Tag: religion

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Conversion Issues

A few days ago, Human Rights Watch and the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights published a report entitled “Prohibited Identities� about the discrimination of the Egyptian governments against those who either wish to identify as something other than the three “revealed� religions (Islam, Christianity, and Judaism) or those who wish to change their religion from Islam to something else. Although freedom of worship is clearly enshrined in Egyptian law, and conversion is nowhere forbidden, Bahai’s who have tried to register their religion, or Christians who converted to Islam and then decided they wanted to convert back to their original religion, have been flatly denied the right to do so by government officials (they’ve also been threatened and bribed). Some of these people have chosen to live without a national identity number and card, rather than file false information about their religious beliefs—but the lack of this national identity number means they are often barred form education, work, social services, etc. There are hundreds of cases in the Egyptian courts right now in which these people are trying to obtain the right to write whatever they want in their own records.  

I’ve been covering this issue for some time. You can see part of the results in a piece I filed recently for The World. Since that piece aired, there have been several new developments. Yesterday the case of Mohammed Hegazy—the first Muslim-born Egyptian citizen to go to court to try to officially change his religion to Christianity—was allowed to proceed. The next court session will be in January. Also, on November 17th a verdict will be handed down in the case of 12 former Christians sueing for the right to convert back officially to their religion. This case is expected to have wide repercussions on all similar cases (and the petitioners are optimistic about their chances of winning).

  I recommend reading the excellent HRW/EIPR report, but I just wanted to add a few remarks. One is that the discrimination against would-be converts and Bahai’s (and those who would just like to leave the religion line blank or saying “other�) may in part simply stem from the biases of Muslim government employees—but it is so widely and adamantly enforced that I can’t but assume it’s an actual policy, formulated and promulgated along internal channels, although I can’t quite understand to what ends. 

The other thing I’d like to get off my chest is my disappointment with Grand Mufti Ali Gomaa’s back-pedaling on this issue. In the summer, the Mufti had staked out a sensible position: conversion from Islam is a sin that will be punished in the afterlife, but not a crime that should be punished by the state. Apparently such subtlety is out the window these days. I saw the mufti on “Al Beit Beitakâ€� recently, and he’s back to saying that conversion from Islam cannot be countenanced (it also seemed to me that he was misrepresting Egyptian law and furiously spinning the meaning of personal freedom). Poor guy, he’s been issuing so many embarrassing fatwas lately he’s had to cry his way out of the mess. Unfortunately it doesn’t look like there will be any helpful religious leadership on the conversion issue, which threatens to get ever more “sensitive.â€�

Links for 11/11/07

For a lazy Sunday:

Christopher Hitchens, hammer of Islamism, rationalist supernova, has just had a “back, sack and crack wax”. Here he is in December’s Vanity Fair, pudgy hands clasped in unlikely prayer pose, while a cadre of beauticians yank swatches of what seems to be shag-pile from the nethermost Pelt of the Hitch. Antiwar types might relish his agonised depilation diary — “like being tortured for information that you do not possess, with intervals for a (incidentally very costly) sandpaper handjob” — and wonder if it might afford him some deeper insight into activities inside Guantanamo.

Yet, strangely, in submitting to this ritual for a feature on self-improvement to celebrate his recently acquired US citizenship (he also traded fag-stained British hat-pegs for twinkly Hollywood gnashers) Hitchens has stepped into a rare place where Islam and Western consumerism concurs. For both agree that body hair, in its lush, natural form, is gross and repellent, a problem that must be eradicated at all costs.

Fatwa used to protect police?

A rather convenient fatwa:

CAIRO, Nov 8 (Reuters) – Egypt’s highest authority on Islamic law said on Thursday that drivers cannot be blamed for killing people who stand in front of their vehicles, just days after a police van ran over a woman who tried to stop it.

Dar al-Iftaa, the government agency which issues around 1,000 fatwas a day, denies its rulings are influenced by politics but opponents said the statement could have been issued to defuse criticism of the government linked to Sunday’s death.

Human rights groups say that in northeast Cairo on Sunday a police minibus ran over Reda Shehata when the driver tried to dislodge her from the front of the vehicle.

