have featured many times here, contributes this new Jihad Watch exclusive essay exploring more of the differences between Western and Islamic culture:

First of all I'd like to encourage people to republish the essay The Funny Side of Islam: Muhammad and the Hadith, which I have published at the Gates of Vienna blog. As for this topic, I will start with quoting a book called Eccentric Culture: A Theory of Western Civilization by the French writer Rémi Brague.

According to Brague, Muslims did translate many Greek, Sanskrit and pre-Islamic Persian scientific works. However, one crucial difference between Muslims and Christian Europeans was that Muslims usually didn't preserve the original texts afterwards, since these were now seen as unnecessary. Here is how Ibn Khaldun explains this mentality in his Muqaddimah:

"(The Muslims) desired to learn the sciences of the (foreign) nations. They made them their own through translations. They pressed them into the mold of their own views. They peeled off these strange tongues [and made them pass] into their [own] idiom, and surpassed the achievements of (the non-Arabs) in them. The manuscripts in the non-Arabic languages were forgotten, abandoned, and scattered. All the sciences came to exist in Arabic. The systematic works on them were written in (Arabic) writing. Thus, students of the sciences needed a knowledge of the meaning of (Arabic) words and (Arabic) writing. They could dispense with all other languages, because they had been wiped out and there was no longer any interest in them."

As Brague says, the consequence of this disappearance of the original texts and the neglect of the original languages was that the Muslim world has not been able to return to what it translated and deepen their examination. "In doing this, the Islamized world made the phenomena of 'renaissances' impossible – that is, of a return to the original texts against the traditions that claimed to follow them." In European history, "one witnesses a constant effort to go back up toward the classical sources. One can thus describe the intellectual history of Europe as an almost uninterrupted train of renaissances."

Another crucial difference was that the Islamic world, in sharp contrast to Europe, hardly dreamed of using its knowledge of the foreign as an instrument that would permit it to understand itself better and more critically. According to Rémi Brague:

"It may be that its geographers made a eulogy of India and of China in order to address a discreet critique of the Islamic civilization of their time, often compensated in the last instance by an affirmation of the religious superiority of the latter. The examples that one could find of such a vision 'reflected' in the mirror are exceptional and come from marginal or heretical thinkers. Thus, the contact with the Brahmin Hindu thinkers whose religion does quite well without prophecy (which the Islamic religion declares on the contrary necessary to the happiness of man and to a good social order) posed a problem for the Muslim thinkers; the real or fictitious dialogue with the Brahmins was able to serve to mask a critique of the Islamic religion in a free thinker like Ibn al-Rawandi. The only incontestable exception is without doubt the astonishing work of Al-Biruni on India. This universal scholar (973-1048), astronomer, geographer, historian, mineralogist, pharmacologist etc., had taken the trouble to learn enough Sanskrit to be able to translate in both directions between this language and Arabic (for him also a learned language). He presented a tableau of Hindu society and beliefs with perfect impartiality."

John Keay in his book India: A History states that al-Biruni (Alberuni) owed much of his scientific celebrity in the Arab world to his mastery of Sanskrit and access to Indian scholarship. He also notes that in India, Muslims were initially viewed as just another group of foreigners, sometimes annoying, but essentially marginal: "There is no evidence of an Indian appreciation of the global threat which they represented; and the peculiar nature of their mission – to impose a new monotheist orthodoxy by military conquest and political dominion – was so alien to Indian tradition that it went uncomprehended."

Parts of northern India had been invaded by outsiders before, but Muslims represented a very different breed of conquerors. Keay again:

"Unlike Alexander's Greeks, Muslim invaders were well aware of India's immensity, and mightily excited by its resources. As well as exotic produce like spices, peacocks, pearls, diamonds, ivory and ebony, the 'Hindu country' was renowned for its skilled manufactures and its bustling commerce. India's economy was probably one of the most sophisticated in the world. Guilds regulated production and provided credit; the roads were safe, ports and markets carefully supervised, and tariffs low. Moreover capital was both plentiful and conspicuous. Since at least Roman times the subcontinent seems to have enjoyed a favourable balance of payments. Gold and silver had been accumulating long before the 'golden Guptas,' and they continued to do so. Figures in the Mamallapuram sculptures and the Ajanta frescoes are as strung about with jewellery as those in the Sanchi and Amaravati reliefs. Divine images of solid gold are well attested and royal temples were rapidly becoming royal treasuries as successful dynasts endowed them with the fruits of their conquests. The devout Muslim, although
ostensibly bent on converting the infidel, would find his zeal handsomely rewarded."

In his book Technology in World Civilization: A Thousand-Year History, Arnold Pacey writes that after Baghdad fell to the Mongols in 1258, Delhi became a haven for many Middle Eastern scholars who took refuge there and taught Greek mathematics. According to Irfan Habib, a historian of Indian technology, new techniques spread into the region, including the magnetic compass, which was probably used on Indian ships at this time. Centres for paper-making also developed, but it should be remembered that these inventions were Chinese.

Paper-like fabrics, some made from mulberry bark, were used for clothing and as wrapping material in East Asia, Southeast Asia and the Pacific islands (which were settled by people from Southeast Asia), and in this form paper may have originated as early as 200 BC in China. When it comes to paper used for writing, it definitely existed in China at about AD 100, and was used in Tibet by AD 650 and introduced into the Indian subcontinent by Buddhists at around AD 670, possibly imported from Tibet. However, apparently paper never did come into widespread use there before the Islamic conquests and the Delhi Sultanate. According to Arnold Pacey:

"Indian documents written on paper survive from before this time, but the number is much greater from the thirteenth century onwards. While Islamic domination of North India may have had these positive aspects, the initial conquest by Turkish–speaking armies in the 1190s did great damage to Indian learning, both technical and general. The conquest was particularly destructive in Bihar and Bengal, where Buddhist monasteries were sacked and many monks were killed. One consequence was the virtual elimination of Buddhism in the region, which is where it had originated seventeen centuries earlier. In 1194, the great centre of Indian learning at Benares was attacked, and numerous monuments as well as books, records and probably an astronomical observatory were destroyed. The scale of this vandalism was probably a
lasting setback for Indian science, and astronomy was not again seriously studied until the fifteenth century. The last celebrated Indian astronomer for a long time was Bhaskara, who was working in the 1150s, and whose writing had some influence in the West."

