The website of a top Saudi cleric who issued an edict calling for those who support co-educational environments to be put to death has been shut down on Sunday.

Shaikh Abdul-Rahman al-Barrak’s website was shut down following a barrage of criticism from religious scholars in Saudi Arabia and Egypt condemning his fatwa (religious ruling) as a call for violence.

Many religious scholars in Saudi Arabia denounced Barrak’s ruling, saying it was similar to rulings once issued by religious fundamentalists, or Takfiris, accusing other Muslims of apostasy and condemning them to death.

The important thing here is not that he said it, but the response that it got.

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A candidate for a radical French anti-capitalist party in the forthcoming regional elections wears a headscarf as a token of her Islamic faith, something that has raised eyebrows in this rigidly secular society.

All the more so because the NPA (New Anti-capitalist Party), led by Trotskyist postman Olivier Besancenot, is a party that generates headlines for its extreme left wing position on issues including militant secularism.

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The ulema of Maulvi Mumtaz’s time ignored it, but its revolutionary thoughts are now warming the hearts of reformists in the community. “Quoting the Quran and Hadith, both Prophet Muhammad’s traditions, the maulvi convincingly explodes the myth of male supremacy and argues that the Quran is just to both sexes,” says Islamic reformist Asgar Ali Engineer who published Huququn Niswan (Rights of Women) a few months ago after he got a photocopy from a US library with an American scholar’s help.

There are plans to publish the book in English, Hindi and Urdu.

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Her point: Mainstream/moderate American Muslims deserve the suspicion of our fellow Americans for having allowed this thing to grow among us that resulted in the violence at Fort Hood and other recent expressions of extremism, for shrinking back from mosque boards and private school committees when those of the puritanical strain among us take them over, for allowing ourselves to be put on the spot at mosque functions and social events instead of turning it around and not putting them on the spot.

Agree or disagree?

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A new batch of Saudi female firefighters graduated from a civil protection course on Monday, bringing the total number of Saudi women trained in fire suppression to over 500.
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Training women in firefighting is new to the kingdom.

Wajeha Al-Huwaidar, a Saudi women’s rights activist, said the trend was a change from previous attempts to keep women out of the public eye.

“It’s great,” she told The Media Line. “Don’t forget that women in this society are treated as irresponsible people. They always have to have a man to do things for them, so many thought this was only a show. Very few welcomed the idea.”

Response inside Saudi Arabia continues to be mixed.

Several people commented on their uniforms, with some complaining that they were not Islamic. One reader wrote that such courses should be obligatory in all universities and colleges, while another said that calling these graduates firefighters was “an insult to real male firemen.”

The story does not say it, but there is no doubt the genesis of the program was the 2002 fire at a Mecca girls school where 14 died and 50 were injured when Muttawa forced the students back into the burning building because they were improperly covered. They also wouldn’t allow firefighters to physically assist the girls for fear of sexual enticement.

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Kadyrov, 33, was once a separatist but switched sides, recasting himself as an Islamic leader who is also loyal to Moscow.

At first, his injection of national pride along with lots of money from the central government in Moscow soothed war-weary Chechens.

And at first, the process of Islamization was voluntary. Any female student who wore a headscarf initially earned a prize of $1,000. Now all females, regardless of their religious convictions, must cover their heads in schools and government offices.

Kadyrov has banned the sale of European-style wedding dresses in the republic’s bridal salons. Polygamy is increasing. Members of the team around Kadyrov openly have several wives. Kadyrov has also supported honor killings.

Lipkhan Bazaeva, who runs a nongovernmental organization promoting women’s rights, says Chechnya is going back to the Middle Ages.

“Yes, we are a traditional, conservative society, with our own values, but the government has gone overboard, declaring unacceptable limits on women — that they should sit at home, they should obey their husbands,” she says. “As an individual, she has no rights even if her husband beats her, despite Russian laws to the contrary.”

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Juan Cole identifies those responsible:

Muslim extremists in Darra Adam Khel appear to have planned and carried out the attack, done by remote-controlled car bomb. They had threatened the markets with retribution if they did not forbid women to shop there. Pakistani extremists often preach ‘char divari’ or the immuring of women– keeping them within the four walls of their homes and forbidding them to go out at all. This idea, typical of Taliban sorts of thinking, is not Islamic and is contradicted by what we know of early Muslim history, in which women played an active and public role.

In any case, the extremists then bombed the area around these markets, since Kochi is a women’s market. At least 70 of the victims were women and children.

Darra Adam Khel is an Afridi Pashtun village in the North-West Frontier Province between Peshawar and the Federally Administered Tribal Area of Kohat (which itself witnessed a big bombing last week).

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In one of Shi’ite Islam’s holiest cities, a bank has opened a branch only for women, hoping to tap a potentially large market and meet pent-up demand from Muslim women for financial services that meet their needs.

The manager of the Najaf branch of the private Babel bank is, however, a man. He must make an appointment before making a visit and enter the premises through a back door.

“Through this bank they (women customers) can unveil and exercise complete freedom in dealing with the employees,” said Mazen Abdul-Razzaq, Babel’s deputy director.

A study by The Boston Consulting Group, which included Iraq, found that women worldwide were particularly dissatisfied when it came to financial services.

Iraqi women interviewed at the women-only bank in Najaf say they felt uncomfortable dealing with male bank clerks in regular banks and felt much more relaxed in the new branch.

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The Muslim women’s group RAHAMA and Assistant U. S. Attorney Richard Maigret have been selected to receive The Buffalo News Founders and Susan Still awards, presented by the Family Justice Center of Erie County.
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Carrie Irish, president of the Family Justice Center’s board of directors, said RAHAMA, which is also an Arabic word for “mercy,” is being recognized for giving Muslim women “a place to turn for hope and guidance when they need it most.”

RAHAMA, active since July 2006, spreads awareness about the problems of domestic violence and provides education on the rights of Muslim women. It works with social service and law enforcement agencies that deal with domestic violence to ensure that culturally appropriate support — emotionally and spiritually — is provided to Muslim domestic abuse victims.

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