Category Archives: Muslims

Culture, Iran, Muslims, Religion

Follow-Up on Baha’is, Muslims, Jews, Christians, and Elvis……..

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A follow-up on yesterday’s post on the persecution of Iran’s Baha’is. There is a shrine that may further complicate relations between the mullahs and their Baha’i subjects. The shrine of Baha-ullah (Mírzá Ḥusayn-`Alí Núrí), founder of the Baha’i faith, is in Acre (Akka in Arabic, Akko in Hebrew), now part of Israel. (WTF did the word ‘Acre’ come from?). He died an exile in Ottoman-controlled Palestine and was buried there. Most Iranians call the faith ‘Bab-ism’, a reference to the Shi’a man who started it all, Siyyid `Alí Muhammad Shirazi. He presumably foretold of the coming of Baha-ullah, was executed for his troubles and many of his followers killed.
The location in Akka/Akko not only makes it difficult for any of them to visit the shrine, it also makes them suspect in the eyes of the Iranian theocracy and most Arab and Muslim governments, and some media types. Even the Baha’is of Egypt also had a hard time under Mubarak’s regime on Egypt over the past few years. They will most likely have a harder time under a regime influenced by the Muslim brotherhood or, worse, the Salafis.

Now the Baha’is have one more thing in common with Muslims: both have one of their most important shrines controlled by Israel. Come to think of it, that is also what they both have in common with the Jews and the Christians. Graceland in Memphis is not under Israeli control, but contrary to legend it is not a Christian shrine. Not yet.
Cheers
mhg


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Human Right, Iran, Muslims, Religion, Theocracy

Human Rights and Education: Iran and her Baha’is……….

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““People apply for university and their applications are turned down, even though they have strong results from secondary school,” said Elise Auerbach, Iran specialist for Amnesty International USA. “They can’t get credentials, so they’re barred from pursuing all sorts of professions. They can’t be doctors, lawyers, university professors or scientists.” In response, Baha’is have improvised a decentralized, semi-underground college known as the Baha’i Institute for Higher Education (BIHE). Since 1987, BIHE has run classes in the living rooms and kitchens of Baha’i homes, on the sweat of volunteer Baha’i professors, many of whom lost their jobs in Iranian universities over their religious beliefs……….. According to David Hoffman, founder of a campaign to support Iran’s Baha’is in their quest for higher education, the college has produced about 2,000 graduates, one-in-ten of whom have gone on to postgraduate study abroad at one of 60 universities outside Iran recognizing BIHE coursework………… In May, more than 30 Baha’i homes across Iran were raided as part of a crackdown on BIHE. The institution was subsequently declared illegal, according to human rights groups, and seven professors and administrators were last month sentenced to four and five years each, for being involved in an illegal group intending to commit crimes against national security…………..”

Bahai’s are the most officially discriminated against religious minority in Iran. Christians and Jews predate Islam and they are recognized as such. Zoroastrianism is the original religion of ancient Persia and it also predates Islam and Christianity and is recognized as such. Zoroastrianism is sort of like the “Red Indians” of Middle East religions, mostly displaced by Islam and Christianity. Bahai’s seem to receive most of the ‘religious’ wrath of the regime because they were Muslims until the new faith was create in the 19th century. The mullahs consider them apostates, and Muslim clergy, be they Shi’a or Sunni or Salafi or Tea Party, hate apostates. Come to think of it, all clergy from all faiths dislike apostates, or at least frown upon them.
Cheers
mhg


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Healthcare, Muslims, Religion, Saudi Arabia, Theocracy

Fatwa: Quranic Cure vs. Obamacare, about Freud………….

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Alquds Alarabi quotes Saudi media reports that a Saudi cleric (they call him ‘Aalim Deeni) has issued a fatwa that it is alright for non-Muslims to be cured through the Quran. Shaikd Dr. Ali al-Twuaijri, professor at the Holy Quran College at Islamic University said that the Quran has several benefits as a method of cure through the use of its verses. He added that is “behooves a Muslim to rely on the Holy Quran for his cures from physical and non-physical illnesses”
Fine and dandy, no doubt the Quran has many “preventive” health benefits if followed, most holy texts do. Now non-Muslims have access to the Quran as well. But I assume non-Muslims have always had access to the Quran: nothing stopping me from using the Bible or Torah if I wish.
Then there is the sensitive of the issue of the royal princes, the so many Custodians of the Holy Shrines, and their sidekicks, who eschew Quranic preventive lifestyles as well as cures for the worldly cures of Mayo Clinic or the many other exclusive medical centers in the West. All at state expense, of course. They also eschew Quranic method for recuperation and convalescence for the worldly diversions of resorts in North America, Europe and parts of North Africa.
Now about Sigmund Freud and Obamacare………
Cheers
mhg