The knowledge of paper-making also spread west via the Middle East and North Africa and eventually reached the madrasas of Morocco. A paper mill was operating in southern Spain by 1151. Pacey again:

"Paper-making also came to Europe via Spain at this time. The paper was made from the same vegetable fibres as linen cloth, (and usually from linen rags), which first had to be pounded in water until a pulp was formed. The process had been invented in China long before, where it replaced an even older method of making paper-like material from mulberry bark. Knowledge of the technique entered the Islamic world in AD 751 after a battle in Central Asia between Chinese forces and an Arab-led army. Chinese prisoners-of-war skilled in paper-making set up a workshop in Samarqand, and from there other workmen went to Baghdad.

However, paper made by the Chinese method for scribes to write on with brushes was not so good for people who used pens. Thus paper-makers supplying the Baghdad market began sizing their product with starch to achieve a parchment-like surface. The manufacture of paper meant that books became more widely available."

According to Irving Fang in A History of Mass Communication, "If paper made printing effective, it was printing that introduced paper to most Europeans. Ultimately, the printing press won the day for paper. Parchment was too expensive for mass production. It was also not porous enough to absorb printing ink very well."

Paper was thus necessary for the invention of Gutenberg's printing press in Europe. Although it is probably historically accurate to say that Muslims helped spread the use of paper in Europe and India, it is highly doubtful whether this makes up for the lasting destruction they brought to the lands they conquered. It is also likely that this Chinese invention would eventually have been adopted anyway, and it should be mentioned that Islam slowed down the adoption of printing for more than a thousand years after it was initially invented in China, despite the fact that Persians and Arabs were in regular
contact with East Asia through trade.

I would personally rank paper as one of China's greatest gifts to mankind. When the Chinese created the Great Wall of China, they spent enormous financial resources on something that was, in the end, not very effective. When the Chinese created paper and later the printing of books, they changed the course of human history.

I am generally sceptical of using the free online encyclopaedia Wikipedia as a source, especially when it comes to politically sensitive matters, but it can be more accurate when it comes to other subjects. Their entry on paper in the English edition is reasonably accurate, so I will quote it here:

"During the Shang (1600 BC-1050 BC) and Zhou (1050 BC-256 BC) dynasties of ancient China, documents were ordinarily written on bone or bamboo (on tablets or on bamboo strips sewn and rolled together into scrolls), making them very heavy and awkward to transport. The light material of silk was sometimes used, but was normally too expensive to consider. While the Han Dynasty Chinese court official Cai Lun is widely regarded to have invented the modern method of papermaking (inspired from wasps and bees) from wood pulp in AD 105, the discovery of specimens bearing written Chinese characters in 2006 at north-east China's Gansu province suggest that paper was in use by the ancient Chinese military more than 100 years before Cai in 8 BC. Archeologically however, true paper without writing has been excavated in China dating to the reign of Emperor Wu of Han from the 2nd century BC, used for purposes of wrapping or padding protection for delicate bronze mirrors. It was also used for safety, such as the padding of poisonous 'medicine' as mentioned in the official history of the
period."

When Muslims conquered the Middle East, they conquered some of the greatest centers of learning from the ancient world. As David C. Lindberg writes in The Beginnings of Western Science, second edition:

"The Greeks themselves believed that mathematics originated in Egypt and Mesopotamia. Herodotus (fifth century B.C.) reported that Pythagoras traveled to Egypt, where he was introduced by priests to the mysteries of Egyptian mathematics. From there, according to ancient tradition, he was carried captive to Babylon, where he came into contact with Babylonian mathematics. Eventually he made his way home to the island of Samos, bearing gifts of Egyptian and Babylonian mathematical treasure to the Greeks. Whether this and similar tales regarding other mathematicians are historically accurate or legendary is less important than the larger truth they convey – namely, that the Greeks were (and knew they were) the beneficiaries of Egyptian and Babylonian mathematical knowledge."

Moreover, "The contemporary mathematical achievement in Mesopotamia was an order of magnitude superior to that of the Egyptians. Clay tablets recovered in large quantities reveal a Babylonian number system, fully developed by about 2000 B.C., that was simultaneously decimal (based on the number 10) and sexagesimal (based on the number 60). We retain sexagesimal numbers today in our system for measuring time (60 minutes to an hour) and angles (60 minutes in a degree and 360 degrees in a circle)."

I disagree with Lindberg's use of the word "Babylonian" here, and would prefer the term "Mesopotamian." The sexagesimal numeral system originated with the ancient Sumerians in the 3rd millennium BC. Like many other Sumerian inventions, it was eventually adopted by the succeeding rulers of Mesopotamia. Nicholas Ostler describes in Empires of the Word: A Language History of the World how Sumerian, the world's first written language, also became the world's first "classical language." In the 2nd millennium BC, although it was no longer spoken, it continued to be studied (like Latin in medieval Europe) as a vehicle of learning. The Sumerian cuneiform script was adapted for writing by the Akkadians, Babylonians, Assyrians and others down to the Persians, which helped European scholars in deciphering cuneiforms in the nineteenth century AD.

Although the Greeks clearly learned much from Egyptians, Mesopotamians, Phoenicians and others, they did some things that no other ancient civilizations in the world achieved. According to Science and Technology in World History, second edition, by James E. McClellan, Harold Dorn, "Several features characterize Hellenic science. The most remarkable was the Greek invention of scientific theory – 'natural philosophy' or the philosophy of nature. Early Greek speculations on the cosmos and the disinterested Hellenic quest for abstract knowledge were unprecedented endeavors. They added a fundamental new element to the definition of science and shifted the direction of its history."