She was clinging to the minibus to plead for the release of her sister-in-law, who had just been detained, they said. Police officials said the woman threw herself in front of the vehicle.

“Murder resulting from the intention of the murdered to commit suicide (by) standing in front of cars so that the driver cannot avoid him is not manslaughter,” Dar al-Iftaa said in a statement sent to Reuters.

The statement appeared to be a summary of a fatwa issued in response to a question posed in June and posted on the organisation’s Web site www.dar-alifta.org, but it was not clear why the organisation had chosen only to publicise it now.

Two officials at the office of the Grand Mufti could not say whether the statement was linked to Sunday’s incident, which drew criticism of the Interior Ministry from rights groups.

Science and the Islamic world

Science and the Islamic world, an essay by a Pakistani scientist on the decline of science in the Islamic world in my favorite magazine (not really), Physics Today:

In the Islamic world, opposition to science in the public arena takes additional forms. Antiscience materials have an immense presence on the internet, with thousands of elaborately designed Islamic websites, some with view counters running into the hundreds of thousands. A typical and frequently visited one has the following banner: “Recently discovered astounding scientific facts, accurately described in the Muslim Holy Book and by the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) 14 centuries ago.” Here one will find that everything from quantum mechanics to black holes and genes was anticipated 1400 years ago.

Science, in the view of fundamentalists, is principally seen as valuable for establishing yet more proofs of God, proving the truth of Islam and the Qur’an, and showing that modern science would have been impossible but for Muslim discoveries. Antiquity alone seems to matter. One gets the impression that history’s clock broke down somewhere during the 14th century and that plans for repair are, at best, vague. In that all-too-prevalent view, science is not about critical thought and awareness, creative uncertainties, or ceaseless explorations. Missing are websites or discussion groups dealing with the philosophical implications from the Islamic point of view of the theory of relativity, quantum mechanics, chaos theory, superstrings, stem cells, and other contemporary science issues.

Similarly, in the mass media of Muslim countries, discussions on “Islam and science” are common and welcomed only to the extent that belief in the status quo is reaffirmed rather than challenged. When the 2005 earthquake struck Pakistan, killing more than 90 000 people, no major scientist in the country publicly challenged the belief, freely propagated through the mass media, that the quake was God’s punishment for sinful behavior. Mullahs ridiculed the notion that science could provide an explanation; they incited their followers into smashing television sets, which had provoked Allah’s anger and hence the earthquake. As several class discussions showed, an overwhelming majority of my university’s science students accepted various divine-wrath explanations.

al-Hodaiby answers Tahawy

Muslim Brother Ibrahim al-Houdaiby has responded to Mona al-Tahawy’s critical column in the Forward on the group. In this pieces he distances himself from Supreme Guide Mahdi Akef’s remark that she appeared “naked” because she was unveiled — not the first time I hear Ibrahim condemn al-Houdaiby in favor of the person many see as the MB’s real strongman, Khairat al-Shater. He also makes the argument that while the MB has not been successful at convincing the world (more importantly, I wold add many Egyptians) of its commitment to democracy, it is serious about establishing a dialogue with other political currents.

The Muslim Brotherhood Will Stand Up for All Egyptians:

Reading Mona Eltahawy’s September 21 opinion article, I felt more than ever that all Egyptians — regardless of their ideological orientation, gender or age — have a lot in common (“I Will Stand Up for the Muslim Brotherhood”). Eltahawy and I differ on much, yet we share a common objective and we struggle for the same cause of bringing real democracy, justice and freedom to Egypt.

Eltahawy is critical of the Muslim Brotherhood’s political orientation and stances on a number of issues, yet she stands with us in solidarity against the Egyptian government’s crackdowns. It is important that Egyptians of different political views defend each others’ political rights, as Eltahawy has done — and as several Muslim Brotherhood members, myself included, have previously done on behalf of opposition leaders Ayman Nour and Talaat El Sadaat and bloggers Kareem Amer and Sandmonkey.

Nor is that the only point on which we agree.

In her opinion article, Eltahawy criticizes the Muslim Brotherhood’s leader, Mohammed Mahdi Akef, for calling her “naked” because she was wearing a short-sleeved T-shirt and pants. I could not agree more with her.