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Islamophobia, Latin America, Muslims, Religion, U.S. Politics

Marabutin Avenge Quetzalcoatl: New Conquistadores, Muslims of Mexico, Tequila Sunset…………

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“Raised a Christian, Manuel Gomez now goes by Mohamed Chechev, and counts himself among a handful of Tzotzil Indians converted to Islam by Spaniards in southern Mexico. “I am Muslim. I know the truth. I pray five times a day, celebrate Ramadan and have traveled to Mecca,” Chechev said in rudimentary Spanish. He lives in a mainly Protestant community in Chiapas called Nueva Esperanza on the outskirts of San Cristobal de las Casas, where he shares a modest house with 19 relatives and sells vegetables he grows on a plot of land……….. In the interior courtyard of the home, Chechev’s wife Noora (born Juana) and his daughter-in-law Sharifa (Pascuala) swept and cleaned laundry. They wore long dresses and a veil covered their hair………… And Chechev followed in the footsteps of another indigenous leader, Domingo Lopes, who was an official at an Adventist church before converting to Islam, introduced to the region by the Marabutin movement which moved to Mexico from Spain in 1993 in a bid to create a self-sufficient community. The Marabutin sect is a hangover from the days when Spain was part of the Muslim empire for some seven centuries……………”

Oddly, the Mexicans have not rushed to pass laws against the Shari’a threatening their Agave Tequila. They have not, yet, taken a page from the worthies in Bible Belt Oklahoma which passed an anti-Shari’a law last year only to discover that it may apply to the Bible and the Ten Commandments as well. There was also something about Islamic danger in both Tennessee and Missouri.
Call it the revenge of the native Mexican deity Quetzalcoatl against the Catholic priests who forced his fans, with iron and fire, to abandon him. Even more ironic: those who concerted these handful of Mexicans came from Spain, presumably without the regulation Catholic mullahs. And not seeking “oro y plata”. 
Okay, before the good people of the great states of Tejas and Arizona panic: this “Muslim” conversion thing is far away in Chiapas. It is not going to go far, it will not spill across the border. Never fear, the drug cartels still rule supreme, and the Evangelicals, as they will for many years to come. There will be no “officially sanctioned” polygamy along the border, not as much as already exists in Texas.
Cheers
mhg


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Iran, Muslims, Religion, Theocracy

A Tea Party in Iran During Ramadan: Religious Repression and Waning Piety………

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“Even in the heart of the Islamic republic, fully observant Muslims may not be in the majority. Iran’s police chief estimates that as many as half of Tehran’s citizens eschewed fasting during the holy month of Ramadan, the most recent of which ended in late August, the Iranian media reported Monday. Speaking to journalists at the International Press Fair in Tehran, Brig. Gen. Esmael Ahmadi-Moghaddam said that 20% to 50% of the capital’s population failed to fast during the holy period of contemplation and prayer. Should law enforcement intervene? Not a good idea, said Iran’s top cop. “Police would interfere only when it happens in the public,” he was quoted as saying. Police officers, he said, cannot compensate for society’s failure to imbue proper Muslim practices in much of the population……………”

I imagine many people, especially young Iranian people, may have been turned off Islamic piety by so many clerics running their lives. It can easily happen when ruled by dogmatic repressive clergy who take away many freedoms: young people (probably wrongly) tend to equate the repression with Islam. Of course that is as wrong as equating some unique American version of “Christianity” with the Republican (Tea) Party or equating Judaism with the Israeli social Salafis and the Likudniks.
Maybe what they need in Iran is a dedicated intrusive religious police, something like the Saudi Commission for the Propagation of Vice. Then they can crash into people’s homes to catch them eating and drinking, and possibly fornicating, during Ramadan.
Cheers
mhg


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GCC, Human Right, Muslims, Persian-American Gulf, Religion, religious police, Salafi, Saudi Arabia

Saudi offshore Tolerance Center in Vienna? What about Riyadh?………….