In A History of Mathematics, second edition, Victor J. Katz explains how the development of geometric proof by logical argument was a unique Greek achievement:

"It was Aristotle, however, who took the ideas developed over the centuries and first codified the principles of logical argument. Aristotle believed that logical arguments should be built out of syllogisms, where 'a syllogism is discourse in which, certain things stated, something other than what is stated follows of necessity from their being so.' In other words, a syllogism consists of certain statements that are taken as true and certain other statements that are then necessarily true. For example, the argument 'if all monkeys are primates, and all primates are mammals, then it follows that all monkeys are mammals' exemplifies one type of syllogism, while the argument 'if all Catholics are Christians and no Christians are Moslem, then it follows that no Catholic is Moslem' exemplifies a second type. After clarifying the principles of dealing with syllogisms, Aristotle notes that syllogistic reasoning enables one to use 'old knowledge' to impart new. If one accepts the premises of a syllogism as true, then one must also accept the conclusion."

"One cannot, however, obtain every piece of knowledge as the conclusion of a syllogism. One has to begin somewhere with truths that are accepted without argument. Aristotle distinguishes between the basic truths that are peculiar to each particular science and the ones that are common to all. The former are often called postulates, and the latter are known as axioms."

"Aristotle's rules of attaining knowledge by beginning with axioms and using demonstrations to gain new results have become the model for mathematicians to the present day. Although Aristotle emphasized the use of syllogisms as the building blocks of logical arguments, Greek mathematicians apparently never used them. They used other forms, as have most mathematicians down to the present. Why Aristotle insisted on syllogisms is not clear. The basic forms of argument actually used in mathematical proof were analyzed in some detail in the third century B.C.E. by the Stoics, of whom the most prominent was Chrysippus (280-206 B.C.E.). This form of logic is based on propositions, statements that can be either true or false, rather than on the Aristotelian syllogisms."

According to Katz, "even though Western civilization owes a great debt to the Greeks for their achievements in literature, art, and architecture, it is to Greek mathematics that we owe the idea of mathematical proof, an idea at the basis of modern mathematics and, by extension, at the foundation of our modern technological civilization."

It is easy to underestimate this achievement, but as Toby E. Huff says in The Rise of Early Modern Science: Islam, China and the West, "Geometry as a systematic deductive system of proofs and demonstrations was virtually nonexistent in China, as was trigonometry."

The Greeks' basic political organization was the polis, or city-state. Victor J. Katz links their political system to their science, as "citizens were motivated to learn the skills of argument and debate. It was perhaps this atmosphere that promoted the necessity for proof in mathematics." This idea is shared by G.E.R Lloyd in his book The Ambitions of Curiosity: Understanding the World in Ancient Greece and China (Ideas in Context). According to Lloyd, the common, though far from universal, Greek preoccupation with axiomatic-deductive demonstration was indeed linked to the political and ideological atmosphere:

"The great strength of the model was that, given self-evident axioms and valid inferences, it yielded incontrovertible results. That may seem reason enough for the Greeks to have developed it. But when we reflect that neither the Chinese nor any other ancient mathematical tradition did so, there would appear to be more to it than mere intellectual attractiveness. What more may be answered in part, I suggest, by the negative models provided by the styles of argument cultivated in those other peculiarly Greek institutions of the law-courts (dikasteria) and political assemblies. It was dissatisfaction with the merely persuasive arguments used there that led some philosophers and mathematicians to develop their alternative."

"It was success in argument with rivals that secured a reputation, essential not least if you were to make a living as a teacher. In these respects, the tradition of debate itself stands out as the key institution (of a different kind from those of bureaux or courts) in the situation within which most Greek intellectuals operated." G.E.R Lloyd contrasts this with other ancient civilizations, for instance China in the pre-imperial and early imperial age:

"Criticism of your own teacher – rare, if not quite unknown in China – was common in Greece, sometimes as a prelude to the pupil setting up a rival school of his own. The case of Aristotle is just the most famous of many that can be cited. To be sure, the role of text-books in Greece eventually came to be considerable, even though none, not even Euclid's Elements, achieved quite the cachet of a Chinese major canon, at least not in Greco-Roman antiquity. Of course, on the Chinese side, not all instruction was mediated through such texts. In the Lunyu[Analects], Confucius, for instance, is described in dialogue with his pupils in an open situation that might seem reminiscent of the fictional conversations of Socrates in Plato. Yet two differences remain: first Confucius' authority is never challenged by his pupils in the way Socrates is contradicted by some of his interlocutors (however much Plato stacks the cards in Socrates' favour in their eventual refutation). Secondly, Confucius' pupils were not his sole, nor maybe even prime, preoccupation, which was rather, we said, to find a ruler worthy to advise."

The classicist Bruce S. Thornton, author of books such as Greek Ways: How the Greeks Created Western Civilization, places this tradition at the very heart of Western civilization, from ancient to modern times. He defines philosophy as "critical consciousness systematized," and states that "Of all the Greek philosophers, the spirit of critical consciousness is best embodied in the late 5th century BC philosopher Socrates," who was executed in Athens in 399 BC. According to Thornton:

"Socrates's famous method was the 'dialectic,' from the Greek word that suggests both 'discussion' and 'analytical sorting.' The purpose of dialectic was to strip away the false knowledge and incoherent opinion that most people inherit from their societies and unthinkingly depend on to manage their lives. Although Socrates claimed to doubt that he or anyone else could acquire true knowledge about the good and virtue and the beautiful, he nonetheless believed that what he called 'examination,' critical consciousness applied to questions of virtue and the good, could eliminate false knowledge and muddled opinion.