Not wearing the hijab, or headscarf, makes a woman unveiled, not naked. I realize how offensive it is to call someone “naked” for not wearing a headscarf, and I find Akef’s comment unjustifiable.

[…]

I agree with Eltahawy when she writes that the Muslim Brotherhood is “the last man standing in Egypt.” I sincerely believe this puts an additional responsibility on the group, as it must shoulder the burden of helping others to stand.

As declared several times by leaders including Deputy Chairman Khayrat El Shatir (who is currently being tried by a military tribunal), the Muslim Brotherhood realizes that no single party or group will be able to solve Egypt’s economic, political and social problems. It is for this specific reason that Muslim Brotherhood members need to hear constructive criticism and advice from their political rivals, so we can all help each other move forward in pushing for genuine reform in Egypt.

Frankly, I find that neither Tahawy nor al-Hudaiby make a particular convincing case, and I find it odd that they are having this argument in America’s premier Yiddish community magazine.

Space Muslim

Malaysian Islamic body rules on how to pray, wash and die in space:

“Conditions at the International Space Station which are so different from those on earth are not a hindrance for the astronaut to fulfil his obligations as a Muslim,” it said in a 20-page booklet.

“In difficult conditions, Islam has conveniences to ensure that religious worship can still be performed.”

Because the space station circles the Earth 16 times a day, theoretically a Muslim would have to pray 80 times a day while staying there.

But the guidelines stipulate that the astronaut need only pray five times a day, just as on Earth, and that the times should follow the location where the spacecraft blasted off from — in this case, Baikonur in Russia.

In the unlikely event the Muslim astronaut dies in space, the religious directives said his body should be brought back to Earth for the usual burial rituals. If that’s not possible, he should be “interred” in Space after a brief ceremony, though the guidelines failed to explain how that should be done.

The booklet covers Islamic washing rituals required before prayer, saying that if water is not available the astronaut can symbolically “sweep holy dust” onto the face and hands “even if there is no dust” in the space station.

There are also suggestions on how to pray in a zero-gravity environment.

“During the prayer ritual, if you can’t stand up straight, you can hunch. If you can’t stand, you can sit. If you can’t sit, you should lie down,” according to the booklet.

Muslims are required to eat food that is halal, which rules out pork and its by-products, alcohol and animals not slaughtered according to Koranic procedures are forbidden — but again in Space there is flexibility.

“If it is doubtful that the food has been prepared in the halal manner, you should eat just enough to ward off hunger,” the booklet said.

I wonder how these rules will evolve if there is, say, settlement on another planet or a permanent moon base. I haven’t seen this explored in science-fiction, even when there are Muslim characters. What if a planet has several moons — how would Jews and Muslims decide on calendars?

IPS on role of clerics in Iraq

Clerics Begin to Take Over:

“Our country has turned from a secular into a purely religious country,” Munthir Sulayman, social reform activist in Baghdad told IPS. “We were dreaming of a huge development in social affairs to become more modern and free, where individuals can play their natural role in developing the country through participation in politics, economy and all aspects of life. What has happened is the opposite, and the country has become completely under control of clerics.”

Who will rid us of these turbulent priests? (No, not you General David “The Second Coming” Petraeus.)

Appeal court fines prominent poet for insulting religious extremist

IFEX : Appeal court fines prominent poet for insulting religious extremist:

The Southern Cairo court stipulated 8 August 2007 as the date for selling Hegazi’s home furniture in order to put into effect the court ruling, after Hegazi refused to pay the money, preferring his home furniture be sold.

This ruling, in an insult lawsuit brought forward by al Badri in 2003, is the latest in a series of lawsuits by al Badri against various writers, thinker and poets, sometimes in the form of a “hesba” (insult to God) case, and on other occasions as an insult case.

Nasr Hamid Abu Zaid was among the victims of sheikh al Badri in the famous case of 1993-1994, which resulted in a court ruling divorcing Abu Zaid from his wife. While Abu Zaid immigrated to the Netherlands after the court ruling, writers and thinkers continue to be brought before the court; many of those cases are raised by the sheikh. Other cases brought by the sheikh against other writers, thinkers and poets are still in court.

I mentioned this case a few days ago but thought it was worth repeating. If any reader hears of what happened today please leave a comment.