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“Saudi Arabia and Austria are launching a Vienna-based inter-faith and tolerance center with the goal of promoting tolerance in Saudi Arabia. Many critics of the initiative have pointed out that the Gulf kingdom prohibits any religion from practicing in the country besides Islam and say the center is a futile attempt to support the country’s radical views. “Saudi Arabia is willing to financially participate in this project, and to place all its moral and political resources behind such a center, without infringing … on its autonomy or independence from any political interference,” King Abdullah told officials and reporters on the project……..……”

This is truly a joke of the week. Saudi Arabia is the most intolerant country in our galaxy. It has no citizen who is not a Muslim. It does not allow any other religion to be practiced. There are no churches, no synagogues, no temples, no pagodas, no ashrams. Bibles and Torahs and Hindu and Buddhist books are banned. Foreigners who practice their faith at home occasionally have their homes raided by the religious police (Committee for the Propagation of Vice). Santa Claus would be beheaded in a public square if he showed his jolly tubby self in Riyadh (so would Burl Ives). This is truly offshore tolerance: “stay tolerant in your country and we remain intolerant in our country”.
Not only that: they have spread their extremely intolerant Salafi ideology to other places that now have become intolerant. Pakistan, Indonesia, Afghanistan, Malaysia, some half-witted Egyptians and Lebanese and Syrians. All that in addition to their Salafi and Muslim brotherhood “fifth column” in some of the GCC states of the Persian-American Gulf.
This whole public tolerance campaign is just a prepaid public relation stunt that reeks of bullshit. Spelling hypocrisy the Wahhabi way.
Cheers
mhg


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Anti-Semitism, Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, Egypt, Human Right, Muslims, Qatar, Religion, Saudi Arabia

Yusuf al-Qardawi: ‘Pay as You Pray’ Anti-Semitic Shaikh of Islam……………

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Yusuf Al-Qardhawi represents some of the worst aspects in a certain class of Islamic clergy. He is a loud demagogue, and his dogma is quite flexible, depending on who wants him to be flexible. Which makes him, like the rest of us, inconsistent. That flexibility presumably comes at a price. He supported the uprising in Egypt toward the end. He supported the uprisings in Libya and Syria after the fact and especially after his Qatari masters started supporting them. He is against any uprising in Bahrain and has said so, and certainly in Saudi Arabia, for the same obvious reasons. Some might say that is because the Saudis and Qataris can pay him well, better than anyone else can.

Some of his opinions can be found on his website, but only some of them. Others he would not revisit, like his pro-Nazi ranting about Hitler being the instrument of God to punish the Jews. He opined that Hitler was part of God’s punishment of Jews and expounded on how Jews are enemies of God and how they exaggerate the Holocaust. All these anti-Semitic remarks within two minutes in this video.
Cheers
mhg

Death Penalty, Human Right, Iran, Muslims

Iran: On Religious Freedom, What Religious Freedom?……………

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“The lawyer of Yusef Naderkhani, an Iranian pastor sentenced to death for apostasy, says there is a good chance his client will be acquitted. Mohammad Ali Dadkhah made the comments to RFE/RL’s Radio Farda as international anger over the sentence grew. “I have provided the court with explanations that I believe will make the court change its decision, and it is 90 to 95 percent likely that the court will acquit Naderkhani,” Dadkhah said. The 33-year-old Naderkhani converted to Christianity from Islam in 1997, when he was 19. He was arrested in 2009, when he was serving as the pastor of a small church in the northern city of Rasht. A court sentenced him to hanging after convicting him of apostasy. Islamic law in Iran says a Muslim who converts to another faith can face the death penalty. Naderkhani’s wife was sentenced to life imprisonment, but has been released. The Supreme Court upheld Naderkhani’s sentence but said his conviction would be overturned if he repented and renounced his conversion……….”

With judges like these, no wonder the guy converted to something else. We always call for freedom of religion, but only in the West. It is the same story in Iran or in Saudi Arabia or in Malaysia or in almost any other Muslim country. Freedom of religion is professed by all, except Saudi Arabia which openly does not allow any religious practices other than Islam. In some places even other Muslim sects are banned. The fact is that most of our Islamic countries, including Iran, do not respect the freedom of any other religion.
Cheers
mhg


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Arab Counterrevoltion, Arab Revolutions, Arabian Peninsula, Human Right, Muslims, Salafi, Saudi Arabia

Saudi Counterrevolution: the Hadith Loophole, the Salafi Alibi………

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“The Saudis are afraid of the Arab spring, because they don’t want anti-Saudi forces, including such enemies as Iran and Al Qaeda, to increase their influence in the Middle East, and they believe the revolutions in the region might have just this effect. Some of the older Saudi leaders have seen this movie before. The nationalist revolutions of the 1950’s and 1960’s, inspired and galvanized by Gamel Nasser’s Egypt, nearly toppled the House of Saud. Nonetheless, today’s Saudi princes appear to recognize that something has genuinely changed in the Middle East: The younger generation of Arabs is no longer prepared to accept unaccountable, corrupt, and brutal governments. Saudi Arabia, a self-proclaimed bulwark of Islamic conservatism, where popular democracy has never been considered a legitimate form of rule, has been more aggressive in some arenas than in others. Domestically, the royal family struck quickly, adopting a ban on public demonstrations and acts of civil disobedience. The Kingdom’s traditional interpretation of Islam construes political legitimacy in terms of a ruler’s proper application of Islamic law. In return, his subjects owe him obedience within the constraints of Sharia religious law…………..”