Most important, Socrates saw this activity of rational examination and pursuit of truth and virtue as the essence of what a human being is and the highest expression of human nature. That is why he chose to die rather than to give it up: 'The unexamined life,' he said in his defense speech, 'is no life worth living for a human being.'" This legacy of critical – and self-critical – rational thought is important. Thornton again:

"Western culture has been defined by critical consciousness, the willingness to examine and challenge traditional wisdom and answers in the pursuit of truth, and to stand in opposition to the political and social powers whose authority and legitimacy rest on the unexamined acceptance of received dogma. Science obviously has progressed in this fashion, but even in literature we find an impatience with tradition and a restless searching for ever greater and more finely nuanced explorations of the human condition. A whole genre, the aptly named novel, was invented partly as a vehicle for examining the fluid complexities of human psychology and social relations, a complexity ignored in the stock characters and plots of traditional story-telling. In this sense, Western literature has been the creation of what Lionel Trilling called 'opposing sel[ves],' all those dissidents who, like Socrates, are driven to examine the human condition and probe beyond the traditional answers. The spirit of Western civilization, then, is, as Alan Bloom has suggested, 'Socratic,' a process of raising important questions and examining critically the tradition of answers, as this examination is embodied in works of enduring excellence, starting of course with those of the ancient Greeks."

The Islamic world, too, encountered Greek philosophers and found much to admire in them, especially in Aristotle. Yet the concept of "Socratic method" or "Socratic dialogue" ultimately found little room for growth in the Islamic world. Muslims still understand the term "dialogue" in a way that differs sharply from that of Westerners. For them, "dialogue" does not mean an attempt to rationally debate a topic in order to arrive at the truth. Truth is already given. It's called Islamic sharia, and the only "dialogue" that is acceptable is one that will eventually lead to the implementation of sharia.

Poul E. Andersen, former dean of the church of Odense, Denmark, warns against false hopes of dialogue with Muslims. During a debate at the University of Aarhus, Ahmad Akkari, one of the Muslim participants, stated: "Islam has waged war where this was necessary and dialogue where this was possible. A dialogue can thus only be viewed as part of a missionary objective." When Mr. Andersen raised the issue of dialogue with the Muslim World League in Denmark, the answer was: "To a Muslim, it is artificial to discuss Islam. In fact, you view any discussion as an expression of Western thinking." Also in Denmark, city council member Ali Nuur complained that one of the challenges certain immigrant groups face in the education system is that they are unfamiliar with tests rooted in a rational, critical and analytical way of thinking.

In Science and Religion, 400 B.C. to A.D. 1550: From Aristotle to Copernicus, Edward Grant states that:

"Not long after the beginnings of science and natural philosophy in Greece, the first known clash between science and religion in the pre-Christian Greek world occurred, producing the first known victim of religious persecution. In the time of Pericles, Anaxagoras of Clazomenae (c.500-428 B.C.), the last of the Ionian pre-Socratic philosophers and a friend of Pericles, was apparently persecuted for impiety because he believed the sun was a mass of red-hot metal and therefore, presumably not a divine celestial object. The charge of impiety was probably brought by Pericles' enemies, who apparently saw a good opportunity to attack him, using the pretext of his friendship with the atheistic natural philosopher Anaxagoras. This resulted in the banishment of Anaxagoras from Athens. According to Diogenes Laertius (fl. early third century A.D.), Anaxagoras committed suicide."

According to Grant, "What all this reveals for the relations between science and religion is that the Greeks of Anaxagoras' time believed that the celestial region was divine, and they therefore found reason to persecute Anaxagoras when he dared proclaim the sun a mass of red-hot metal. Another clash between science and religion occurred in the third century B.C., when Aristarchus of Samos became the first to proclaim that the cosmos is really heliocentric rather than geocentric. He displaced the earth as center of the world with the sun, and then set the earth moving around the sun with an annual motion while simultaneously rotating daily on its axis. In reaction to this revolutionary move, Cleanthes the Stoic (263-232 B.C.), the second head of the Stoic school, is reported to have charged Aristarchus with impiety, because he removed the 'hearth of the universe' from the center of the world and set it in motion. Nothing happened to Aristarchus, and no such charge was ever brought officially by any religious or governmental body. To my knowledge, no similar case arose in the Greek world prior to the Christian era."

Edward Grant says, however, that it is noteworthy that these two instances were both relevant to the physical structure of the universe, that is, to cosmology, and that they represent rather isolated and atypical incidents. For the most part, many city-states in Greece enjoyed a remarkable level of freedom of speech by ancient or even by modern standards. The problem for Muslims was that they wanted to expropriate the achievements of infidel science without taking into account the ideological atmosphere of free speech in which these achievements were made. They wanted the golden eggs, but killed the goose that laid them.

In contrast, medieval Europeans institutionalized a degree of free inquiry that was unprecedented by any major civilization on earth at the time. The basis for the Scientific Revolution was laid in the universities, one of the greatest inventions of Christian European civilization.

As Toby E. Huff, says, "In short, the European medievals had fashioned an image of man that was so imbued with reason and rationality that philosophical and theological speculation became breathtaking spheres of inquiry whose outcomes were far from predictable, or orthodox - to the consternation of all. Furthermore, this theological and philosophical speculation was taking place within the citadels of Western learning, that is, in the universities. Christian theology had indeed clothed man with a new set of methods and motivations, but it had also attributed to him a new set of rational capacities that knew no bounds."

Wasn't Socrates eventually killed in Athens for being too troublesome, you say? Yes, he was. This demonstrates that no society in history has ever been perfect. Yet as Henry Bamford Parkes asks in Gods and Men - The Origins of Western Culture, "Why was one relatively small city, during a period of only two or three generations, able to make so many contributions of such lasting importance to human thought?" After all, "There was less accumulated surplus wealth in classical Greece than in the cities of the oriental empires or of the Hellenistic kingdoms of a later period. The Athenian achievement is a permanent refutation of the notion of any close or necessary relationship between economic and cultural productivity. It was the result not of surplus wealth, but of favoring institutions and beliefs." He concludes that "Perhaps the chief reason was that it was sufficiently small to give every individual a sense of responsible participation in public affairs."

The irony is that one of our most important sources regarding the life and teachings of Socrates (who wrote nothing himself) is his pupil Plato, who supposedly wished to see the works of his rival Democritus burned. Plato used the treatment of Socrates in democratic Athens as a proof that democracy was an unjust system. He was certainly correct in pointing out that democracy does not automatically lead to free speech and individual liberty. It did not do so in the ancient world, and it does not do so now. Probably no culture, ancient or modern, has ever enjoyed total free speech in all walks of life, but Athens was still closer to this ideal than any other ancient culture.

The problem with Plato is not that he used the shameful treatment of Socrates to demonstrate flaws in the democratic system and show that it does not automatically lead to individual liberty, freedom of speech and respect for private property rights, which is legitimate criticism. The problem with Plato is that he rejected these goals as desirable to begin with. He embraced what I would call "seductive authoritarianism," where he argued that since democracy isn't perfect, we should passionately embrace an authoritarian or indeed totalitarian system where all aspects of human life are controlled by the state with mathematical precision.

Although he is not uncritical of Sparta, the system Plato praises in The Republic is a lot closer to authoritarian Sparta than to Athens. In doing this, Plato conveniently forgot that there was no Socrates in Sparta, just like there was no Plato or Aristotle. While Plato was free to be in democratic Athens and praise the Spartan system, praising any state or system other than the Spartan one was quite literally a crime in Sparta. They produced good soldiers, but few if any scientists worthy of note. Plato thus praised a system in which no Plato could, or did, exist.

As Henry Bamford Parkes puts it, "Any application of Platonic principles would have destroyed the social milieu that had made such dialogues possible. There could have been no Socratic discussions in the authoritarian state envisaged in the Republic and the Laws." In his view, Plato's influence was primarily negative: "In spite of his contempt for empirical observation, his emphasis on the value of mathematics helped to promote the scientific development of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries." Yet all in all, "his chief importance has been to provide philosophical support for the belief that order requires the denial of freedom."

According to Henry Bamford Parkes, "Sparta represented the totalitarian solution to the political problem, and because of the admiration felt for it by the Athenian aristocrat Plato, it has had a lasting influence on Western thought." One could thus argue that although freethinking is a golden thread running through the history of Western civilization, this legacy gave birth to a radical rejection of freethinking, which is also a part of the Western legacy. It is tempting to view Plato as an early forerunner of modern intellectuals with totalitarian longings, who use their freedom to praise political systems in which no freedom exists, be that Communist, Islamic or other.

When you read essays such as "The Peace Racket" by Bruce Bawer, the author of While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam is Destroying the West from Within, you get a very strong impression that many Western universities are now dominated by persons, many of them Marxists, who have no interest in using Socratic dialogue in search of truth. They already know the truth, or consider it irrelevant, and simply view the universities as a platform for ideological indoctrination of students. This ideological corruption has been infused with an element of financial corruption as well. As Ibn Warraq says in Defending the West: A Critique of Edward Said's Orientalism:

"The West, in giving in to political correctness and in being corrupted by Saudi and other Arab money, is ceasing to honor the original intent of the university. In recent years, Saudi Arabia and other Islamic countries (e.g., Brunei) have established chairs of Islamic studies in prestigious Western universities, which are then encouraged to present a favorable image of Islam. Scientific research leading to objective truth no longer seems to be the goal. Critical examination of the sources or the Koran is discouraged. Scholars such as Daniel Easterman have even lost their posts for not teaching about Islam in the way approved by Saudi Arabia. In December 2005, Georgetown and Harvard universities each accepted $ 20 million from Saudi prince Alwaleed bin Talal for programs in Islamic studies. The Carter Center, founded by former president Jimmy Carter, is funded in part by bin Talal. Such money can only corrupt the original intent of all higher institutions of education, that is, the search for truth."

In abandoning Socratic dialogue and the search for truth, the West has made itself more vulnerable to Islamic infiltration because it has in some ways become more like Islam. Only by insisting on our right to ask questions about anything can we restore what once was the purpose of our education system. We should start with rational criticism of Islam.

Fitzgerald: Questions Jimmy Carter was not asked

Jimmy Carter has exhibited, and did exhibit at Camp David, an antipathy to Israel, a cruel indifference to the past that every Jewish Israeli carries around within him. These were dead giveaways of the classic antisemite. Yet some are now horrified by his meeting with Hamas, as if all this were something new.

Carter has not changed. He is just freer now, or thinks himself freer, to be more openly vicious. Anyone who failed to recognize that in 1979, or 1989, or 1999, should bethink himself.

Carter is interviewed on this station and on that. Not one of the interviewers thinks to ask Carter if he understands what a "hudna" is. Not one asks him why he thinks the figure of ten years, rather than five, or fifteen, or twenty years, was chosen by the leaders of Hamas as the appropriate length of time for this "hudna" or truce.

Not one of them has asked him, or will ask, if he has any idea that the model for this offer is the Treaty made at Hudiabiyya in 628 A.D. between Muhammad and the Meccans. Not one of them will ask Carter if he has heard about that treaty, knows its terms, knows when, and why, Muhammad chose to break it. Not one of those interviewing Carter will ask him if he knows the significance of Muhammad in Islam, if he knows what Muhammad said and did, if he knows what the phrases "uswa hasana" and "al-insan al-kamil" mean. Not one will ask Jimmy Carter if, since he has been an ex-president for nearly 30 years, and since he has considered himself a great expert on Middle Eastern matters, and even offered public relations advice, free, to Yassir Arafat, and clearly has a thing about Israel, a most unpleasant thing. There seems to be no need at this point to point out what prompts Jimmy Carter to have that "thing" about Israel.