There is a Hadith that purports to indicate that Prophet Mohammed urged Muslims to obey their “Muslim” rulers as long as they allowed and facilitated the practice of Islam, no matter how lousy the rulers are. This Hadith has been at the center of Salafi alliances with despotic Arab rulers. It has supplied the rulers with a “loophole” to get away with all kinds of corruption and injustice. It is used by absolute Arab monarchs as an alibi, with the Salafis as allies.  Of course there are other Hadiths against corruption and thievery by rulers, and against despotism, but these are ignored.
I have never believed in the veracity of that Hadith, not even as a kid. Needless to say, I still have strong doubts about its veracity. For 1400 years this particular Hadith has been just too convenient, too useful for ruling tyrants of our region.
Cheers
mhg


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Anti-Semitism, Arab Politics, Arab Revolutions, Cairo, Egypt, Iran, Libya, Middle East, Muslims, NATO, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, US Foreign Policy

The Turks are Coming: Erdogan as a Softer Gentler Ahmadinejad?…………..

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“Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Thursday fired his visit to post-revolution Tunisia with the kind of trademark warning to Israel that has earned him hero status on his “Arab Spring tour.” After a rapturous welcome in Cairo confirmed the Turkish strongman’s soaring regional popularity, Erdogan came to Tunisia where the wave of pro-democracy revolts sweeping the Arab world all began. He said that Israel could not do whatever it wanted in the eastern Mediterranean and that Turkish warships could be there at any moment. “Israel cannot do whatever it wants in the eastern Mediterranean. They will see what our decisions will be on this subject. Our navy attack ships can be there at any moment,” Erdogan told a news conference shortly after arriving in Tunis………“Relations with Israel cannot normalize if Israel does not apologize over the flotilla raid, compensate the martyrs’ families and lift the blockade of Gaza,” Erdogan said. Ankara said it was prepared to escort any future Gaza-bound ship with naval ships……..”

Interesting how the popularity of the non-Arab neighbor leaders soars with the tempo of their anti-Israeli rhetoric. Long ago, there were the Soviets, (although it is hard imagining anyone, even Arabs, getting excited about an old fart like Brezhnev or the dour Kosygin). Then along came Ahmadinejad who went beyond his Iranian predecessors and adopted the old Arab and anti-Semitic theme of Holocaust-baiting. He became wildly popular on the Arab street until the vast semi-official Saudi media, which dominates Arab airwaves and owns most Arab TV screens, started working on him and on their favorite theme of sectarian divisiveness. Ahmadinejad’s other problem is that he represents a theocratic system of governance that most Arabs, be they Sunni or Shi’a or Episcopalian, reject (just as most Arabs reject a system of absolute tribal repressive monarchy). Few Arabs, and probably few Iranians, like the idea of supreme clerical rule.
So now there is a persistent vacuum of leadership in the Arab world, the type of vacuum Ahmadinejad himself had talked about in the past. The Al Saud have tried to fill that vacuum of leadership, to inherit the old regional mantle of Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt that nobody could claim. The Saudis have failed even more than the Iranian mullahs, and for the same reason: they both represent regressive regimes, anomalies in this day and age. Iran is a repressive theocracy with quasi-democratic elements; Saudi Arabia is an even more repressive absolute one family dynasty where they pretend that the Quran is their ‘constitution’ while in fact it is the whims and greed of the ruling family that is the ‘constitution’.
Into the vacuum steps Turkey, newly reinvigorated both politically and economically. The Turks have long thought that they belonged in Europe; that their prosperity depended on being part of Europe. Events since the establishment of the Euro Zone indicate that the Turks can do fine without Europe, tyvm. Besides, the agnostic Europeans have a hard time shedding their ethnocentric ‘religious’ and racist prejudices and all the fears of the Siege of Vienna.
Having been rejected by Europe, the Turks have rediscovered their old domain, the Arab World, now the “sick man of the world”. They have also discovered that certain tweaks of their relationship with Israel can be wildly popular on the Arab street, if not in Arab palaces. The Turks are mindful of the growing new rivalry with their old Iranian rivals for places like Iraq and Syria (and possibly the Gulf). The Turks have an even better card: they have a democratic system of government that only two Arab states come even near to matching. And they know when to raise the rhetoric against Israel and when to tone it down, with the help of the Israeli right wing.
Then there is NATO………..
Cheers
mhg
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