And it did not start yesterday, but was or should have been obvious from his behavior at Camp David. Yet so many of those who then claimed (and claim still) to be "pro-Israel" have no idea of how obviously vicious Carter (and Brzezinski) were then, during those fantastic negotiations that I remember so clearly, at every twist and cruel turn, as they hectored and bullied and inveigled and mocked Begin's worries, and gave Saint Sadat not only what he dared to ask but made him ask for even more, and more.

And since Carter has been paid tens of millions of dollars during that time, in all kinds of annual support supplied by American taxpayers, and since furthermore he has decided on many occasions to formulate and attempt to execute his own foreign policy, should he not be asked if, in those nearly 30 years, he has bothered to study the Qur'an, the hadith, the Sira, or bothered to read any of the great Western authorities -- not the espositos and ernsts, please, not the michael-sells bowdlerized Qur'an, please, not Noah "After Jihad" Feldman, please. (For now let's leave Feldman to his ill-merited tenure at Harvard Law School. He is one more war profiteer of the Iraq folly, voted on by colleagues who themselves were in no position to judge his worth, but were deeply impressed by that Iraq-constitution business, as well as by glowing endorsements from John Esposito and Roy Mottahedeh.) Rather, has Carter read studies of Islam by Joseph Schacht, by C. Snouck Hurgronje, by Arthur Jeffrey, by Henri Lammens, by K. S. Lal, by fifty others, from a dozen countries, who were the Orientalists who studied Islam in the age of mental freedom that flowered in the field prior to the Great Inhibition? Has Carter attended to what the defectors from the army of Islam say, which is or should be as useful to the West as once were defectors from Soviet Russia, or Communist Eastern Europe?

Of course Carter was not asked any of this. He wasn't asked any of this because none of those who interviewed him, however briefly, and however skeptically, knew any of this themselves. Yet they still think that they are perfectly justified in reporting on, in talking about, in fashioning the judgments of others about, Islam -- when they are entirely unjustified in so doing, and guilty, as are so many, of criminal irresponsibility in the performance of their duties, of their difficult but indispensable task.

Fitzgerald: Qur'anic science

"A prominent cleric, Sheikh Youssef al-Qaradawy, said modern science had at last provided evidence that Mecca was the true centre of the Earth; proof, he said, of the greatness of the Muslim "qibla" - the Arabic word for the direction Muslims turn to when they pray....The meeting in Qatar is part of a popular trend in some Muslim societies of seeking to find Koranic precedents for modern science." -- from this article

Mecca is the center of the universe because it is the most important city on earth, because that is where Muhammad got his revelatory start, and -- there is no Muslim Galileo, just as there is no Muslim William Wilberforce or Muslim Mozart or Muslim Leonardo or Muslim Shakespeare -- the earth is the center of the universe.

It's the hometown of Muhammad, uswa hasana, al-insan al-kamil. It's where the uncreated and immutable text of Islam first began to be revealed to Muhammad, Mecca's most famous native son. It's the cynosure of all Muslim eyes, the center of all Muslim hopes and dreams. Now that the more than ten trillion dollars Muslim members of OPEC have received since 1973 alone, or a hundred billion of it at least, has been deployed as the Money Weapon, and now that millions of Muslims have been permitted to settle deep behind what they have taught to regard as enemy lines, within the countries of Western Europe, Muslims are busy making demands, putting pressure, and even uttering such outlandish nonsense as this, for one reason: because they feel strong enough to do so -- that is, because they can.

Muslims are touchingly aware, even as they outwardly express other, more triumphalist notions, that Muslim societies have been, from every point of view, failures -- failures in their encouragement of despotisms, failures in the inshallah-fatalism that underlies economic stasis, failures in their societies, where both women and non-Muslims are subject to unequal and intolerable treatment.

And among those many failures, there is the dreamy belief that there was once a "Golden Age of Islamic Science," its achievements greatly exaggerated, with no recognition of how much was simply taken, lock, stock, and algebra-gunpowder-and-printing barrel, from India and from China, and claimed for Islam and for Muslims.

When one looks at the non-orthodox beliefs of, say, ar-Razi (Rhazes), one realizes that many of those in lands under Islamic rule whose achievements are now celebrated were not Muslims but Arabic-using Christians and Jews, or new converts who were only one generation, or possibly two, away from a Christian or Jewish milieu. Much that has been described as "Islamic science" or "science under Islam" took place despite, not because of, Islam, which in spirit and letter is opposed to free and skeptical inquiry, and unlike Western Christendom, has remained so opposed, and will always do so. Muslims do not want to recognize the failures, the absence of achievement in science, after the first few hundred years of Muslim conquests. Nor do they wish to recognize that the end of the period of scientific achievement in Dar al-Islam can be linked to the mass conversions in lands conquered by Muslims that inexorably brought about a change from a largely non-Muslim to a largely Muslim population. Islam discourages the very attitudes that the enterprise of modern science most requires. And there is no solution for this, except either to forego participation in that worldwide enterprise, or to limit the power of Islam over the minds of its adherents, and its role in their lives.

The desperate attempt to read into the Qur'an all kinds of modern developments in science reflects this felt inferiority -- behind all the Muslim bluster about "Islamic science" or, in George Saliba's version, "Arabic science" (which means, or should mean, science as conducted by those who, whether Muslim or not, used Arabic as their main language). Since Islam encourages the habit of mental submission, the number of those who believe in conspiracy theories, and in crackbrain theories of every kind, are not merely present, as they are in all societies, but in fact far outnumber the handful of those whom we might recognize as fellow inhabitants of something like the same mental universe that all the rest of us inhabit. These crackbrain theorists locate in some vague Qur'anic phrase now all of vulcanology, and now, in another phrase, all of Mandelbrot's fractals, and over here, in this phrase, we can find Muhammad setting out the double-helix in all of its Mill-Hill glory. No need for Watson, Crick, Maurice Wilkins, or Rosalind Franklin to come along. It was there, all of it, already, in some phrase in the Qur'an, if only poor naked forked Infidel man had known where to look. But he didn't, the dope.

RIP Robert Collins, victim of dhimmitude

The author of the book Alms for Jihad, about who is funding the jihadist movement, a book banned by its dhimmi publisher under Saudi pressure, has passed away.

"Robert O. Collins, 75; UC scholar's Bin Laden book was withdrawn by publisher," by Jocelyn Y. Stewart for the Los Angeles Times (thanks to Twostellas):

In a career devoted to the study of Africa's Upper Nile Valley, particularly Sudan, historian Robert O. Collins wrote books and articles that were considered required reading for scholars and students of Africa.

The U.S. government sought his insight on the conflict in Darfur and on Osama bin Laden. Hollywood filmmakers asked his advice in depicting the region on screen. A former president of Sudan presented Collins with a distinguished award for scholarship.

But when Collins and a colleague wrote the 2006 book "Alms for Jihad: Charity and Terrorism in the Islamic World," the two historians found themselves in the middle of what the New York Times called an international cause celebre.

To avoid a defamation lawsuit in British courts -- where the burden of proof is on the defendant -- the publisher of "Alms" apologized to a wealthy Saudi mentioned in the book, Sheikh Khalid bin Mahfouz, and paid a settlement. The publisher, Cambridge University Press, also destroyed all unsold copies of "Alms," an act of pure heresy to Collins and other scholars.

Until his death from cancer in Santa Barbara on April 11, the 75-year-old Collins maintained that he and J. Millard Burr had written a good book that deserved to exist.

"The Shaykh can burn the books in Britain, but he cannot prevent the recovery of the copyright by the authors nor their search for a U.S. publisher to reprint a new edition of 'Alms for Jihad,' " Collins said in an essay posted online at George Mason University's History News Network....

I am sorry that he did not live to see his struggle through to victory. That victory is now up to us.

May his memory be eternal.

Yemeni lawyer says Yemen should stop child marriages

But of course Yemen can't, and Yemen won't, because Muhammad consummated his marriage with a nine-year-old when he was in his fifties, and he is the supreme example of conduct (Qur'an 33:21).

"Yemen 'should stop child marriages,'" by Nasser Arrabyee for GulfNews (thanks to Agnostichk):

Sana'a: Human rights activists and lawyers should put pressure on the government to ban marriage of young girls, said a Yemeni lawyer.

Lawyer Shatha Nasser, who defended an 8-year-old girl who was divorced last week in a Yemeni court, called all civil society organisations and human rights activist to form a coalition for amending the current law which allows marriage of children under 15.

"Our next step now is to do all that we can to make the minimum marriage age in Yemen 18 years," Shatha told Gulf News.

"But this cannot happen if there is no cooperation between lawyers and human right groups," she said.

Eight-year-old Nojoud was in the news last week after appearing in the court requesting a divorce from her 32-year-old husband after a two-month marriage. Shatha said there were a lot of child marriages in Yemen.

[...]

On April 15, with support from Shatha and judge Aboud Al Khaleq Ghowber, Nojoud paid her way out of marriage. The amount of 100,000 Yemeni riyals was given by an anonymous donor in the UAE, and Nojoud happily became an 8-year-old divorcee.

[...]

"I am so happy to be free and I will go back to school and will never think of getting married again," Nojoud said joyfully. "It is a good feeling to be rid of my husband and his bad treatment."

[...]

According to the International Centre for Research on Women's 2007 statistics, Yemen is one of 20 developing countries where child marriages are common. Nearly half of all Yemeni girls are married before the age of 18.

Most women have their first child immediately after their first menstruation cycle and are likely to have many more. Yemen's fertility rate is very high, with an average of 6.3 children per woman, and the country also has some of the highest mother and infant mortality rates worldwide.

According to research on early marriage in Yemen from Oxfam and the United Nations Population Fund, many girls like Nojoud develop irreparable psychological scarrings from early marriage and the forced sexual encounters that accompany it.

"I hated nights because they usually meant that my husband would come to my bed. I used to run from him and he would chase me and beat me and do his thing. I pray that my younger sisters do not face the same fate," said Nojoud. Now Nojoud is living with her uncle and his family in relative safety.

"He would chase me and beat me":

"Men are in charge of women, because Allah hath made the one of them to excel the other, and because they spend of their property (for the support of women). So good women are the obedient, guarding in secret that which Allah hath guarded. As for those from whom ye fear rebellion, admonish them and banish them to beds apart, and scourge them." (Qur'an 4:34)

Islamic scholars in Algeria: government ban on veils in passport photos violates Sharia

How is it that so many Islamic scholars end up becoming Misunderstanders of Islam? Anyway, it will be interesting to see how this shakes out: will Sharia win or lose? I expect the smart money will be on another victory for the guardians of religious purity. "Algeria passport veil ban protest," from the BBC (thanks to Morgaan Sinclair):

Muslim Scholars in Algeria say a government ban on pictures of veiled women in passport photographs runs counter to Sharia law.

The Society of Algerian Muslim Scholars has denounced the ban which also applies to bearded men.

The organisation says the veil and beard are part of Muslim tradition which cannot be outlawed.

The society says it issued a fatwa against the ban after receiving hundreds of complaints.

Prime Minister Abdelazeez Belkhadem is reported to have received complaints from the public urging him to overturn the ban.

The BBC's Arab affairs analyst Magdi Abdelhardi says it is an example of a modern secular state coming under fire from a resurgent Islamism....

Wow! Really?

The Pope, the Grand Sheikh, and the Jews

Andy Bostom has a terrific piece, "A Study in Contrasts: Benedict, Tantawi, and the Jews," in National Review, showing the stark contrast between Pope Benedict XVI, who is routinely called a "Nazi," and Al-Azhar's Grand Sheikh Tantawi, who is a lot closer to really being one:

Last Friday, Pope Benedict XVI stopped at the Park Street Synagogue on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. The 81-year-old pontiff — a native of Germany whose father had been anti-Nazi — was forcibly enrolled in the Hitler Youth, and conscripted into the German army during the final months of World War II, before deserting in the war’s concluding days. With fitting poignancy, Rabbi Arthur Schneier, the Holocaust survivor who leads the synagogue, greeted Pope Benedict. Schneier, 78, lost his family in the Nazis’ Auschwitz and Terezin concentration camps as a teenager. Schneier has headed the synagogue since 1962, while championing religious freedom and tolerance worldwide.

Monsignor David Malloy, general secretary of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, characterized the pope’s appearance — one day before Passover — thusly: “By this personal and informal visit, which is not part of his official program, His Holiness wishes to express his good will toward the local Jewish community as they prepare for Passover.”

Indeed this is the pope’s second visit to a synagogue as pontiff. On his initial papal trip abroad, in August 2005, Benedict visited a synagogue in Cologne, Germany, that had been destroyed by the Nazis. Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder and dean of the Wiesenthal Center, noted appositely, on that occasion, “The fact that in his very first foreign visit as Pope he went to the Cologne Synagogue is an indication of the importance that the Church attaches to its relationship with the Jews.” Within a year later, Benedict’s May 2006 address while visiting the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp included a blistering rebuke and condemnation of those who would persecute Jews, and a lucid presentation of the phenomenon of anti-Semitism, particularly as it was manifested in the unspeakable horrors of Auschwitz:

Deep down, those vicious criminals, by wiping out this people, wanted to kill the God who called Abraham, who spoke on Sinai and laid down principles to serve as a guide for mankind, principles that are eternally valid.

Earlier, writing in December 2000, the future pope (then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger) affirmed his close alignment with the teachings of the Second Vatican Council, and the ecumenical thought of his predecessor and dear friend, Pope John Paul II. Ratzinger’s statement reiterates this “new vision of Jewish-Christian relations,” and even acknowledges a role for Christian anti-Semitism in the Holocaust itself:

Down through the history of Christianity, already-strained relations deteriorated further, even giving birth in many cases to anti-Jewish attitudes, which throughout history have led to deplorable acts of violence. Even if the most recent, loathsome experience of the Shoah was perpetrated in the name of an anti-Christian ideology, which tried to strike the Christian faith at its Abrahamic roots in the people of Israel, it cannot be denied that a certain insufficient resistance to this atrocity on the part of Christians can be explained by an inherited anti-Judaism present in the hearts of not a few Christians.

He then implores that a new relationship be forged between the Church and Israel out of the tragic ashes of the Holocaust, based upon overcoming “every kind of anti-Judaism,” and engaging in sincere, meaningful dialogue.

As Pope Benedict, this commitment and its constructive impact were re-affirmed in a Passover greeting to the Jewish community, issued officially during his visit to Washington, D.C. last Thursday.

In contrast to the pope, consider Muhammad Sayyid Tantawi, the current Grand Imam of Al-Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt. For more than a thousand years, since its founding in 792 A.D., Al-Azhar, has served as the academic shrine — much as Mecca is the religious shrine — of the global Sunni Muslim community (Sunnis are about 90 percent of Muslims).

Tantawi’s Ph.D. thesis, Banu Israil fi al-Quran wa-al-Sunnah (Jews in the Koran and the Traditions), was published in 1968-69. In 1980 he became the head of the Tafsir (Koranic Commentary) Department of the University of Medina, Saudi Arabia — a position he held until 1984. Tantawi became Grand Mufti of Egypt in 1986, and a decade later he took his current post as Grand Imam.

My forthcoming book The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism includes extensive, first-time English translations of Jews in the Koran and the Traditions. In the 700-page treatise, Tantawi wrote these words:

[The] Koran describes the Jews with their own particular degenerate characteristics, i.e. killing the prophets of Allah [Koran 2:61/ 3:112], corrupting His words by putting them in the wrong places, consuming the people’s wealth frivolously, refusal to distance themselves from the evil they do, and other ugly characteristics caused by their deep-rooted lasciviousness. . . . Only a minority of the Jews keep their word [Koranic citations here]. . . . All Jews are not the same. The good ones become Muslims [Koran 3:113], the bad ones do not.

These are the expressed, “carefully researched” views on Jews held by the nearest Muslim equivalent to a pope. Tantawi has not mollified such hatemongering beliefs since becoming the Grand Imam, as his statements on “dialogue” with Jews (“I still believe in everything written in that dissertation”), the Jews as “enemies of Allah, descendants of apes and pigs,” and the legitimacy of homicide bombing of Jews make clear.

Unfortunately, Tantawi’s anti-Semitic formulations are well-grounded in classical, mainstream Islamic theology. The Koranic depiction of the Jews — their traits deemed both infallible and timeless — highlights, in verse 2:61 (repeated in verse 3:112), the centrality of the Jews “abasement and humiliation,” and being “laden with God’s anger.” Koranic verses 5:60 and 5:78 describe the Jews’ transformation into apes and swine (5:60), or apes alone (2:65 / 7:166), having been “cursed by the tongue of David, and Jesus, Mary’s son” (5:78). Moreover, forcing Jews, in particular, to pay the Koranic poll tax “tribute” (as per verse 9:29), “readily,” while “being brought low,” is consistent with their overall humiliation and abasement in accord with Koran 2:61, and its directly related verses.

An additional, much larger array of anti-Jewish Koranic motifs build to a denouement (as if part of a theological indictment, conviction, and sentencing process) concluding with an elaboration of the “ultimate sin” committed by the Jews (they are among the devil’s min